The Day Bobby Hit The Home Run

It was then that Dressen made a curious decision. He let Hodges hold the bag on Dark, as though Dark as a base-runner were important. Actually, of course, Dark could have stolen second, third and home without affecting the game. The Giants needed three runs to tie, not one, and the Dodgers needed only outs.

Don Mueller, up next, quickly bounced a single through the right side—close to Hodges' normal fielding depth—and the Giants had runners at first and third. All around the Polo Grounds people stood up, but not to leave.

With Monte Irvin coming to bat, Dressen walked to the mound. Branca and Erskine were throwing in the bullpen, and Clyde Sukeforth, the bullpen coach, had told Dressen that Branca was fast and loose. But on the way to the mound the Dodger manager thought about catching, not pitching.

The right thing

Campanella had a way with Newcombe. He knew how to needle the big pitcher to fury, and this fury added speed to Newcombe's fast ball. Walking to the mound, Dressen wondered about replacing Rube Walker with Campanella. There was only one drawback. Foul territory at the Polo Grounds was extensive. A rodeo, billed as colossal, was once staged entirely in the foul area there. Campanella, with his bad leg, could catch, but he could not run after foul pops. Dressen thought of Hodges and Cox, both sure-handed, both agile. They could cover for Campanella to some extent. But there was all that area directly behind home plate where no one would be able to help Campy at all. Dressen thought of a foul pop landing safely, and he thought of the newspapers the next day. The second-guessing would be fierce, and he didn't want that. No, Dressen decided, it wouldn't be worth that. He chatted with Newcombe for a moment and went back to the dugout. When Irvin fouled out to Hodges, Dressen decided that he had done the right thing.

Then Newcombe threw an outside fast ball to Whitey Lockman, and Lockman doubled to left. Dark scored, making it 4-2, but Mueller, in easily at third, slid badly and twisted his ankle. He could neither rise nor walk. Clint Hartung went in to run for him, and action was suspended while Mueller, on a stretcher, was carried to the distant Giant clubhouse.

" Branca's ready," Clyde Sukeforth told Charley Dressen on the intercom that ran from dugout to bullpen.

"O.K.," Dressen said. "I want him."

Branca felt strong and loose as he started his long walk in from the bullpen. At that moment he had only one thought. Thomson was the next batter, and he wanted to get ahead of Thomson. Branca never pitched in rigid patterns. He adjusted himself to changing situations, and his thought now was simply to get his first pitch over the plate with something on it.

Coming into the infield, he remembered the pregame conversation with the newspaperman. "Any butterflies?" he said to Robinson and Reese. They grinned, but not very widely.