This Shot’s Heard ‘Round Southland

Ralph Branca reared back and delivered, Bobby Thomson swung mightily and, well, you know the rest.

The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!

Nearly half a century has passed since “the shot heard ‘round the world,” Thomson’s ninth-inning, three-run home run off Branca at New York’s Polo Grounds that gave the Giants a stunning playoff-series victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers for the 1951 pennant.

Yet, somehow, it seems like only yesterday.

Branca and Thomson did their part to rekindle memories Saturday, reuniting for a replay of the epic scene that forever links them in baseball lore.

The place? The Polo Grounds, of course. At least, it looked like the Polo Grounds.

Again Branca delivered, again Thomson swung. Again the crowd roared and Thomson was carried from the field.

“I shoulda knocked him down,” Branca bellowed, triggering laughs.

The schtick was all part of an appearance by Branca and Thomson to celebrate the opening of Big League Dreams Sports Park in Mira Loma, a youth baseball and softball complex featuring scaled-down replicas of famous ballparks.

The complex also includes Fenway Park in Boston and Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The company opened a similar facility in Cathedral City in 1998.

Branca, 74, and Thomson, 76, have made countless appearances together at ballparks, charity events and golf tournaments. They even were featured guests at the Polo Grounds before it was demolished in 1964.

They expect to continue making joint appearances as long as people are willing to reminisce.

“I guess we are kinda married to each other,” Thomson said. “That’s what it amounts to. We used to do it when we were both young enough to put on the baseball suits and run the bases.”

Said Branca: “We get asked to talk about it a lot. How much, I don’t know. Probably not as much as five times a year.

“Sometimes we see each other twice a week. Sometimes we don’t see each other for a month or so. It depends.”

Questions, over the years, have not changed.

What kind of pitch did Branca throw? Fastball.

Who was in the on-deck circle when Thomson homered? Willie Mays.

Are Branca and Thomson close friends? Today, yes. Before “the shot” they barely knew each other.

“We had never had a chance to meet off the field,” Thomson said. “Back then, there was no fraternizing between the Giants and Dodgers. We didn’t like those guys and they didn’t like us.”

Branca brooded long after the defeat on Oct. 3, 1951. While Thomson was hailed as a hero, Branca was tagged a goat.

Branca conceded he “got sick of hearing” about Thomson’s home run and it remained a sore subject for more than a decade.

But the pain long ago faded.

“It doesn’t bother me at all,” Branca said. “I got over that hurt a long time ago. It’s just what happened and you can’t change it, so you live with it. It’s in the history books. And it’s a special moment in baseball history.”