HOT CORNER

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What: “1951: When Giants Played the Game”

Author: Kerry Keene

Publisher: Sports Publishing L.L.C.

Price: $16.95

If you’re a Dodger fan, maybe you’ve read enough about the home run Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants hit 50 years ago, on Oct. 3, 1951. It came against the Brooklyn Dodgers, knocking them out of the World Series.

But if you’re a baseball fan who just can’t get enough of its history, this 220-page softcover book may be for you.

It would be pretty difficult to write an entire book about one home run, even one as significant and legendary as Thomson’s. So the author spends a lot of time setting the stage, looking at baseball as a whole in 1951, as well as society in general.

As baseball celebrates significant milestones this season--the 100th anniversary of the American League and the 125th anniversary of the National League--this book reflects on a past when the top price for a baseball ticket was $3 and a bleacher seat cost 50 cents.

The author takes the reader through the 1951 season and looks at some of the events that occurred that year. Commissioner Happy Chandler was ousted from office, maverick owner Bill Veeck was bringing his entertaining antics back into the game as the new owner of the St. Louis Browns, and Bob Feller and Allie Reynolds were pitching no-hitters.

But the biggest event of that season, one of the biggest events of any season, was Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”