Ralph Branca's career was defined by that one high-and-inside fastball.
The Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher who gave up Bobby Thomson's famed "Shot Heard 'Round the World" that still echoes more than six decades later as one of the most famous home runs in baseball history, died Wednesday. He was 90.
His son-in-law, former big league manager Bobby Valentine, said Branca died at a nursing home in Rye, N.Y.
Branca was a three-time All-Star and spent 12 seasons in the majors. Brought in from the bullpen in the bottom of the ninth inning during the deciding Game 3 of the National League pennant playoff in 1951, he gave up a three-run homer to Thomson that gave the rival New York Giants a stunning 5-4 victory.
The one-out line drive into the left field lower deck at the Polo Grounds prompted the frenetic call from announcer Russ Hodges, "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!"
"You know," Branca told the Associated Press in 1990, "if you kill somebody, they sentence you to life, you serve 20 years and you get paroled. ... I've never been paroled."
Thomson, who also homered off Branca in Game 1, capped a sensational comeback for the Giants, who trailed the Dodgers by more than a dozen games heading toward mid-August.
"Ralph's participation in the 'Shot Heard 'Round the World' was eclipsed by the grace and sportsmanship he demonstrated following one of the game's signature moments," Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. "He is better remembered for his dedication to the members of the baseball community. He was an inspiration to so many of us."
