Attendance: 34,320
Venue: Polo Grounds V
Game Duration: 2:28
Day Game, on grass
New York Giants 5, Brooklyn 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 | |||||||||||||
Starting Lineups
| 1 | Carl Furillo | RF |
| 2 | Pee Wee Reese | SS |
| 3 | Duke Snider | CF |
| 4 | Jackie Robinson | 2B |
| 5 | Andy Pafko | LF |
| 6 | Gil Hodges | 1B |
| 7 | Billy Cox | 3B |
| 8 | Rube Walker | C |
| 9 | Don Newcombe | P |
| 1 | Eddie Stanky | 2B |
| 2 | Al Dark | SS |
| 3 | Don Mueller | RF |
| 4 | Monte Irvin | LF |
| 5 | Whitey Lockman | 1B |
| 6 | Bobby Thomson | 3B |
| 7 | Willie Mays | CF |
| 8 | Wes Westrum | C |
| 9 | Sal Maglie | P |
HR: Bobby Thomson (32, off Ralph Branca, 9th inn, 2 on, 1 out to Deep LF).
| Pitching | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | BF | GSc | IR | IS | WPA | RE24 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Don Newcombe | 8.1 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 3.31 | 32 | 53 | 0.058 | 1.43 | 1.1 | ||
| Ralph Branca, BS (3), L (13-12) | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3.26 | 1 | 2 | 2 | -0.711 | 4.74 | -1.9 | |
| Team Totals | 8.1 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5.40 | 33 | 53 | 2 | 2 | -0.653 | 1.53 | -0.7 |
Those are the basic facts.
Bobby Thomson was batting 6th, behind Whitey Lockman and in front of rookie Willie Mays. Had a lefty pitcher started for the Dodgers, maybe Preacher Roe, Thomson would probably have batted 3rd as he had done in recent games against lefties.
Monte Irvin made the only Giant out in the 9th. Irvin was one of the Giants who did not want to know what pitch was supposed to be coming.
July 20, 1951 the New York Giants started violating informal rules and stole the opposing catcher's signs to the pitcher in games played at home in the Polo Grounds in Manhattan.
1951 New York Giants sign stealing: a peak at coach Herman Franks and more. Wednesday, January 22, 2020
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.
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Ralph Branca: July 10, 1953: Selected off waivers by the Detroit Tigers from the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1954 Branca learned about the sign stealing from his Detroit roommate, fellow pitcher Ted Gray 1946, 1948-1955. Gray had never played for the Giants but learned it from fellow Mississippi player Earl Rapp, who appeared in only 13 Giants games, all in 1951: 7/17-8/24. Branca confirmed with Giant catcher Sal Yvars soon after learning. Yvars died 12/10/2008.
1962 The 1951 Giants sign stealing was generally known, at least in baseball circles.
1990 Sal Yvars started talking about it at public baseball events. He was not believed.
2000 An article was published in the Wall Street Journal by Joshua Prager that had the most details and which put the issue publicly in the face of the person most victimized, Ralph Branca.
By 2008 Branca had taken the view which we've seen by less direct victims of the same cheating by the Houston Astros 2017-2019: outrage! "Despicable" Branca called the sign stealing.
"The Echoing Green" a 2006 book by Joshua Prager:
pages 290-1:
Branca lay quiet as Gray spoke of signs, buzzer wire, a spyglass and bullpen, struck dumb as Gray recounted what Rapp had avowed: on October 3, 1951, the Giants copped the finger signals to both Branca fastballs. "It was a shock," says Branca. "I had to just ponder it." ...
(Branca) wanted confirmation, and so phoned now the one Giant he called friend, "He said," remembers Yvars, "'Sal, did this really happen?' ... given now again the opportunity to come clean, "I did." says Yvars, "from A to Z." ... told Branca not only of Franks but of his own post in right field. "I said." remembers Yvars, "Ralph, I was the messenger.'" ...
"I made the decision not to speak about it," says Branca. "I think I matured. I didn't want to be a crybaby. Anything I would say about that situation they would label me a sore loser." ...
Page 333:
It had been thirty-six years since Yvars confirmed for Branca that New York had spied his final fastballs of 1951. In all that time, the backup catcher had not gone public, ... But on August 27, 1990, at a benefit for spinal-cord-injury research, a reporter was among the audience. "Leo sent Herman Franks to sit by one of the windows in that center-field clubhouse in the Polo Grounds with a telescope," Phil Mushnick quoted Yvars. "He'd buzz me the signal, then I'd signal our batter." Thus came word in the New York Post ... a pennant was upset. And thus was a very first 1951 Giant on record about a secret...
Says Yvars, "I wanted to tell the truth." He adds, "No one believed it. Who would believe it?"
Who indeed? (Not Mushnick, says the reporter.) For a pennant was sacred and a catcher profane...
Yvars soon came clean again, a guest of Ed Randall on cable television in 1991. His teammates boiled. "I saw him." says Thomson. "I said, 'tell me, Sal, do you think there's another guy on this ball club who would have done what you've done talking about signs?'" Another soon would, Mays confessing to Erskine at a golf tournament in Indiana...
The public, though, paid Yvars little mind.
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Giant manager Leo Durocher died October 7, 1991 at age 86.
Read more about Erskine below.
Bobby Thomson: February 1, 1954: Traded by the New York Giants with Sam Calderone to the Milwaukee Braves for Johnny Antonelli, Billy Klaus, Don Liddle, Ebba St. Claire and $50,000.
The New York Giants won their last two pennants in 1951 and 1954. In 1954 the Giants defeated Cleveland to win their first World Series since 1933. Page 292 in the Prager book:
August 6 (1954) ... And sure enough, for the first time since 1951, the home team had this season pressed the long-dormant push-botton ... had spied signals from the clubhouse. "As the year progressed and we felt we had a decent ball club, " says (Giant) pitcher Corwin, "it was there for those who wanted them." (Since moving alone into first place on June 15, New York was 25-7 at home.) Cautioned by Thomson, (Braves) catcher Crandall safeguarded his signs, New York scoring just nine runs in three games. Milwaukee swept the series, 7.5 games back.
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Boo Willie Mays for 1951 sign stealing? No New York Giant punished. Manager Leo Durocher in Hall of Fame. Sunday, February 23, 2020
Al Corwin was a relief pitcher with the New York Giants 1951-1955. Carl Erskine was a starting pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers 1949-1957, LA Dodgers 1958-1959; 122-78, .610, ERA 4.00.
Joshua Prager book "The Echoing Green":
page 88:
The team largely stopped shouting signals from the bench, relaying them instead from the far less conspicuous bullpen. The bullpen came to know which Giant batters depended on signs. ("The guys who could hit the longball wanted to know," remembers Corwin. "Willie loved it.") ...
page 333:
1991 ... Mays confessed to Erskine at a golf tournament in Indiana. ("He pulled me over," says the Dodger pitcher. " 'You know, Carl, we stole your signs.' ")
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In 2000 when the Wall Street Journal article by Joshua Prager came out documenting the 1951 sign stealing based on statements by Sal Yvars, we had Yvars as our guest at our monthly baseball meeting here in Westchester County, NY. This was two weeks before the publication of the article, so we had a bit if a scoop. Both Ralph Branca and Sal Yvars had grown up in Westchester.
Three issues:
1. After the meeting people were hanging around and I asked Yvars if the Giants stole the signs against the Yankees in the World Series, which started the day after the Thomson home run off Branca. Yvars said no, because there were too many people around. I thought that odd. How many more could there possible be but that's what he said.
2. Now that it appears that the Giants repeated their sign stealing the very next time that they had a contending team, that same question applies: did the Giants steal the signs against the 1954 Cleveland Indians when the Giants had an upset four game sweep against the 111 win Indians?
3. The amazing performance of Willie Mays in only his second complete big league season now has some doubt cast on its legitimacy, although his 1954 splits show no indication that he benefited from knowing the pitches in his home park. Mays played only 34 games in 1952 when he was drafted into the U.S. Army because of the Korean War. Others drafted included pitchers Dodger Don Newcombe and Yankee Whitey Ford. Mays emerged in 1954 as the biggest star in the National League, leading in batting average and voted NL MVP. If Mays loved the knowing the pitches in 1951, he must have loved it in 1954, too.
Showing posts with label Signs.
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