The Giants manager was Leo Durocher, who had managed the Brooklyn Dodgers 1939-1946, 72 games in 1948. Then Durocher managed the Giants the final 79 games of 1948, 1949-1955. Durocher's teams won the NL pennant: 1941, 1947, 1951, 1954 and the World Series in 1954 over the Cleveland Indians. The three World Series losses were all against the New York Yankees, for whom Durocher had played.
Durocher's other 1951 coaches included Frankie Frisch and Freddie Fitzsimmons.
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/83452936
In The Echoing Green, investigative journalist Joshua Prager, building on the work of others and conducting his own exhaustive research, including interviewing Franks, convincingly demonstrates that the Giants cheated and that Herman Franks was at the center of the cheating. The cheating Prager portrays is sign stealing, a much-honored skill if it is done on the field without mechanical or electronic aids. Durocher, though, placed Franks in the Giants’ clubhouse office in the Polo Grounds, beyond center field, some 500 feet from home plate. Armed with a telescope and thousands of hours of baseball experience, Franks would peer in on an opponent catcher’s signs and then, through a buzzer system Durocher had installed, he would signal bullpen catcher Sal Yvars who would signal the batter. Franks was there when Bobby Thomson came to the plate in the bottom of the ninth on October 3, 1951, although Thomson later told Prager he was concentrating so hard he never looked at Yvars. Franks never admitted anything. He told the Associated Press in 2001, “I haven’t talked about it in 49 years. If I’m ever asked about it, I’m denying everything.”7
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Herman Franks died March 30, 2009 at age 95.
Bobby Thomson died August 16, 2010 at age 86.
Ralph Branca died November 23, 2016 at age 90.
Thomson hit a home run off Ralph Branca, who had just relieved starter Don Newcombe, to win the pennant in the third of three extra games played in 1951 between the Giants and Dodgers after they finished in a tie. Roy Campanella caught for the Dodgers in the first game but Rube Walker caught games 2 and 3.
Oct. 1, 1951 in Ebbets Field: Giants 3, Dodgers 1
Oct, 2, 1951 in the Polo Grounds: Dodgers 10, Giants 0
Note the low attendance, as the Polo Grounds could fit 51,000:
Attendance: 34,320
Venue: Polo Grounds V
Game Duration: 2:28
Day Game, on grass
Giants 5, Dodgers 4
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Brooklyn Dodgers | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 0 |
 | New York Giants | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 0 |
| WP: Larry Jansen (23-11) • LP: Ralph Branca (13-12) | |||||||||||||
| Winning Run scored with 1 out | |||||||||||||
The bottom of the 9th went single, single, pop out, double by first baseman Whitey Lockman scoring a run.
So it was Dodgers 4, Giants 2 with Giants on second and third with one out. Branca relieved Newcombe to face Thomson. Did Dodger catcher Rube Walker use complex signs with Lockman on second base?
In terms of the sign stealing, the Giants had a runner on second base, so they didn't really need the extra help from center field. Or did they? Did the Giants first baseman Whitey Lockman know enough to interpret the signs and convey the information to the batter Bobby Thomson?
https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/october-3-1951-giants-win-pennant
Branca somehow sneaked a fastball down the middle for strike one. “A ball I should have swung at,” Thomson, a fastball hitter, admitted later.3
At 3:58 pm, Branca’s second pitch, another fastball, came in high and tight. Thomson swung, his uppercut driving the ball deep toward the corner in left. Pafko, dashing toward the high wall, ran out of room. The ball landed in the first row, just above the 315 ft. sign for a three-run home run. Game over.If Thomson knew what was coming, it makes you wonder why he didn't swing at the first pitch.
Bobby Thomson hit three home runs in 1951 off Ralph Branca. In that final game Thomson already had a single and double off Newcombe. Thomson hit 32 home runs in 1951, the last two off Branca. Number 31 was in the first of the three extra games Oct. 1, 1951: in Ebbets Field Thomson homered off Branca in the 4th with a runner on first to give the Giants a 2-1 lead. Monte Irvin homered off Branca in the 8th to finish the scoring: Giants 3, Dodgers 1.
Sept. 1, 1951 in the Polo Grounds Thomson hit number 24 with a runner on first off Branca in the second inning to give the Giants a 3-1 lead. Giants won 8-1. Branca took the loss, allowing three home runs.
How much did Thomson really need to know the pitch or was his success because he knew?
Maybe it was because the cheating became known much later but Bobby Thomson was not vilified like some of the Astros are today, including Jose Altuve.
Sal Yvars, the bullpen catcher who relayed the signs to Giants batters, spoke at a monthly baseball meeting in Westchester, NY about 20 years ago, a couple of weeks before the cheating story was written up in the Wall Street Journal, so we had a bit of a scoop. After the meeting I asked Yvars if the Giants stole signs during the 1951 World Series against the Yankees. Yvars said no because there were too many people around, which I understood to mean too many reporters. This seems a bit odd as there must have been a dozen New York papers covering the extra games between the Giants and Dodgers.
Showing posts with label Signs.
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