It is most famous for the walk-off home run hit by Bobby Thomson of the Giants in the deciding game, which has come to be known as baseball's "Shot Heard 'Round the World".
[1] In the annual Associated Press poll, Brooklyn was projected as the favorite to win the pennant with 1,413 points, New York was second with 1,281, and Philadelphia was third with 1,176.
After a fly out by Dark, the Giants remained without a run; Hearn retired all three batters in the bottom of the third to end the inning.
Pafko reached on an error to start off the bottom of the fifth, but was caught stealing second base; Gil Hodges and Branca both struck out to end the fifth.
In the top of the eighth inning, Irvin hit the third home run of the game, his 24th of the year, to make the score 3–1.
[16] In the second inning, Gil Hodges singled and reached third base on an error, allowing the Dodgers to potentially score again.
After one out, Duke Snider walked and Robinson singled to start the third inning, and Jones was removed from pitching duties, replaced by George Spencer.
The inning ended for the Dodgers on a double play, and Don Mueller hit a single in the bottom of the fifth before the Giants recorded three straight outs.
[16] To start the seventh inning, Al Corwin replaced Bill Rigney for the Giants, who had pinch hit for Spencer.
Labine pitched a six-hit shutout, not allowing a hit in the final four innings as the series went to a deciding third game.
Sal Maglie was on the mound for New York, while Brooklyn called on Don Newcombe; both pitchers had winning records against the opposing team heading into the matchup.
[19] After Maglie walked two batters in the top of the first inning, Jackie Robinson singled, scoring Pee Wee Reese.
[20] Ironically, that potential rally in the first inning by the Giants was thwarted by a baserunning miscue by Bobby Thomson, who would later become the hero of the game.
[21] The incident prompted Gordon McLendon on the Liberty Radio Network, which broadcast the game coast-to-coast, to draw comparisons between Bobby Thomson's baserunning gaffe and the infamous Merkle Boner, which cost the Giants the pennant in 1908,[22] and baserunning antics of the allegedly inept Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1930s.
Rube Walker singled for the Dodgers, and Monte Irvin led off the bottom of the seventh with a double for the Giants.
[25] Newcombe got the Giants out in order in the bottom of the eighth, and Larry Jansen did the same in relief of Maglie in the top of the ninth.
After Monte Irvin popped out to first base, Whitey Lockman hit a double to left-center field, scoring Dark and putting Mueller on third.
[27] As Mueller went to the locker room, Dodger manager Chuck Dressen summoned game 1 starter Ralph Branca in to relieve Newcombe on only one day's rest.
[28][29] The following day, sportswriter Red Smith opened his recap of the game for the New York Herald Tribune with the following lead: "Now it is done.
[31] The Brooklyn Dodgers rebounded to win the National League pennant in 1952, but lost the 1952 World Series to the Yankees four games to three.
As a result, Hodges and Furillo led the league with 157 games played, which could not have been equaled by anyone but a Brooklyn or New York player.
[36] Mays finished the season with a .274 batting average, 22 doubles, and 20 home runs in 121 games, and won the Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award.
[37] In 2001, Journalist Joshua Prager published that the Giants secretly learned opponents' finger signals, when several players told The Wall Street Journal that beginning on July 20, 1951, the team used a telescope and buzzer wire to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers careless enough to leave their signs unprotected.
Giants catcher Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed to Thomson the stolen sign for Branca's fastball.
Branca had been aware of the rumors and was skeptical of Thomson's denial, but later told The New York Times in 2001, "I didn't want to diminish a legendary moment in baseball.
He's had a single and a double and he drove in the Giants' first run with a long fly to center... Brooklyn leads it 4–2...Hartung down the line at third not taking any chances... Lockman with not too big of a lead at second, but he'll be runnin' like the wind if Thomson hits one... Branca throws... [audible sound of bat meeting ball] There's a long drive... it's gonna be, I believe...THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!!
Bobby Thomson... hit a line drive... into the lower deck... of the left-field stands... and this blame place is goin' crazy!