5-4

Welcome to Mountaintop Week at The Stud 400! For the past five years, we have been counting down the top 400 moments that shaped Major League Baseball history and we have reached the final week of the countdown.

We have just five moments to go and we’ll take time to celebrate each of the top moments with special articles. Today we’ll examine the two biggest home runs in baseball history and then three separate installments for moments 3, 2 and 1.

As we have made it through the top 20, we have come across some of the top moments in certain subcategories.

Last week, we had Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak as the top “unbreakable moment.” Bill Mazeroski’s walkoff home run in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series was named our top World Series moment and came in ranked #14 overall.

The Black Sox won the dubious distinction of being the top scandal the sport has seen and Roberto Clemente’s death was listed as the most tragic moment in baseball history.

But today we’re digging the longball with # 5 and #4 in our countdown.

Typically, before we jump into a new installment of The Stud 400, we recount the previous week’s list, but today we’re doing something different. As far as The Stud 400 is concerned, here is a list of our Top 20 Home Runs in baseball history with their overall rank in parenthesis.

20: Roberto Alomar HR off Dennis Eckersley 1992 ALCS (158)

19: Fernando Tatis two grand slams same inning (148)

18: Chris Chambliss 1976 ALCS walkoff (118)

17: Willie Mays 600^th HR (93)

16: Ted Williams HR in final at bat (92)

15: George Brett Pine Tar HR (67)

14: Barry Bonds 73^rd HR (58)

13: Bucky Dent’s one-game playoff HR (51)

12: Barry Bonds 756^th HR (49)

11: Mike Piazza 9/11 HR (44)

10: Mark McGwire tops Roger Maris (42)

9: Reggie Jackson’s three-home run game in 1977 (38)

8: Babe Ruth’s called shot (30)

7: Carlton Fisk’s 1975 World Series HR (28)

6: Kirk Gibson’s 1988 HR off Dennis Eckersley (23)

5: Joe Carter’s Game 6 WS walkoff (15)

4: Bill Mazeroski’s Game 7 WS walkoff (14)

3: Roger Maris’s 61^st home run (10)

And now, without further ado, here are the #5 and #4 moments in The Stud 400 which also happen to be our top two home runs in Major League Baseball history – and we present to you Episode LXXXVIII of The Stud 400:

5. The Shot Heard ‘Round the World (1951)

If you read last week’s installment of The Stud 400 or simply looked at the list of home runs two inches above this sentence, you may wonder how a home run in a playoff series could be ranked higher than not one, but two, walkoff World Series-clinching home runs. Well, let me tell you how.

First of all, in 1950s New York City, baseball was everything. The Yankees had been a dominant force for decades and there was no greater rivalry in sports than the Brooklyn Dodgers vs. the New York Giants. The Dodgers had won the National League pennant in 1941, 1947 and 1949 but could never get over the hump to win their first World Series. The Giants on the other hand had been in a prolonged slump. They hadn’t won a pennant since 1937 and their last World Series was delivered to them by Carl Hubbell in 1933.

In 1950, the Giants finished as high as third for the first time since 1942, winning 86 games, generating excitement in a loyal, but downtrodden fanbase. The Dodgers finished one spot ahead of them and featured five position players who would end up in Cooperstown. The Phillies were the National League champs in 1950, but were swept by the Yankees in the World Series. The Phillies fell off in 1951, leaving the Dodgers and Giants to battle for supremacy in the National League. The only problem with that premise was that the Dodgers looked to be running away with the pennant, building a 13-game lead over the second place Giants by August 11. With no Wild Card around to save anyone, the National League seemed to be all but finished and some journalists even declared so.

The thing is, nobody told the Giants. The team went on an incredible 37-7 over their final 44 games. To make things even more dramatic, with no margin for error, the Giants won the final seven games of the season, including a walkoff win in Game 150 and a one-run win in the season finale. Over the same time, the Dodgers went 3-4 including a walkoff loss to the Phillies. Those results left the Dodgers and Giants tied in the standings at the end of the regular season. That necessitated a three-game playoff to determine the National League champion.

The Giants won the first game of the series 3-1 at Ebbets Field, but the Dodgers trounced the Giants 10-0 in Game 2. This set up a dramatic final game in Brooklyn between the two biggest rivals in sports at the time. The stage couldn’t have possibly been bigger and the teams couldn’t have been more equal.

Don Newcombe was scheduled to face off against Sal Maglie and the two aces delivered the pitching duel you’d expect—for most of the game. The Dodgers had a 1-0 lead, but the Giants tied it in the bottom of the seventh, sending the game to the eighth inning tied at one. The game was the first coast-to-coast baseball telecast and was being watched by millions of viewers across America while millions more listened on radios. The game was also broadcast to American servicemen in Korea on Armed Forces Radio. Basically, every red-blooded American in the world was on the edge of their seats going into the eighth inning.

That’s when Maglie showed his first crack as he tried to navigate a gauntlet of Hall of Famers for the fourth time. Pee Wee Reese and Duke Snider singled and a wild pitch during Jackie Robinson’s at bat gave the Dodgers a lead. They ended up scoring three in the inning and when ace Don Newcombe sent the Giants down in order on seven pitches in the bottom eighth, it looked like Brooklyn was a lock to protect their 4-1 lead to advance to the World Series.

Not so fast.

The Giants had their backs to the wall before and got some life when Al Dark led off the ninth with a hit. A first-pitch single by Don Mueller got the tying run to the plate in the form of Monte Irvin, but Newcombe retired him on a foul out. With just two outs left, Whitey Lockman doubled to get the score to 4-2. This brought Bobby Thomson to the plate and it took just two pitches for him to etch his name in the baseball history books forever. With the tying runs on second and third with one out, Dodgers manager Chuck Dressen brought in Ralph Branca and he was about to become a name baseball history would not forget either.

With rookie Willie Mays on deck, there was a thought of walking Thomson to set up a pennant-clinching double play, but Dressen eschewed the move because he didn’t want to load the bases. Branca got the first pitch over the inside corner for a called strike and then planned on coming back inside again to set up a potential outside curve on the third pitch.

The third pitch never happened.

Thomson belted a high inside fastball down the left field line and when it landed in the lower level of the stands, it set off one of the biggest celebrations you’ll ever see. Thomson disappeared into a mob of teammates at home plate after circling the bases while the Dodgers stood dejected on the field, too shocked to move. In the clubhouse afterwards, Reese, Snider, Robinson and Preacher Roe made their way to the Giants clubhouse to congratulate them on the incomprehensible pennant victory.

Adding to the lore of the home run was the radio call of Giants broadcaster Russ Hodges. If you’ve ever heard the audio of the crazy man yelling, “The Giants win the pennant!” that’s what we’re talking about. The full call, which is arguably the greatest call in sports history, was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. The full call was:

Branca throws… There’s a long fly… 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! Bobby hit it into the lower deck of the left-field stands… The Giants win the pennant and they’re going crazy… I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! I will not believe it! Bobby Thomson hit a line drive into the lower deck of the left-field stands and the place is going crazy!

In addition, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Red Smith’s lede for an article in the New York Herald Tribune is considered among the best introductions to any column in the history of sports journalism. Smith wrote, “Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.”

The colloquial phrase of the home run that we have all come to know the moment as likely came from the New York Daily News which ran a headline the next day that said, “The Shot Heard ‘Round the Baseball World.” The New York Times ran a similar phrase as well.

Although the Giants lost the World Series to the Yankees, the regular season comeback and dramatic three-game playoff series are what lives on in history. Frequently called The Miracle at Coogan’s Bluff, it is frequently mentioned as one of the all-time greatest moment in sports. The game placed second on ESPN’s Greatest Games of the 20^th Century and Sports Illustrated ranked it as the 15^th greatest moment in sports history and fourth greatest moment in baseball history in 2016.

So there you have it. That’s how a playoff series home run is ranked higher than two walkoff World Series home runs. But it also begs the question, “What the hell did you rank ahead of that?”

Thanks for asking.

4. Hank Aaron tops Babe Ruth (1974)

If you’re making a Major League Baseball Mt. Rushmore, you start with Babe Ruth and go from there. Most, including myself, would add Hank Aaron’s head onto the mountain immediately after Ruth. When you take two figures so iconic and so instrumental in American history then mix in the most coveted career record in all of sports, you’re going to get yourself to the top of almost all “best of baseball” lists.

At The Stud 400, we have Hank Aaron’s 715^th home run ranked not just as the top home run in baseball history, but also the top fully on-field moment in the entire countdown. That’s pretty heady stuff and it still feel like that it fully does the moment justice.

Ruth of course built his home run empire throughout the 1920s and 1930s. He led the Majors in homers 12 times and built his total of 714 by having monster home run seasons of 60, 59 and 54 twice. Overall, he topped 40 home runs 11 times. Ruth would outhomer entire teams routinely and is as mythical a figure as there is in sports. He also hit every one of his 715 home runs in a segregated Major Leagues. While that doesn’t diminish his accomplishments at all, it does play a role in the background to Aaron’s chase of Ruth.

While Ruth clubbed his way to his final total with huge seasons, Aaron got to his home run totals by sustaining excellence with insane consistency. He never hit 50 home runs

And reached 40 homers eight times, three less than Ruth. Aaron hit at least 25 home runs in 18 of 19 years across the meat of his 23-year career. You just didn’t get more consistent than Aaron.

In 1968, Aaron became just the eighth player to reach 500 home runs and at just 34 years old, folks wondered just how high he could climb on the list. Ruth was so far ahead of everyone by the time he retired that his career mark seemed unreachable, but folks did start to whisper that Aaron might have a shot.

Aaron crunched 44 more homers in 1969 which gave him 554 through his age 35 season. By comparison, Ruth had 565 homers through his age 35 season. He had three more good seasons after that, but crashed and burned out of baseball in 1935 at the age of 40. Looking at Ruth’s trajectory gave Aaron a roadmap to immortality. Aaron and Ruth both hit 34 homers during their age 38 season, but the next year is where Aaron finally made up some ground. While Ruth was fading at 39, Aaron had a revitalization and belted 40 homers. That gave him 713 for his career and set him up for a quick shot at history once the 1974 season started.

With the world watching, Aaron literally wasted no time in taking a step forward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with The Babe as he homered in his first at bat of the season to tie Ruth at 714. There was a push for Aaron to break the record at home and talk of Aaron sitting out the rest of the series, but commissioner Bowie Kuhn intervened and a compromise was made. Aaron sat out the second game of the series, but started the third. He struck out looking his first two at bats and grounded out in his third at bat before being replaced in the lineup. That brought the baseball world to Atlanta Fulton County Stadium on April 8 as Aaron was going to get his first shot at breaking the record at home.

Once again, fans didn’t have to wait long for the big moment. After walking in his first at bat, Aaron came up with Darrell Evans on first base in the bottom of the fourth for his next try. He took ball one and then blasted the next pitch from Al Downing over the left field fence for the historic home run. Braves announcer Milo Hamilton gave a great understated call of the home run, simply saying, “Outta here! It’s gone! It’s 715! There’s a new home run champion of all time, and it’s Henry Aaron!” He then let the jubilation of the event speak for itself.

Vin Scully was the Dodgers announcer at the time and as you might expect, he too was absolutely perfect on his call. He masterfully brought up the racial aspect of the moment, which was a huge undertone, but did it in his typical classy way. Scully said, “What a marvelous moment for baseball; what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia; what a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron.”

The gravity of the situation during the time and setting was significant. The Civil Rights Act, Martin Luther King assassination and Kent State shootings had all happened within the past decade and the US was still reeling from the implications of the Vietnam War after pulling out of the country just one year earlier. Aaron famously received countless threatening letters, most of which were overtly racist, many of which threatened his life. Yet when the historic home run happened, Aaron stood tall and brave in the celebration, raising the home run ball up to the crowd while embracing his parents and teammates at home plate. Beating Babe Ruth’s “unbreakable” career home run record was one thing, but for a Black ballplayer who started his career in the Negro Leagues to have done so while rising above the disgusting atmosphere he had to endure during his chase, make Aaron’s accomplishment one of the great achievements in baseball history. It’s an important piece of American culture; a moment that transcended sports and is still being celebrated over 50 years later.

So there we have it, the top two home runs in Major League Baseball history and moments #5 and #4 in The Stud 400. We’ll jump into the top three next with a moment that happened over 120 years ago just as Major League Baseball as we know it was beginning to take shape. Join us at BallNine as we see how a journalist was able to rise up and become perhaps the most influential figure of the Dead Ball Era.