The Day Bobby Hit The Home Run

In the Dodger dressing room, Branca wept a little, showered slowly and, after submitting to some questioning, asked reporters to leave him alone. Then he went to the Oldsmobile, where his fianc�e, blonde Ann Mulvey, was waiting with Father Frank Rowley of Fordham.

"Why me?" Branca said inside the car. "I don't smoke. I don't drink. I don't run around. Baseball is my whole life. Why me?"

"God chose you," the priest said, "because He knew you had faith and strength enough to bear this cross."

Branca nodded and felt a little better.

Thomson went from the ball park to a CBS studio where he appeared on Perry Como's regular Wednesday night television show. Everywhere he went he was cheered, and always three thoughts ran through his mind. The old Jints had won. He had pushed his runs-batted-in total up over 100. He had got his 3 for 4.

When Thomson reached the house in New Dorp, his older brother, Jim, was waiting for him. "Do you know what you've done?" Jim said, all intensity and earnestness.

Only then, some six hours after the event, did Bobby Thomson realize that his home run was something that other people would remember for all the rest of his days.