Recorded coverage beginning in the last of the ninth inning, with the New York Giants Whitey Lockman at bat; the score 4 to 2 Brooklyn. Announcer Russ Hodges calls the play by play, as Bobby Thomson hits a homerun ("The Shot heard Round the World"), winning the best two out of three playoff series. 

Wrap up of the game by Bob Prince who attended the game and sat along side best friend,  Russ Hodges in the booth. 

Clubhouse interviews with Steve Ellis, Ernie Harwell and Russ Hodges. Those interviewed in a emotional celeritous Giant clubhouse are Herman Franks, Alvin Dark, Larry Jansen, Eddie Stanky, Charlie Dressen, Ford Frick, Horace Stoneham, Bill Rigney, Hank Sims, Walter O'Malley, Bobby Thomson, Charley Finney, Jim Hearn, Eddie Bracket, Art Flynn, Leo Durocher, Chris Durocher (son), Willie Mays, Whitey Lockman, Sal Maglie, Monte Irvin Paul Richards, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Sheldon Jones and Willard Marshall.   

NOTE:
 In addition to NBC's TV crew, six radio networks set up shop in the press box attached to the underside of the upper deck.

•	Russ Hodges did the Giants' broadcast solo because NBC hired his partner, Ernie Harwell, to handle their telecast. Hodges's friend Bob Prince, the Pirates' announcer, sat next to him as a guest, and filled in for Hodges and Harwell in the celebratory New York Giant’s locker room after the game beginning the many interviews that would follow and captured on audio.

•	Red Barber and Connie Desmond would, as usual, call the game for the Dodgers (WMGM).

•	The Liberty Broadcasting Network, which recreated most of its baseball and football broadcasts from its studio in Dallas, sent "The Old Scotsman" Gordon McLendon to call the game live. His broadcast is the only one that survives as complete, on audio tape.

•	Al Helfer reported the action on the Mutual Broadcasting System, largest in the nation.

•	Harry Caray of the Cardinals broadcast the game for a group of Mid¬west stations.

•	Buck Canel and Felo Ramirez did the Spanish broadcast for Latin America.

Russ Hodges:  “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! Bobby Thomson hits into the lower deck of the left-field The Giants win the pennant! And they’re going crazy! They are going crazy! Oh-oh!”

 “Everybody remembers it now,” said Bobby Thomson. “But you have to understand the feeling between those teams. I didn’t think of the pennant — only that we beat the Dodgers.” 

Hodges: “I don’t believe it! I do not believe it! Bobby Thomson hit a line drive into the lower deck of the left-field stands, and the whole place is going crazy! The Giants Horace Stoneham is now a winner. The Giants won it by a score of 5 to 4, and they’re picking Bobby Thomson up and carrying him off the field!”

NOTE:
Before videotape, a film camera had to tape a TV screen or monitor to record, a process called kinescope. “Kinescopes were fuzzy and extremely bulky, so the networks of the 1950s saved almost nothing. Few even had a radio reel-to-reel recorder which were hard to carry around, so the average guy didn’t have one. However, In Brooklyn, restaurant waiter Laurence Goldberg did. Goldberg was a New York  Giant fan from the time he was 8 years old. Having to leave for work in Manhattan, he had his mother, Sylvia, hit the “record” button in the bottom of the ninth with one out and Whitey Lockman at bat, the score now 4 to 2 Brooklyn.
Lockman doubles. The Giants now have men on second and third base. Bobby Thomson comes to the plate, and the rest is history!
 Ultimately, Larry Goldberg communicated with Russ Hodges about his tape recording. Hodges sent Goldberg $10 to use his borrowed copy to record a Christmas gift for friends. That fall sponsor Chesterfield cigarettes released a record of “the most exciting moment in baseball history.”

The National Recording Registry chose announcer Russ Hodges’ call of the 1951 National League tiebreaker between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers for inclusion in their archive of iconic American sounds.
Courtesy National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Why so memorable: 
Russ Hodges’ “The Shot Heard ’Round the World.” 

At the time, Dodgers-Giants forged sport’s greatest rivalry, yearly playing 22 games against each other, radio and TV broadcasting through The City. America was the world’s post-war colossus, perhaps baseball never meaning more. What made the moment wonderwork was the Giants announcer’s call.
On August 13, Brooklyn led the National League by 13 and 1/2 games. By September 20 the Giants trailed by 6 with 7 left. The Dodgers fell behind, 6-1, rallying to win, 9-8, in 14 innings. Next day the best-of-three NL playoff began: “a world,” said Russ, “focused on our rivalry.” Even the Voice of the American League Yankees was transfixed. “Think of it,” said Voice Mel Allen. “Three New York teams out of the big leagues’ 16 remain. One’s already in the Series [his], the other two tied.” For years a red-blooded American could recite the script by rote. It is easy to see why.
The NL playoff became the then most widely aired event in radio and nascent TV history. Seven networks, five of them radio, did at least one game: the Mutual and Liberty Broadcasting system with announcer Gordon McClendon, Dodgers’ radio WMGM and Brooklyn Dodgers’ Re-created Network(s); Giants’ WMCA Radio; and CBS TV—the latter airing the first coast-to-coast network sports telecast for game one of the playoffs (October 1st), with Red Barber doing the play by play. With the playoff series moving the following day to the Giants’ home park, the Polo Grounds, NBC TV moved in to pick up the rights, negotiating directly with WPIX, New York, which had carried the Giant’s home schedule all year. CBS TV held on to westbound relay until 3 pm and NBC broadcast the game from 3:00pm to conclusion. It was necessary for the two networks to swap time each day to permit their carrying the full game which started at 1:30pm.  

On October 3, 1951 Russ Hodges did play by play on NBC TV for innings four, five and six, and Ernie Harwell did play by play on NBC TV for innings one, two, three, seven, eight and nine. New York Giant’s  Ernie Harwell alternated calling  balls and strikes with partner Russ Hodges on WMCA Radio. Harwell called innings four, five and six. Russ Hodges called balls and strikes for innings one, two and three, and then for innings seven, eight and nine. 
 Only four years earlier Americans had owned 17,000 TV sets v. 58 million radios. By 1951 video had become an irresistible object. Radio was the immovable object, some feeling TV cursory. Such a schism towered as Russ and Ernie “tossed a coin [about a possible Game Three],” Harwell laughed. When Ernie got TV, he joked, “I felt sympathy for ‘Ole’ Russ. All these radio networks and I was gonna’ be on TV, and I thought that I had the plum assignment.” New York won the opener, 3-1. Next day changed place (Polo Grounds) and outcome (Dodgers win 10-0). His plum then spoiled.
The night before the final, Hodges stayed awake gargling. Worse, to test his voice, he kept talking into a  mic at home, hurting his throat. Next day, at 3:48 P.M., Ralph Branca threw a two-on one-out ninth-inning pitch: Brooklyn up, 4-2. “There’s a long drive!” WMCA’s Russ began. “It’s going to be, I believe! … The Giants win the pennant! [5-4] The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! Bobby Thomson hits into the lower deck of the left-field stands! … The Giants win the pennant! And they’re going crazy! They are going crazy! Oh-oh! The Giants . . . have won it by a score of 5 to 4, and they’re picking Bobby Thomson up and carrying him off the field. I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! I do not believe it. Bobby Thomson hit a line drive into the lower deck of the left-field stands, and the whole place is going crazy!”                                    

  The final New York Giant Baseball Game played in New York at the Polo Grounds by the New York Giant baseball team. 

The Giants moved into the Polo Grounds in 1891. After today's final game they will be leaving many memories, mourners and an empty baseball park behind. 

Radio came to the Giants in 1939. Television's first full season came in 1948. Steve Ellis called the shots that first TV season over the NBC network. In 1949 WPIX, with Russ Hodges and Al Helfer, at the mikes took over the telecasting, providing memorable play by play moments including those by Willie Mays and the most audacious New York Giant recording of them all, by Hodges, of the National League Winning home run by Bobby Thomson in 1951. 

In what is considered the only known WPIX TV video or audio opening of a regularly scheduled New York Giant game we hear the theme music and opening by broadcaster, in the booth, Jim Woods, who reminds the viewers that the ballgame is coming to them by Knickerbocker Beer and Pall Mall cigarettes. We hear George Levy New York Giant public address announcer naming today's line-up in the background.

Announcer, Jim Woods, states that manager Bill Rigney wants to pack the Giant line-up with as many 1954 New York Giant players as possible, including catcher Wes Westrum who hasn't started a game in quite some time.
 
NEW YORK GIANTS STARTING LINE-UP

1B - Danny O'Connell 
RF - Don Mueller
CF - Willie Mays
LF - Dusty Rhodes

3B - Bobby Thomson (traded by the Giants in 1954 and returning 
     for one more half season in 1957)

1B - Whitey Lockman
SS - Daryl Spencer
C -  Wes Westrum
P - Johnny Antonelli



After announcing the first lead off hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates we segue to the bottom of the ninth inning, Giants losing 9 to 1. Bob Delaney does play by play. Don Meuller flies out. Willie Mays gets a resounding standing ovation (banging on the roof of the Giant dugout can be heard. Willie makes out ending his 1957 season with a .333 batting average. The final New York Giant out at the Polo Grounds is made by Dusty Rhodes. 

NOTE: In 2014 a version of this tape was presented in person by Phil Gries to the daughter of Dusty Rhodes and to a friend of Willie Mays, to be given to him. 

We hear announcer Russ Hodges, from the center field New York Giant clubhouse reminiscing about past Giant teams who played at the Polo Grounds (1942, 1944, 1946, 1951, 1954).
Giant fans surround him and chant "Stay team stay." 

Hodges interviews manager Bill Rigney from his New York Giant Clubhouse Office. He states that today is a sad day.
He discuses plans for managing the 1958 San Francisco Giants. 

Russ Hodges interviews former NY Giant players, including Hans Lobert who began his baseball career in 1903 playing for the Giants from 1915-1917, Red Murray who played with the Giants from 1909-1914, Sid Gordon who retired as a Giant during the middle of last season, Buddy Kerr great  short stop for the New York Giants over a period of six years during the 1940's, and Eddie Brannick who joined the New York Giant organization in 1905 as an office boy working his way up to Club Secretary / Office manager, remaining with the club for a total of 65 years. 

Russ Hodges becomes poetic reading a verse he has written about the departure of the New York Giants form New York. 

Russ Hodges and Bob Delaney sign off. 
THE END OF AN ERA
                                                                                                        

ATA #13222B is a six minute excerpt edited from the ATA #13222A TV Audio Air Check, outlined below.  It contains ONLY the ninth inning, as announced by Bob Delaney, which includes  a  rare retrospective  TV broadcast audio description of Willie Mays' last at bat, in the Polo Grounds, as a New York Giant.


ATA#13222
The final New York Giant Baseball Game played in New York at the Polo Grounds by the New York Giant baseball team. 

The Giants moved into the Polo Grounds in 1891. After today's final game they will be leaving many memories, mourners and an empty baseball park behind. 

Radio came to the Giants in 1939. Television's first full season came in 1948. Steve Ellis called the shots that first TV season over the NBC network. In 1949 WPIX, with Russ Hodges and Al Helfer, at the mikes took over the telecasting, providing memorable play by play moments including those by Willie Mays and the most audacious New York Giant recording of them all, by Hodges, of the National League Winning home run by Bobby Thomson in 1951. 

In what is considered the only known WPIX TV video or audio opening of a regularly scheduled New York Giant game we hear the theme music and opening by broadcaster, in the booth, Jim Woods, who reminds the viewers that the ballgame is coming to them by Knickerbocker Beer and Pall Mall cigarettes. We hear George Levy New York Giant public address announcer naming today's line-up in the background.

Announcer, Jim Woods, states that manager Bill Rigney wants to pack the Giant line-up with as many 1954 New York Giant players as possible, including catcher Wes Westrum who hasn't started a game in quite some time.
 
NEW YORK GIANTS STARTING LINE-UP

1B - Danny O'Connell 
RF - Don Mueller
CF - Willie Mays
LF - Dusty Rhodes

3B - Bobby Thomson (traded by the Giants in 1954 and returning 
     for one more half season in 1957)

1B - Whitey Lockman
SS - Daryl Spencer
C -  Wes Westrum
P - Johnny Antonelli



After announcing the first lead off hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates we segue to the bottom of the ninth inning, Giants losing 9 to 1. Bob Delaney does play by play. Don Meuller flies out. Willie Mays gets a resounding standing ovation (banging on the roof of the Giant dugout can be heard. Willie makes out ending his 1957 season with a .333 batting average. The final New York Giant out at the Polo Grounds is made by Dusty Rhodes. 

NOTE: In 2014 a version of this tape was presented in person by Phil Gries to the daughter of Dusty Rhodes and to a friend of Willie Mays, to be given to him. 

We hear announcer Russ Hodges, from the center field New York Giant clubhouse reminiscing about past Giant teams who played at the Polo Grounds (1942, 1944, 1946, 1951, 1954).
Giant fans surround him and chant "Stay team stay." 

Hodges interviews manager Bill Rigney from his New York Giant Clubhouse Office. He states that today is a sad day.
He discuses plans for managing the 1958 San Francisco Giants. 

Russ Hodges interviews former NY Giant players, including Hans Lobert who began his baseball career in 1903 playing for the Giants from 1915-1917, Red Murray who played with the Giants from 1909-1914, Sid Gordon who retired as a Giant during the middle of last season, Buddy Kerr great  short stop for the New York Giants over a period of six years during the 1940's, and Eddie Brannick who joined the New York Giant organization in 1905 as an office boy working his way up to Club Secretary / Office manager, remaining with the club for a total of 65 years. 

Russ Hodges becomes poetic reading a verse he has written about the departure of the New York Giants form New York. 

Russ Hodges and Bob Delaney sign off. 
THE END OF AN ERA
                                                                                                                     

Van Patrick, Russ Hodges, Bill Stern and Jim Bishop give live ringside commentary of the Muhammad Ali, Sonny Liston boxing rematch fight from Lewiston, Maine. There are pre-fight discussions. Robert Goulet sings the National Anthem. Introductions of former Champions include Jersey Joe Walcott, who referees the fight. Russ Hodges calls the first round of Ali's knockout action. Steve Ellis interviews Ali in the center of the ring. Both review a videotape replay. Both comment. Hodges reviews the tape and calls the fight again. Floyd Patterson (Ali's next challenger) is interviewed by Bill Stern. Van Patrick interviews Joe Louis.             

Russ Hodges, longtime announcer for the New York and San Francisco Giants, reminisces with Bob Murphy between games at Shea Stadium, the home of the N.Y. Mets. Hodges talks about his early Yankee experiences with Mel Allen, Willie Mays, the 1951 Bobby Thomson home run, past and current Dodger and Giant rivalries and memories of Jackie Robinson.             

Host Curt Gowdy reminisces with Ernie Harwell, Leo Durocher, Ralph Branca, Don Newcombe, Willie Mays, Duke Snider and Bobby Thomson, who hit the home run heard around the world as the N.Y. Giants beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1951 Playoffs. Also heard is Russ Hodges' live play-by-play of that memorable moment, tape-recorded by a fan from the radio broadcast.                          

October 3rd, 1974-May 14th, 1977  

A half-hour syndicated PBS series sports nostalgia show hosted by Curt Gowdy. Guest athletes view film clips of famous sporting events and reminisce. 

A look back at the 1951 National League playoff and pennant race between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers.  

Host: Curt Gowdy.  

 One in this series of sports nostalgia programs that chronicles notable sports events and profiles outstanding athletes. This program concentrates on the 1951 National League pennant race between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers, which was decided in a best of three play-off series. With Ralph Branca pitching for the Dodgers, Bobby Thomson hit the winning home run of the series in the Giants's final inning at bat, and the hit came to be known as "the shot heard round the world." Guests include centerfielder Willie Mays, third baseman Thomson, and manager Leo Durocher, all of the Giants; centerfielder Duke Snider, and pitchers Branca and Don Newcombe, all of the Dodgers; and baseball announcer Ernie Harwell. Topics discussed include the Giant's eleven-game losing streak; Duroucher's attempts to resuscitate the team, including a major league promotion for promising young centerfielder Mays; and the fact that, despite sixteen victories in a row, the Giants were still trailing the Dodgers by six games in mid-September before securing a tie. Guests from both teams and host Curt Gowdy discuss the three-game playoff during footage of key moments. Footage of Thomson's fateful home run on October 3 is accompanied by broadcaster Russ Hodges's famous call, "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!"