Fondly remembered, lovingly written. Be sure to check it out:
We were listening to the game on the radio. Nearly everyone was rooting for the Giants. But things looked beyond bleak when Thomson came to bat in the bottom of the ninth in the third and deciding game of a playoff series to determine who would win the National League pennant. There was one out and two runners were on base, and the archrival Dodgers were ahead, 4-2.
When Thomson hit the home run to suddenly and shockingly end both the game and the series, an astonishing celebration erupted in the back of the shop. My father hugged my mother, and they were jumping up and down. Then he picked me up and asked if I realized what had just happened. I didn’t, really — but according to family lore I started yelling, “We won! We won!”
My dad clipped all the newspaper accounts of Thomson’s feat and kept them for many years. I don’t know how many times we read them together when I was in first and second grade, and of course we had no idea that I would end up writing for three of the papers.
That magical moment of pure, unadulterated joy was the beginning of my love for the game of baseball.
Sure, it was a Polo Grounds cheapie, a liner to left — in Boston it would have hit the Monster for a single. But so what? One of the great moments in sports history, New York City history — hell, history itself.