"The Giants win the pennant~ The Giants win

the pennant !..."

The delirious voice of announcer Russ Hodges

screamed the sensational news over the airwaves

and a nation erupted. Strong men wept and

embraced perfect strangers, people danced in

the streets, and booze flowed like water. It was

the Armistice, Lindbergh s homecoming, and the

repeal of Prohibition all wrapped up in one

crazy, unbelievable event.

October 1951 was not a happy time in Ameri-

can history. The country was deep in the grip

of a Communist scare; embroiled in its second

foreign war in ten years; President Truman had

just fired General MacArthur and was himself

under threat of impeachment by an outraged

Congress. People were desperately looking for

heroes and they found them in the Miracle Men

of Coogan s Bluff and, in particular, a shy,

unspectacular Scottish-American named Bobby

Thomson.

The 1951 baseball season dawned much like

any other year. The New York Giants lost

eleven straight and the know-it-aIls laughed, for

this was the year they were supposed to get it all

together, according to their manager Leo

Durocher. Leo had been brought over from the

Giants hated rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and

the latter were glad to see him go. Horace Stone-

ham had gambled that Leo s aggressive person-

ality might breathe some life into his dying

team (they hadn t won a pennant in fourteen

years).