{"product_id":"the-echoing-green-isbn-9780375713071","title":"The Echoing Green","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis is the untold story of the secret scandal behind baseball's most legendary moment:The Shot Heard Round the World. A \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of the Year.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt 3:58 p.m. on October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson hit a home run off Ralph Branca. The  ball sailed over the left field wall and into history. The Giants won the pennant.  That moment—the Shot Heard Round the World—reverberated from the West Wing of the  White House to the Sing Sing death house to the Polo Grounds clubhouse, where hitter  and pitcher forever turned into hero and goat. It was also in that centerfield block  of concrete that, after the home run, a Giant coach tucked away a Wollensak telescope.  \u003ci\u003eThe Echoing Green \u003c\/i\u003eplaces that revelation at the heart of a larger story, re-creating  in extravagant detail and illuminating as never before the impact of both a moment  and a long-guarded secret on the lives of Bobby Thomson and Ralph Branca.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A revelation and a page turner, a group character study unequaled in baseball writing  since Roger Kahn’s \u003ci\u003eBoys of Summer\u003c\/i\u003e.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Thrilling.  . . . captures the enduring impact of the memorable moments that mark our lives.”  —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post Book World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The most comprehensive account ever written of  the most famous play in sports history.” —\u003ci\u003eNewsday \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This wonderful book is an absolute  treasure. A master storyteller, Prager captures the reader from beginning to end.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—Doris Kearns Goodwin\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A delightful book . . . You don’t have to believe that the  Giants stole the game to enjoy \u003ci\u003eThe Echoing Green\u003c\/i\u003e. You don’t even have to like baseball.  That moment defined a generation.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Compelling and thoughtful,  the book meditates on the meaning of that home run in the legacies changed forever  by a single crack of the bat.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Miami Herald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A seat along the first base line.  . . . Prager, like a good hurler with a command of many pitches, delivers nuance  even when you're expecting a fastball.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Plain Dealer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Prager turns his remarkable  powers of investigation on the men involved in the scheme. The result is an absorbing  critique of the competitive ethic that too often rules not only America's playing  fields but its boardrooms as well.” —\u003ci\u003eSports Illustrated\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The depth of Prager's research  staggers the mind. . . . A must-have for baseball mavens.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Buffalo News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“You  will not find a better-reported book on any subject than \u003ci\u003eThe Echoing Green\u003c\/i\u003e.” —\u003ci\u003eNew  York Post \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJoshua Prager writes for publications including \u003ci\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, where he was a senior writer for eight years. He has three  times been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. Joshua was a Nieman fellow at Harvard in 2011 and a Fulbright Distinguished Chair at Hebrew University in 2012. He was born in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, grew up in New Jersey, and lives in New York. \u003c\/p\u003eONE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Now do you understand serendipity?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    —horace walpole, letter to\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Horace Mann, January 28, 1754\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The sky above brooklyn darkened in seconds, a borough plunged into    dusk five minutes after noon. It was July 18, 1951, and in offices    downtown, people turned on lights and peered out windows. A squall in    Brooklyn Heights toppled a tree on Willow Place onto three parked    cars. A bolt of electricity cracked, hailstones big as marbles    pelting Borough Hall. Gusts of wind rocked Sheepshead Bay, small    boats radioing distress. The temperature freefell from a balmy 80 to    69 degrees and it began to pour, sheets of rain flooding Prospect    Park, empty garbage cans afloat in Flatbush, eighteen inches of water    cascading onto the tracks of the Grand Army Plaza subway station.    Service halted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The blitzkrieg stopped abruptly at 12:40 p.m. And born of a cold    front in Canada, it all but sidestepped Manhattan, the IRT leading to    the Polo Grounds just fine. Still, it was the second-to-smallest    crowd of the season that wended this Wednesday to the Harlem field,    just 3,538 folks come to watch Giants versus Cubs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Turnout would no doubt have been smaller still were it not for Willie    Howard Mays Jr. Mays was a rookie. The child of an Alabaman railroad    porter, he had joined the Giants just twenty years, eighteen days    old, the youngest black ever called to the major leagues. And on that    May day had all New York excited. For in thirty-five AAA games, the    center fielder had hit a startling .477.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Harlem had pulsed with pride when Jackie Robinson turned Dodger,    Larry Doby Indian, Monte Irvin Giant, Sam Jethroe Brave. But it was    the great black ballplayers in Brooklyn to whom Harlem gave its    700,000 hearts. Wrote poet Langston Hughes in 1950:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    On sunny summer Sunday afternoons in Harlem\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    when the air is one interminable ball game\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    and grandma cannot get her gospel hymns\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    from the Saints of God in Christ\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    on account of the Dodgers on the radio. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was however a black Giant who now bunked at the corner of St.    Nicholas and 155th Street, Mays renting the first floor of a boarding    house owned by a woman named Ann Goosby. And quickly did Harlem take    to Mays as it had to no Giant before. For the pheenom brought to the    north end of Sugar Hill not only three 34-ounce bats but humanity.    Willie, not William, was his given name. He weighed just 170 pounds,    stood two inches shy of six feet. His black wool cap flew off mid-   gallop. He scolded his Rawlings mitt when it dropped a ball. One    hitless night in Philly, well along an anemic 1-for-26 start at bat,    Mays sobbed. But oh that first hit—a home run off Warren Spahn that    left its mark on both the left-field roof of the Polo Grounds and Leo    Durocher. Cooed the Giant manager, “I never saw a fucking ball get    out of a fucking ball park so fucking fast in my fucking life.”    Harlem was in love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mays was the sure antidote to a proud organization’s thirteen-year    pennant drought. It seemed no coincidence that with his arrival, New    York won three straight to slip above .500. And so a manager    protected him, teammates marveled at him and fans adored him,    bestowing by summer a nickname on he who greeted all with a chummy    “Say hey!” Just one person in fact had reason not to celebrate the    Say-Hey Kid—the man manning center field before the kid arrived.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Bobby Thomson was in his fifth full season. Twice an all-star, he    possessed power at the plate and skill afield—fast enough to play    shallow yet still cover the enormous expanse that was center field at    the Polo Grounds. But Thomson had neither the arm of young Mays nor    his preternatural glove. And the day Mays turned Giant, Durocher    alerted the papers (even before his center fielder) that Thomson was    shoving over to left.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Every time a kid comes up and takes your job, you’re not going to    like it,” says Mays. “But I never heard Bobby complain. Actually,    Bobby and Al Dark helped me how to play the hitters.” Dark went so    far as to wag behind his back before most every pitch of the    remaining 1951 season one or two fingers to alert the baby-face in    center to what was upcoming.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Thomson, twenty-seven, received no such care. Batting just .229 when    Mays arrived, yielding his position further bled his confidence. Over    the next month, Thomson hit but three home runs and lost his spot in    the starting lineup, Durocher using him only as pinch-hitter and    defensive replacement. And as baseball’s June 15 trade deadline    approached, the manager sought to unload him. Dangling Thomson and    infielder Jack Lohrke, Durocher contacted Cub skipper Frankie Frisch    to see if he might trade for Andy Pafko. Pafko was perfect, a left    fielder who in 1950 had hit .304 with 36 home runs and a .591    slugging percentage. The slugger was off flying again with 12 home    runs through 49 games. But when midnight struck on June 15, Pafko was    a Brooklyn Dodger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The deal was engineered by Emil Bavasi, a rookie general manager who    had in the minors assembled five pennants. Just thirty-five, the    wunderkind had wangled Pafko in person, flying to Chicago the day    before to meet Cub general manager Wid Matthews at Wrigley Field. The    trade was Bavasi’s first for Brooklyn and most in baseball felt it    assured the club the pennant. When it was completed—eight players and    $25,000 changed hands—Brooklyn senior scout Ted McGrew telegrammed    the young Catholic general manager all called Buzzie. Read his note:    “And a little child shall lead them.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Desperate for help, Durocher picked up Earl Rapp, a minor league    outfielder in Oakland. But in thirteen games in New York, the lefty    contributed one single. Durocher would have to live and die with    Thomson.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Thomson began July on a home run binge, belting six in eight games.    But hitting just .231 at the all-star break, his .944 fielding    percentage the worst of his young career, Thomson continued to sit    more than he played. The fans did not seem to miss him—when in the    ninth inning on July 15 he spelled Don Mueller in right, they booed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And so now two days later at the Polo Grounds, Thomson was but a    spectator, number 3,539 left this afternoon to watch Giants versus    Cubs, to ooh when Mays hit a solo shot deep to left field, to aah    when righty reliever George Spencer loaded the bases down 4–3 in the    eighth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was a wonder Spencer, twenty-five, could pitch at all. For mid-   game he had learned that wife Billie was in labor and rushed to the    hospital. Cub pitcher Frank Hiller extended his lead off third and    Spencer fired to Hank Thompson a pickoff throw. Hiller slid in ahead    of the tag. Safe, his spikes pierced Thompson’s right foot, a black    shoe welling with blood. Eleven outs later the game ended: Chicago 6,    New York 3.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As after every Giant loss, a maintenance worker named Henry Colletti    raised high above the clubhouse in center field a red flag. And in    the green concrete below him, Anthony Palermo sewed a stitch into    Thompson’s right big toe, the Giant doctor estimating the lefty    hitter would sit at least ten days. New York needed another third    baseman. And in Minneapolis, they had one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Ray Dandridge was a minor league star. Property of New York, the    bowlegged third baseman was batting in AAA .317 with 8 home runs and    53 runs batted in. He possessed a glittering glove besides. Dandridge    in fact had but one drawback. He was black.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    On February 28, a group of NAACP lawyers had walked into the federal    district court at 424 South Kansas Avenue and on behalf of thirteen    parents filed a class-action suit against the Board of Education of    Topeka, Kansas. The parents wished for their twenty children entrance    to a nonsegregated elementary school. As just one of the thirteen    parents was a man, a black welder named Oliver Brown whose daughter    Linda was eight, the suit bore his name. The trial of Brown versus    the Board of Education began on June 25, and the national pastime,    having wrestled with segregation, awaited its verdict.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Though four seasons had passed since Jackie Robinson trotted onto a    diamond, the black major leaguer remained very much a statement, a    conspicuous reflection of team policy. Just five of sixteen clubs had    seen fit to employ a black player. And the major league owner who    did, finger held to the wind of public opinion, remained careful to    pussyfoot about the matter of race. He knew that many shook their    heads when on July 7, in a Southwest International League game at    Hidalgo Park in Mexicali, a man named Emmett Ashford was arbiter of    foul and fair, the first black umpire in the twentieth century not in    the Negro leagues. He knew that many bristled when on June 3, with    two out in the second inning of a game at the Polo Grounds, Irvin,    Mays and Thompson got aboard, white bases flush for the first time    with black men. And he knew that many approved when on May 24, having    called Mays up, New York at once sent down another black player,    infielder Artie Wilson.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That unwritten quotas continued to hamstring black players was widely    known. And it was certainly known by Dandridge. When in 1949 New York    signed Dandridge, the son of a semipro catcher, it mattered not that    in nine seasons in the Negro National League he had hit an estimated .   315, an estimated .343 in an additional nine seasons in Mexico. It    mattered not that his mitt was renowned, that he was en route to the    Hall of Fame. He was black and thirty-five, and so off not to New    York but Minneapolis. And when there in 1949 Dandridge promptly    batted .362 with 6 home runs and 64 runs batted in, still New York    did not call him up. And when the next season Dandridge was named his    league’s Most Valuable Player, still New York did not call him up.    And when he continued to shine after his roommate Mays was promoted    in May 1951, still New York did not call him up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That Mays would become the fourth black in five years to be named    Rookie of the Year did not matter. Since signing its first black    player, fastballer John Ford Smith, on January, 27, 1949, New York    had been careful to field only so many Negroes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But Hiller had now spiked Thompson. And owing a stitched toe, the New    York Giants were at last on July 18, 1951, primed to overlook race—if    only until Thompson mended.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Dandridge, though, was suddenly unavailable. Three days prior, before    a doubleheader at Nicollet Park in Minneapolis, the third baseman had    felt an acute pain in his side and been relieved in Asbury Hospital    of his appendix. Dandridge would not play again until August 19.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Thus did a bloody digit and enflamed appendix now convene Durocher    and Horace Stoneham in New York’s center-field clubhouse. And minutes    after their 6–3 loss, so desperate were Giant manager and owner to    scrounge up a third baseman that they settled on Bobby Thomson.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Thomson had not played third base in five years, had not played any    infield position since April of 1947. But serendipity had smiled on    Thomson. And Stoneham and Durocher had now three pronouncements for    the New York press: Thompson would be optioned to the Ottawa Giants    of the International League, Ottawa pitcher Al Corwin would fill his    roster spot, and Thomson would take over for Thompson at third.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The lineup, though, needed more than to add Corwin and shed a P. For    the 1951 season was half gone and the orange and black trailed the    Brooklyn blue by seven and a half games. Durocher was exasperated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The fiery manager had come to New York from Brooklyn in July of 1948    and vowed to rebuild the team in his image. He had. Gone were    sluggers Johnny Mize, Sid Gordon and Walker Cooper. In were scrappers    Alvin Dark, Eddie Stanky and Wes Westrum.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The new Giant warp and woof had meshed under Durocher in little more    than a season, the team running up baseball’s best record in the    second half of 1950. And on February 19, 1951, the very first day of    the spring training that followed, Durocher chirped to the media that    his boys would grab the pennant.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The press agreed, ninety-nine members of the Baseball Writers’    Association of America fingering as pennant-winners New York.    (Brooklyn, with sixty-nine votes, was runner-up.) “A new era has    dawned,” wrote Arthur Daley in the New York Times on April 20. “The    hustling Leo Durocher finally has assembled a team of hustlers, and    hope actually is blazing in the lee of Coogan’s Bluff.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Giants lost 12 of their first 14 games.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The team righted itself—winning 21 of 33 to pull within 4 games of    first-place Brooklyn on July third. But their loss to Chicago on July    18 was their ninth in 14 games. The team was heading south.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Facing reporters after the game, Durocher fumed. He ripped his team    for its poor play, umpire Dusty Boggess for tossing second baseman    Eddie Stanky, clubhouse-man Eddie Logan for not confiding that he had    told Spencer that his wife, Billie, was in labor. Durocher then    stamped from the clubhouse, a trail of Fabergé cologne behind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    With evening, the rains returned. They forced the DC-3 flying Corwin    from Ottawa to Manhattan to land at 1:00 a.m. in Albany. They slicked    Spencer’s drive to Jewish Memorial Hospital, where Billie gave birth    to a baby that was dead. And at 46 East 61st Street, they rapped the    windows of Durocher’s apartment where a terrier named Briney Marlin    and a boxer named Slugger greeted the manager at his door. Durocher    always went straight home after a loss, stepped onto the baseball    diamond etched into his linoleum floor, put on silk pajamas and his    RCA television. And always, as Perry Como or Milton Berle    entertained, he scavenged for any edge to win the next damn game.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “As long as I’ve got one chance to beat you,” Durocher later wrote\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    in his autobiography, “I’m going to take it. I don’t care if it’s a    zillion\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    to one.”","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303179309285,"sku":"NP9780375713071","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375713071.jpg?v=1767739122","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-echoing-green-isbn-9780375713071","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}