When Thomson Homered, Time Stood Still 40 Years Ago

It may have been the most famous event in baseball history, as voted by The Associated Press members in a poll some years back, but a crowd of only 34,120 showed up on a cool, threatening day at the Polo Grounds for the conclusive third game of the Giants-Dodgers playoff 40 years ago Thursday.

“Whenever somebody tells me he was there,” Ralph Branca said, “I tell him he’s the 431,000th guy to tell me he was at the game.”

It may have inspired the biggest buying spree ever for black-and-white television sets, but TV was still an expensive novelty for most people in 1951. A General Electric Black Daylite 17-inch black-and-white set was marked down that week from $379.95 to $299.95 (and remember, a teacher’s annual salary back then was about $3,000). “We used to go next door to the neighbors to watch wrestling ... until they got a TV set,” cracked a 28-year-old comedian named Jack Carter.

Yes, times have changed. But for many, the memories remain vivid.

On Oct. 3, 1951, thousands of Americans started their day with a bowl of Cheerios (two family-size boxes for 45 cents). Businessmen got dressed in suits that were sale-priced at Gimbels at $49.95 for two. Many drove to work in automobiles that cost under $2,000 brand new. (Renault advertised six models priced from $1,095 to $1,495).

If your car needed service that week, Sears featured new batteries for $7-$12 and tires as low as $14.88 apiece at five Long Island locations.

If you worked on Wall Street, the Dow Jones stock reports were mixed with game updates:

DOW JONES, 2 p.m. stock averages. 30 industrials 274.20 up 1.64 ...

Baseball, first inning, Dodgers -- one run, one hit, no errors. Reese walked ... Snider walked ... Robinson singled, Reese scoring. Score at end of first -- Dodgers 1, Giants 0. CONTINUING WITH STOCK AVERAGES ...

From every radio came the voices of Russ Hodges on WMCA, the Giants’ station, or Red Barber on WMGM, the Dodgers’ station.

If you were lucky enough to be watching on TV, you saw a Chesterfield cigarette commercial, the first national sponsor of a coast-to-coast sports event in TV’s young history.

When the Dodgers broke a 1-1 tie with three runs in the top of the eighth, the streets of Brooklyn were alive with merriment. Bring on the Yankees!

When the Giants staged their improbable, incredible and ultimately inspirational rally in the ninth inning, time stood still for Dodgers fans.

Author Peter Golenbock’s book “Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers,” offers these tales from devastated Dodger fans:

“God forgive me for talking like this, but I’ve always tried to block this whole day from my memory,” said one. “... It took years off my life. I didn’t recover until the spring of ‘52, when the Dodgers started to play ball again.”

Moaned another, “I stayed in my room for three weeks. I couldn’t face anybody. I couldn’t believe they had lost.”

A third revealed, “Every time I hear Russ Hodges scream, ‘The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!’ I go crazy inside. ... It’s like I’m back there and I’m 21, and my world has been destroyed once more.”

For those who didn’t take baseball as seriously in 1951, there were other diversions. On New York TV that night, there was “The Perry Como Show” (a last-minute guest: Bobby Thomson). The next night marked the season premiere of “Groucho Marx: You Bet Your Life” at 8 p.m. on Channel 4. (Was the secret word that night “miracle?”) Channel 2 offered “Amos ‘n’ Andy.”

At Radio City Music Hall, “An American in Paris” opened that week, starring Gene Kelly and introducing Leslie Caron. At the Paramount, John Wayne and Robert Ryan starred in “Flying Leathernecks,” while over at the Warner Theater, Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando starred in “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

On Broadway, Mae West (“a triumph of sex over sense”) starred in “Diamond Lil” while other theaters featured live productions of “A Tree Gvows in Brooklyn,” “South Pacific” and “The King and I.”

Dinner before the show? Steaks with all the fixings at the Red Coach Grill on 58th Street just off Fifth Avenue cost $3.75.

But back to baseball.

Moments after Thomson’s homer, telephone usage was so high from 4-4:30 p.m., many businesses could not get outside lines. They blamed it on fans calling friends to talk about the game.

After all the chatter, could people want more the next day? You bet your life. A dozen or so New York newspapers were grabbed by millions of readers who didn’t have the benefit of ESPN or CNN taped highlights.

From Red Smith of the Herald Tribune:

“Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.”

From John Drebinger of the Times, writing on the front page:

“In an electrifying finish to what long will be remembered as the most thrilling pennant campaign in history, Leo Durocher and his astounding never-say-die Giants wrenched victory from the jaws of defeat at the Polo Grounds yesterday ...

From Rud Rennie of the Herald Tribune, also on Page 1: “Bobby Thomson completed the baseball miracle of miracles yesterday. With a three-run homer off Ralph Branca in the ninth inning, Thomson broke the hearts of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Brooklyn faithful ...”

From Dick Young in the Daily News: “Never again will they mention George Stallings’ ‘Miracle Braves’ of 1914 when alluding to incredible comebacks. From now on it will be Leo Durocher’s ‘Miracle Giants’ ...”

And from Art Smith, also in the News, writing on Page 3: “Ain’t no use for the sun to shine in Brooklyn anymore. ... Don’t matter if it rains or snows or the skies fall down. ... Makes no difference if the old man stays in the ginmill all night and blows the paycheck. ... Who wants to eat now, anyway? Who gives a damn?”

Could the angst of those who suffered through Bill Buckner or Mike Torrez match that of Brooklynites 40 years ago? Probably not. Said Sid Frigand of the Brooklyn Eagle some years later, “The bombing of Pearl Harbor was less of a shock to some fans.” For Dodgers fans, at least, it remains a day that lives in infamy.