Donald Newcombe, nicknamed "Newk", was an American professional baseball pitcher who played ten non-consecutive seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). He began his career in the Negro National League and ended it in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).
Robert Brown Thomson was a Scottish-born American professional baseball player, nicknamed "the Staten Island Scot". He was an outfielder and right-handed batter for the New York Giants, Milwaukee Braves (1954–57), Chicago Cubs (1958–59), Boston Red Sox (1960), and Baltimore Orioles (1960). His pennant-winning three-run home run for the Giants in 1951 is popularly known as the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", and is one of the most famous moments in baseball history. It overshadowed his other accomplishments, including eight 20-home-run seasons and three All-Star selections. "It was the best thing that ever happened to me", he said. "It may have been the best thing that ever happened to anybody."
Russell Pleasant Hodges was an American sportscaster who did play-by-play for several baseball teams, most notably the New York Giants / San Francisco Giants. He is perhaps best remembered for his call of Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World"—The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!
Charles Walter Dressen was an American third baseman, manager and coach in professional baseball during a career lasting almost fifty years. He is best known as the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1951 to 1953, where he won two National League pennants. Indeed, Dressen's "schooling" of a young baseball writer is one of the most colorful themes in Roger Kahn's classic 1972 memoir, The Boys of Summer. He threw and batted right-handed and was listed at 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m) tall and 145 pounds (66 kg) during his days as an active player.
Carl Daniel Erskine, nicknamed "Oisk", is an American former baseball pitcher in Major League Baseball who played his entire career for the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers from 1948 through 1959. He was a pitching mainstay on Dodger teams which won five National League pennants and the 1955 World Series.
Ralph Theodore Joseph Branca, nicknamed "Hawk", was an American professional baseball pitcher who played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from 1944 through 1956. Branca played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Detroit Tigers (1953–1954), and New York Yankees (1954). He was a three-time All-Star. In a 1951 playoff, Branca surrendered a walk-off home run to Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants; the game-winning hit was known as the "Shot Heard 'Round the World".
In baseball, the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" was a walk-off home run hit by New York Giants outfielder and third baseman Bobby Thomson off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca at the Polo Grounds in New York City on October 3, 1951, to win the National League (NL) pennant. Thomson's dramatic three-run homer came in the ninth inning of the decisive third game of a three-game playoff for the pennant in which the Giants trailed 4–1 entering the ninth and 4–2 with two runners on base at the time of Thomson's at-bat.
Wesley Noreen Westrum was an American professional baseball player, coach, manager, and scout. He played for 11 seasons as a catcher in Major League Baseball for the New York Giants from 1947 to 1957 and was known as a superb defensive catcher. He served as the second manager in the history of the New York Mets, replacing Casey Stengel in 1965 after the latter fractured his hip and was forced to retire.
Carroll Walter"Whitey"Lockman was an American left-handed hitting first baseman and outfielder, coach, manager and front office executive in Major League Baseball.
The following are the baseball events of the year 1951 throughout the world.
Herman Louis Franks was an American catcher, coach, manager, general manager and scout in Major League Baseball. He was born in Price, Utah, to Italian-American immigrant parents and attended the University of Utah.
Charles Stoneham "Chub" Feeney was an American front office executive in Major League Baseball. Feeney was vice president of the New York/San Francisco Giants, president of the National League (NL), and president of the San Diego Padres during a 40-plus year career in professional baseball. He narrowly missed being elected Commissioner of Baseball in 1969.
Joshua Harris Prager is an American journalist and author.
Henry Leonard Schenz was an American professional baseball player whose career lasted 14 seasons, including all or parts of six years in Major League Baseball as a member of the Chicago Cubs (1946–1949), Pittsburgh Pirates (1950–1951) and New York Giants (1951). An infielder, Schenz primarily played second base and was known for his competitive nature and prowess as a bench jockey. The native of New Richmond, Ohio, threw and batted right-handed. He stood 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m) tall and weighed 175 pounds (79 kg).
The 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers led the National League for much of the season, holding a 13-game lead as late as August. However, a late season swoon and a hot streak by the New York Giants led to a classic three-game playoff series. Bobby Thomson's dramatic ninth-inning home run off Dodger reliever Ralph Branca in the final game of a tie-breaker series won the pennant for the Giants and was immortalized as the Shot Heard 'Round the World.
Stephen Neal Lembo was an American catcher in Major League Baseball. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he played seven games for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1950 and 1952 baseball seasons. He was also with the Dodgers late in the 1951 season, and though he did not appear in any games, he was a bullpen catcher warming up Carl Erskine and Ralph Branca in the deciding National League playoff game against the New York Giants that was ended by Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World".
The 1951 New York Giants season was the franchise's 69th season and saw the Giants finish the regular season in a tie for first place in the National League with a record of 96 wins and 58 losses. This prompted a best-of-three National League tiebreaker against the Brooklyn Dodgers, which the Giants won in three games, clinched by Bobby Thomson's walk-off home run, a moment immortalized as the Shot Heard 'Round the World. The Giants, however, lost the World Series to the New York Yankees in six games.
The 1951 Major League Baseball season opened on April 16 and finished on October 12, 1951. Teams from both leagues played a 154-game regular season schedule. At the end of the regular season, the National League pennant was still undecided, resulting in a three-game playoff between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. After splitting the first two games, the stage was set for a decisive third game, won in dramatic fashion on a walk-off home run from the bat of Giant Bobby Thomson, one of the most famous moments in the history of baseball, commemorated as the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" and "The Miracle at Coogan's Bluff". The Giants lost the World Series to defending champion New York Yankees, who were in the midst of a 5-year World Series winning streak.
The New York Giants were a Major League Baseball team in the National League that began play in the 1883 season as the New York Gothams and became known as the Giants in 1885. They continued as the New York Giants until the team moved to San Francisco, California after the 1957 season, where the team continues its history as the San Francisco Giants. The team moved west at the same time as its longtime rival, the Brooklyn Dodgers, also in the National League, moved to Los Angeles in southern California as the Los Angeles Dodgers, continuing the National League, same-state rivalry.
The 1951 National League tie-breaker series was a best-of-three playoff series that extended Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1951 regular season to decide the winner of the National League (NL) pennant. The games were played on October 1, 2, and 3, 1951, between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. It was necessary after both teams finished the season with identical win–loss records of 96–58. It is most famous for the walk-off home run hit by Bobby Thomson of the Giants in the deciding game, which has come to be known as baseball's "Shot Heard 'Round the World".
