"Why Me?" Ralph Branca and the Lifelong Pain of Defeat

Ralph Branca, Brooklyn Dodgers, October 3, 1951

My father grew up in Jersey City during the 1930s and 1940s and developed an early attachment to the New York Giants Baseball Club, which played at the Polo Grounds, also known as Coogan’s Bluff, across the river in Manhattan. Back then, baseball fans in the New York area had three good teams from which to choose—the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Dodgers, and New York Giants. Once loyalties were attached to one of those teams, the others became intensely hated rivals. This was especially so with the Giants and Dodgers, cross-town opponents in the National League. Even more than today’s Yankees-Red Sox and Cardinals-Cubs rivalries, the enmity between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers was the most intense in the history of sports. If you were a Giants fan, you detested the Dodgers. If you were a Dodgers fan, you passionately hated the Giants.

In the fall of 1951, my dad and mom were living in Springfield, Ohio, where my dad was doing his graduate studies in theology. Dad remained a loyal and enthusiastic Giants fan. By early October, the Dodgers-Giants conflict had reached its peak. All attempts at diplomacy and reconciliation were futile. You see, the Giants had overcome a 13 ½ game deficit to tie the Dodgers for first place on the final day of the season, thus requiring a three-game playoff to determine the outcome of the National League pennant. After splitting the first two games, the entire season came down to one game, to be played at the Polo Grounds.

On October 3, 1951, Dad listened to the game on the radio while my mom, apparently less interested in this epic battle of life and death and existential struggle for the souls of man, had left to run errands. For Dad, things were going poorly, the Dodgers holding onto a 4-1 lead as the Giants came to bat in the bottom of the ninth. But Dodgers starting pitcher Don Newcombe, who until then was pitching a brilliant game, holding the Giants to one run over the first eight innings, began to show signs of fatigue as the Giants put runners on second and third with one out. The Dodgers had Carl Erskine and Ralph Branca throwing in the bullpen, but Erskine was spiking his curveball in the dirt during warmup tosses. So, when Dodgers manager Gil Hodges walked out to the mound and took the ball from the tiring Newcombe, he called for Branca to come in and get the final two outs.

Branca was a fine pitcher. Normally a starter, he was a three-time all-star who won thirteen games that season and, in 1947, was the second youngest pitcher in history to win twenty games (Christy Mathewson was the youngest). But Branca had given up a home run to Thompson in the first play-off game, so it was a choice that may have given Dodgers fans a dose of angina. At 3:58 pm, with the count 1-1 on Thompson, Branca threw a high inside fastball. Thompson swung and hit a low line drive that sailed over the left field wall to win the game. My dad listened intently as Russ Hodges of WMCA radio announced, “There’s a long drive… It’s gonna be, I believe?... The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!”

It was at this precise moment, based on Dad’s recollection, that my mom returned from the store, grocery bags in hand. As my dad jumped up and down like a madman, he grabbed my mom and twirled her around while yelling indecipherable nonsense of utter joy and delight. My mom, failing to fully appreciate the historic enormity of the occasion, was slightly annoyed and told him to settle down. Oh, the loneliness of being a fan.

Bobby Thomson home run, October 3, 1951

Thomson’s home run would be forever known as “The Shot Heard Round the World” and later dubbed by legendary sportswriter Red Smith as the “The Miracle at Coogan’s Bluff.” It is a memory that stuck with my dad for the rest of his life. When he died, the one memento of his of which I made sure to take possession was his framed photograph of Thomson hitting the home run and showing the trajectory of the ball from Thomson’s bat to the left field stands. Ralph Branca and Bobby Thomson signed the picture.

As a loyal and dedicated fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, I fully appreciate the elation and joy my dad felt that October afternoon three-quarters of a century ago. When David Freese hit a triple with two outs in the bottom of the ninth in game six of the World Series against the Texas Rangers in 2011, driving in two runs to tie the game, and then hit a home run to win it in the bottom of the eleventh, I nearly passed out from excessive exhilaration. The Cards winning the World Series in 1967, 1982, 2006, and 2011 are sources of blissful memories in my life that will forever stay with me.

But for every team, player, and fan who jumps for joy when victory is rescued from the jaws of defeat, there is another side to the story. In sports, for every win there is a loss. While Bobby Thomson was being mobbed on the field and elevated to the mythical status of Baseball Hero, Ralph Branca, who threw the pitch that led to the home run, threw the rosin bag on the ground in anger and despair, and held his head in shame. Just as Giants fans will forever remember the ecstasy experienced as Thomson blasted the home run that won the National League pennant, every Dodgers fan, especially those alive when it happened, continue to endure painful memories of that fateful day in October.

After the game, Branca was an emotional wreck, distraught and shaken by what had transpired from what he called “that goddamn pitch.” It haunted him for the rest of his life. Branca was a devout Catholic, a man of deep faith, and he could not help but ask, “Why me?” When he left the Polo Grounds following the game, he met with his priest to discuss the “tragic” event. He asked, “But why me, Father? I love this game so much. Why did it have to be me?” Father Rowley responded, “God chose you because [God] knew you’d be strong enough to bear this cross.”

Branca struggled the remainder of his life to come to grips with how a single pitch out of an otherwise good career that encompassed thousands of pitches could define for so many people their perception of his worth. It was a tough cross for Branca to bear. He was never the same pitcher after the 1951 season. “You know, if you kill somebody, they sentence you to life,” he often said. “You serve twenty years, and you get paroled. I’ve never been paroled.”

In Ralph Branca and the Meaning of Life (McFarland & Company, 2025), Bob Mitchell writes that “sometimes life can be a zero-sum game, with winners and losers canceling each other out and leaving nothing at all in between.” Like my dad, Mitchell was a lifelong Giants fan. He was seven years old when Thomson hit his legendary home run, and it was a moment he continues to recognize as one of the happiest moments of his life. He describes once meeting the legendary talk show host Larry King, a lifelong Dodgers fan. Although Mitchell had been invited onto the Larry King Show to discuss what was then a recently published memoir that reflected on how Mitchell’s 2015 heart transplant impacted his understanding of life and death, all King wanted to talk about was The Game and The Pitch. Just as that game and pitch positively changed the trajectory of Mitchell’s life as a young Giants fan, the same game and pitch nearly ruined King’s life as a seventeen-year-old boy who lived and died with the Dodgers. Here they were, 65 years later, still obsessing over “that goddamn pitch.”

As Mitchell explains, for himself and King, their different experiences of that game “formed our two different ways of looking at the world—then and for years to come: Hope vs. Cynicism, Certitude vs. Doubt, Ecstasy vs. Agony, Gratitude vs. Anger, Contentment vs. Envy—all evinced, simultaneously, by the very same spectacle, the very same single pitch.” King told Mitchell in the Green Room before the interview that the moment Thomson’s home run disappeared into the left field stands, “I felt as if I had just died. Damn near killed me, that Branca fastball.” Similarly, King’s good friend, the great sportswriter Dick Schapp, once said, “When Bobby Thomson hit that home run, my childhood ended.”

Why do sports fans care so much about the outcome of a game? Is it a flaw in our character? Or is it mostly an American thing? Americans, after all, are a competitive lot who take pride in winning and shame in losing. And yet, people learn so much more from losing than winning. Losing prepares us for life’s disappointments, and teaches us humility, perspective, justice, and dignity. It is failure, struggle, and conflict, not winning, that inspires great art and literature. But Americans tend to overlook, ignore, and hold in disdain those who fail to win. Yet everyone suffers the experience of failure.

During my first year in high school, I played on the freshmen football team. Although I was a tall, lanky kid, I had capable hands and was an adept receiver. Indeed, I led the team in scoring that year (not a great accomplishment on this particularly mediocre team). But the only experience I remember about that year was what happened in one game about halfway into the season. We were playing Lawrence Township and, with the score tied and one play left in the first half, the coach called for me to run a deep route on a pass play. I made a good move on the defender and had him beat by several steps when the quarterback threw the ball my way. A perfect spiral, it came right at me. I stopped in my tracks and waited for the ball to reach me and, with visions of scoring a dramatic touchdown filtering through my thick skull, the ball went through my arms and landed like a deadened grenade on the opponent’s thirty-yard line. Although it happened over fifty years ago, to this day, I still can’t believe I dropped the damn ball! I joined the team during the coach’s halftime meeting in utter humiliation and defeat. I’ll never forget the disdainful look from the coach and the mean-spirited remarks from teammates. For the rest of the season, I lost my confidence. I never played football again.

In sports, as in all competitive endeavors, someone must always lose. It is as much a part of sports as it is a part of life. But winning and losing too frequently defines how we perceive ourselves and others, especially as Americans. Although we learn so much more about ourselves when we lose, about how we manage defeat and struggle, our resilience and ability to overcome adversity and disappointment, too often we hold our heads in shame and let the noise of critics define our worth as human beings. If the goal of sports is merely to win, we miss its ultimate value. Shouldn’t the goal of sports be to compete, to excel, and to bring out the best in the human spirit? Mitchell described it well in his 1997 collection of philosophical prose, The Tao of Sports (Frog Books, 1997):

I win, you lose: so this means I’m better than you? Winning and losing are imposters, posing as self-worth and inadequacy. . . . Do you think you’re better or worse as a person, depending upon the result? Fact is, you’re no better or worse than the fullness of your effort, than the focus and dedication and enthusiasm with which you play. . . . It is the Game, not winning the game, that will ultimately bring you satisfaction. And losing comes not from losing, but from missing out on the learning and the growth and the challenge.

I cannot really claim to have learned this lesson, though in quiet moments of reflection I know it to be true. Losing and failure remain incredibly painful. When my kids were younger, my daughter Hannah, in seeing me become upset over a Cardinals loss, would say, “Dad, don’t sweat the small stuff!” To which I responded, “I agree – but this is not small stuff!” Yes, I have much to learn indeed.

I am afraid I am more like Ralph Branca, who years after surrendering the home run to Bobby Thomson, said, “I still have nightmares about that goddamn pitch.” Well, I still have nightmares about that goddamn dropped pass. And yet, the internal punishment we inflict on ourselves is eased by the recognition that failure and losing are integral parts of life. Failure is often more interesting and inspiring than success. The suffering and despair of losing helps us better understand the shortcomings, conflicts, and struggles of the human condition, and is even necessary to give deeper meaning and context to winning and success. In life, what is felt deeply can bear fruit only through struggle and disappointment.

Ralph Branca never forgave himself for throwing “that goddamn pitch.” When it was discovered some years later that the Giants were stealing signs and that, possibly, Thomson knew a fastball was coming, Branca experienced relief and later bitterness, for perhaps he was cheated, and it was not all his fault. But if bitterness and anger replace agony and despair, one is no better off than before.

I am happy that my father and millions of Giants fans experienced the thrill and excitement of the Shot Heard Round the World. But I also know from experience that my dad kept it all in perspective. He understood that, for Ralph Branca and millions of Dodgers fans, the pain and suffering experienced from that same game, and the pitch that resulted in Thomson’s home run, were just as real.

As Confucius wrote, “A man is great not because he hasn’t failed; a man is great because failure hasn’t stopped him.” In the end, we can all learn from the example of Boris Becker, the star German tennis player who in 1987 lost a major tennis match during the peak of his career to a low-ranked player named Peter Doohan. When reporters asked Becker how he lost to a virtual nobody, Becker replied, “I lost a tennis match. It was not a war. Nobody died.” Well said, Boris. It is a perspective we should all take to heart, and one I believe Ralph Branca himself eventually understood.