Giants Fans Dance As Brooklyn Mourns
My Dad came home from work that night with his tie undone, his hair a mess and his face glowing red. As he came in the door, he waved a copy of the Times at us and shouted “Did you hear it?”
“Boy, did we!” Whitey grinned. Dad tossed the paper on the kitchen table and went over to give Mom a kiss. He gave her a big old smooch and she smiled, then frowned.
“The boss decided we weren’t going to get much done this afternoon,” Dad said, “so he closed down the office and we all went down to Crogan’s —”
“All,” Mom cut in, “except your secretary. I tried to call you about two o’clock.”
“Yeah,” Dad said. “They had it on a television, so we saw the whole thing. So, did you boys listen?”
“We sure did!” I grinned.
“What did he hit?” Whitey asked.
“I don’t know,” Dad said, “but he sure mashed it one. That ball just took off into the seats —” he snapped his finger, “just like that! Oh, I wish I could have heard Russ Hodges yelling ‘Bye-bye baby!’ on that one.”
“He didn’t say it,” Whitey said. “He just kept hollering ‘The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!’ over and over about a hundred times.”
“You’re kidding,” my Dad said.
“No, he’s not,” Mom cut in. “You should have heard that nut yelling ‘The Giants win the pennant.’ It was ridiculous.”
I considered being very disrespectful and telling my mother to shut up, because I thought the way Russ Hodges had called Bobby’s home run was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard in my life. I bit my tongue and grabbed the paper. It was an evening extra, with a huge grinning picture of Bobby Thomson hugging cheek-to-cheek with Leo Durocher. The headline hollered,
GIANTS CAPTURE PENNANT,
BEATING DODGERS 5-4
IN 9TH ON THOMSON’S
3-RUN HOMER.
Dad filled us in on what he saw on the television: “It was total bedlam. Thomson smacked it up into the seats, and by the time he came around third base, half the stadium was on the field going crazy. Bobby fought his way home and then did this big jump —” which my Dad demonstrated — “and landed with both feet on the plate, and then all the Giants lifted him up and carried him off to the clubhouse.”
“Wow,” Whitey said. “I can’t wait to see the newsreel.”
“Me, neither,” my Dad said.
“But you already saw it,” my Mom noted.
“I don’t care,” my Dad said, smiling, “I want to see it again. I want to see it a million times. There’s nothing better on the planet than beating Brooklyn, and we flat humiliated ’em this time!”
I looked up at my Dad and smiled as he grinned. Whitey was grinning, too. We were united, us Kelly men, united by blood. Blood, and our hatred of the Dodgers. We each had that utterly superior feeling, knowing that our team was victorious, and that all the jerk Brooklyn fans were out there feeling like dirt, each and every one of them. It was so great. My Mom shook her head at all three of us. She didn’t get it. She just didn’t understand how the world worked: your team won, and you were a better person because of it. It’s a very simple concept, but she never really got it.
We sat down to dinner only to be interrupted by a knock at our door. Mom went to answer and came back saying it was for Whitey. Whitey left, then came back a moment later exclaiming that a bunch of kids from the neighborhood were all riding over to Bobby Thomson’s house to see him when he came home, and could he go along?
My Mom looked apprehensively at my Dad, who was staring like a nut at Whitey.
“Can I?” Whitey asked.
My Dad swallowed and wiped his mouth.
“Let’s finish up dinner and we’ll all go,” Dad said.
“Can I go, too?” I asked.
“Sure,” Dad said, diving back into his dinner. “We’ll all go.”
“The boys have school in the morning,” Mom said. She simply could not grasp the fact that the single greatest moment in the history of our revered National Pastime had just happened, practically in our own backyard, and this was our opportunity to pay homage to the man who would go down in history for the part he played in making that moment take place.
Dad shrugged. “Let’s get done and we’ll go.”
We got done with dinner and cleared the table, and left Mom (who explained that she could think of no intelligent reason why she needed to join us) to wash the dishes while Dad, Whitey and me piled in the car and hustled over to Flagg Place. Dad knew the way. I assumed that he’d cruised by there before to check it out himself. We turned on to Flagg and could see a crowd that had already begun to gather. Dad found a place to park and we all jumped out to join the crowd.
There were maybe thirty people gathered, almost all of them guys, and most of them kids. I looked around to see if I knew anybody. One guy had painted a bed-sheet with some black paint and held it up so if anybody looked out from Bobby’s house, they could read “THOMSON SLAYS BUMS.” I noticed the big, black Lincoln wasn’t in the driveway.
We milled into the crowd. My Dad asked a guy if he knew whether Bobby was home yet. The guy said he didn’t think so. More people started coming up, little by little. A bunch of kids arrived on their bikes. One guy by us was moaning because he didn’t get to see the game, especially since he listened to Russ Hodges yelling “The Giants win the pennant!” and knew he’d missed seeing the greatest moment in baseball history.
“Hey,” my Dad said to the guy, “I saw it, and it was tremendous, but I’d trade seeing it just to have heard Hodges making the call.”
A couple of guys laughed in agreement. “I guess so,” the first guy said, “but I already told my wife that I’m going out and buying a television set and an antenna tomorrow. I ain’t going to miss anything else ever again.”
“I know what you’re saying,” another guy said.
“I’m glad I got mine,” this other guy said. “I’m calling in sick tomorrow so I can watch the World Series!”
The guys around us who were listening laughed, but when they got done laughing I could tell a couple of them were maybe a little envious of the televison guy, and were maybe thinking about getting one themselves.
And then even more people arrived, and pretty soon there were about a hundred or so people crowding in front of Bobby’s house. I noticed as it grew dark that a couple of cops had shown up, and they started moving the people back off Bobby’s lawn. One of the cops went to the front door and knocked, and a nice-looking older lady came out.
“I think that’s Bobby’s mother,” somebody said.
The cop talked to her for a few minutes. Somebody yelled out, “Congratulations, Mrs. Thomson!” and she smiled and waved, and everybody applauded politely. She talked with the cop for a few more minutes and then closed the door. The cop walked back toward the crowd and held up his hands.
“Folks, can I get your attention,” he hollered. “You’ll have to stay back off of the lawn here. We can’t block the street if people need to get through.”
“Where’s Bobby?” someone yelled.
“He’s not here,” the cop said. “He may not be home for a few hours.”
There was a groan from the crowd.
“It’s best if you all head back home,” the cop continued. “There’s really nothing for anybody to see here tonight.”
A couple of people approached the cop and talked to him. The rest of the crowd started looking around to see what everyone else was going to do. Some of the kids started taking off on their bikes. Guys started heading for their cars, while others began walking away down the street.
“Well, fellows,” my Dad said, “I guess we might as well go home.”
I frowned. I wanted to see Bobby.
“Can we wait a little longer, Dad?” Whitey asked.
“I don’t know if it’ll do any good,” Dad said.
“Just for a little bit?”
My Dad looked around and sighed. He was trying to assess how many others were staying.
“We’ll give it a few minutes,” he finally said, checking his watch.
In ten minutes, there were about twenty people left in front of the house, including my Dad, Whitey and me. One of the cops walked by us and my Dad called out to him.
“Excuse me, Officer?” he said.
“Yes, sir?”
“Did Mrs. Thomson say if there’s any chance he’d be home early?” my Dad said. “We just wanted to pay him our respects.”
The cop came up closer to us and stopped.
“No,” he said. “She says he probably went out with a bunch of the guys from the team and won’t be home until pretty late, maybe after midnight. He might even be on a TV show.”
Whitey and I were staring up at the cop.
“Hi, fellows,” he said to us. We said “hi” back. I never really got to see a cop up close before.
“That was really something today, wasn’t it?” the cop said to my Dad.
“Unbelievable,” Dad replied. “Did you see it?”
“No,” the cop said, “we kept trying to find some excuse to run into Sears or Bryant’s to watch it on one of their sets, but never had a chance.”
Dad told the cop that we were going to stick around for a little while. The cop said he didn’t expect Bobby to show, but that he and his partner were going to stick around, too. I wasn’t sure if he meant because it was his job, or because they wanted to see Bobby. A few minutes later, a car turned onto the block and one of the guys said, “Hey, that’s Bobby!”
I felt the speed of my heart instantly double. The car pulled up on the driveway and everybody moved toward it, cheering and applauding. The door opened and the man stepped out, and somebody yelled, “Congratulations, Bobby!” and some people cheered, but the rest kind of slowed down approaching the car. The man who got out of the car gave a quick look, shook his head like “who are you people?” and headed for the front door.
“That’s not Bobby,” a guy by us said.
“Hey Al,” another guy called to the man who got out of the car. “Where’s Bobby?”
The guy from the car looked at the people and said, “He went on Perry Como’s show and they took him out on the town.”
“Is he coming home soon?” somebody said to this Al guy.
“I don’t know,” Al said. “I don’t think so.”
We watched Al walk up to the front door and knock, and Bobby’s mom opened the door and let him in.
“Is that his brother?” someone asked.
“No, that’s his neighbor,” somebody answered.
“His brother’s the fire chief,” Whitey said.
“Bobby’s brother is?” I asked.
Whitey nodded. My Dad said, “I didn’t know that.” Whitey knew all the good stuff.
“Well, fellows,” Dad said, “let’s go.”
We piled back in the car and went home. It occurred to me that tomorrow, back in school, I would have it all over Miss Bernini. Not only would my Giants be in the World Series against the Yankees, but we humiliated her Dodgers to do it. I laughed to myself at the thought of facing Miss Bernini in class. If I was her, I’d probably rather hang myself than have to face such embarrassment.
Mr. Childers waited behind Miss Bernini’s desk while we took our seats. I felt my heart starting to beat faster. Oh my God, I thought, it happened. She did it. She killed herself. Miss Bernini killed herself because the Giants won.
“Class,” Mr. Childers said, “Miss Bernini is out ill today, so you’ll have a substitute. She’ll be here shortly, so in the meantime let’s get out our reading books and read quietly to ourselves until she arrives.”
I began to breathe again. Miss Bernini was not dead, only sick.
Maybe she was sick because of the Dodgers getting beat. Maybe she didn’t want to face the world — maybe she didn’t want to face me — because she was humiliated. Maybe she was in the hospital or something. Maybe she had tried to kill herself and it didn’t work. It served her right.
When the substitute finally showed up, it was this very young woman with white-blonde hair and a long blue-gray dress. Her name was Miss Schoenfeld. She didn’t look to be much of a baseball fan, and as it turned out, she wasn’t. The day went on in the clunky way that days go when you get a substitute instead of your regular teacher. Miss Schoenfeld picked her way awkwardly through Miss Bernini’s class plan, telling us to read the wrong chapter (we corrected her), trying to explain to us some math problems we hadn’t gotten to yet (we corrected her), and letting us play kickball for a half-hour longer than we should have during recreation (no one said a word).
But when it came time for the World Series game to start that afternoon, Miss Bernini’s trusty radio was nowhere in sight. This was an awful thing; it was as if we were denying the very existence of the event itself. I didn’t know this Miss Schoenfeld from Adam, so I ditched the idea of approaching her (“Miss Schoenfeld? Hi, my name is John Kelly — row five, seat three? — and I was just wondering if we could tune in the opening game of baseball’s showcase event, the World Series?” “Sit down, John.” “Yes, ma’am.”) immediately.
This meant that, by the time Whitey and I got home that afternoon, the Giants had sewn up a 5-1 win in The Bronx over the Yanks behind Dave Koslo, who finished the regular-season with a 10-9 record and was the surprise starter in spite of the fact that he probably scared Giants’ fans as much as it would have if Durocher had started Sheldon Jones. But Koslo pitched a terrific complete game — scattering seven hits through the Yankee line-up — and was backed up by Al Dark, who poked a three-run homer, and Monte Irvin, who had four hits and stole home, the first time anyone had done that in a World Series game in two dozen years.
Monte hit safely three more times in game two, which I also missed, only this time we only got two other hits and just one run, and Eddie Lopat and the Yankees evened the series at one game each with a 3-1 victory.
Saturday was a different story. My Dad had arranged for us to go over and watch the game on television at some guy that he worked with’s house. I didn’t know these people, so I spent the day quietly looking at the shadowy little metal-gray picture on the screen, surprised at how much akin to watching moving newspaper photographs it was. The Giants won that day, 6-2 at the Polo Grounds, getting five of their runs in the fifth inning — an inning that featured Eddie Stanky kicking the ball out of Phil Rizzuto’s glove and Whitey Lockman popping another patented Giant three-run home run.
On Monday, I returned to school hoping that Miss Bernini was over her illness. I gave a sigh of relief when I saw her in the familiar spot behind her desk, but when the afternoon rolled around and we kept right on reading, writing and arithmeticking, I knew the old girl was in denial completely. She was ignoring the fact that the Giants had made it past her stinking Dodgers and were in the World Series. It was as if the baseball season had ended for her when the Dodgers lost to us, which was just fine for her; but for the rest of us, we still had a few games to play.Up until then I hadn’t realized it, but there was a guy in The Bronx playing for the Yankees named Joe DiMaggio. In retrospect, I kick myself constantly for not having given myself the chance to appreciate him when I had a chance to see him play when I was a kid, but we never talked about the Yankees in my family (speaking of being in denial), so we never talked about DiMaggio. As it turned out the 1951 World Series was the grand finale of his major-league career.
In game four (which I missed, of course, because I was in school), Joe D. — who was hitless in the first three games — had a pair of hits, one of which was a two-run home run that paced a 6-2 Yankee win behind Allie Reynolds, making the series even at two games each.
Suddenly, after having played such a monumental part in helping the Giants win the 1951 National League pennant, I felt like an outsider. I had managed to see one game out of the four that had been played so far, and if I had been twenty years older, I would have looked at it in a more existential way: if a ball game is played and you’re not there, and you don’t see it, did the ball game really take place? I was totally detached from it now, and it was a crummy feeling. We had Larry Jansen, with his twenty-one victories during the regular season, going against Eddie Lopat in game five on Tuesday. I felt good about our chances. Whitey and I hurried home after school, raced to our room, clicked on the radio, and found the Giants immersed in a 13-1 bloodbath. I couldn’t believe it. We got our little butts kicked good and were down, three games to two.
All of the good feelings I had built up over the Summer were fading. The evenings were growing dark earlier. I hated it. My two favorite seasons were passing away, and I was powerless to stop them from leaving. On Wednesday, although I still harbored some hope for the Giants, the baseball season ended. Back at Yankee Stadium, Hank Bauer creamed a three-run triple and led the Yanks to a 4-3 win and the World Championship.
I tried not to be disappointed. Whitey and I hardly talked about it. My Dad kind of shrugged it off. People excused the Giants by saying that the playoff against Brooklyn was actually our World Series. The Yankees were the best team in baseball, they said — Hey, who could match up with DiMaggio, and Yogi Berra, and Mickey Mantle, and Rizzuto and Lopat and Reynolds and Raschi and Bauer and Woodling. The hell with all of them, my Dad said. We had Mays and Thomson and Irvin and Jansen and Maglie and Lockman and Stanky and Dark and, damn it, wait until next year.
We’d sure as hell show them, next year.