The Shot Heard 'Round the World

The proficiently schooled American sports fan will recall that there were two shots. 

History does not record who fired the first shot of the American Revolution 236 years ago today in Lexington, Massachusetts, but in 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson immortalized the words in his poem "Concord Hymn," which begins:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

My father grew up in the Bronx in New York City and often rode his bike to see New York Yankees baseball games in the afternoons after school. It was a good time for an area youngster to be a Yankees fan. During Dad's first 27 years of life, the Yankees failed to finish first in the American League only seven times. Like many young boys, Dad collected baseball cards and autographs that his mom threw away when he went away, and like many mothers, her actions contributed to the relative scarcity and value of older sports memorabilia re-sold today.

As the games let out, Dad noticed how autograph hounds would gather around to shove their items at the departing ballplayers, and he came up with a better scheme to avoid all that clamor. Just as his favorite ballplayers would duck into their cabs, he would personally hand them a self-addressed stamped postcard to sign and return at their leisure. Of all the penny-postcards he received back, only several survived to the time my dad told the story to my brother Mike and I when we were young.

I was inspired to employ my own solution to obtain Major League Baseball player autographs. I used my second-grade writing tablet and wrote and asked for them, care of the teams' postal addresses, and enclosed a blank index card and a self-addressed stamped envelope. I was surprised by the number of positive replies I received. I still have autographed cards, baseball cards and photos I received from Robin Yount, George Brett, Nolan Ryan (all three of the 1999 MLB Hall of Fame inductees), Rod Carew, Don Sutton, Hank Aaron and Sandy Koufax.

The New York Yankees only sent me promotional advertising in return. 

My family and I met New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson at a public appearance in 1977 at Gino's Kentucky Fried Chicken on Route 18 in East Brunswick, New Jersey. He was my brother Jonathan's favorite baseball player and my dad took a Polaroid photograph of Jonathan and Thurman Munson, and Munson signed it. I found the photo at my grandparents' house many years later and returned it to Jonathan. Thurman Munson was the Yankees' first team captain since Lou Gehrig, and Munson would live two more years.

I have been to baseball games at Yankee stadium three times, in 1977 for an old-timers game and a game against the California Angels, in 1978 against the Boston Red Sox, and the last time in September 1999 against the Texas Rangers, and the Yankees lost all three games. Friends who are fans tell me not to come back. In 1999, I also went to an Atlanta Braves home game, and both the Yankees and the Braves played each other in the World Series that year.

When the 1951 baseball season ended, the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers were tied for first place. Eighteen years before season playoffs were initiated, a three-game series was held in  New York City to determine the National League Championship, and which team would face the New York Yankees in the 1951 World Series. After two games, the series was tied. With the visiting Dodgers ahead 4-2 in the bottom of the ninth inning, Willie Mays on deck and Jackie Robinson in the field, the Giants' Bobby Thomson connected with a Ralph Branca 0-1 fastball for a game-winning three-run home run, "the shot heard 'round the world," because American GI's across the world serving in the Korean War listened to the game on Armed Forces Radio. 

A few years ago, I looked up Bobby Thomson and found him living at a golf course in Savannah, Georgia. For the first time, I wrote a professional baseball player directly and included a self-addressed stamped envelope, and promptly received a reply with Thomson's autograph.

Bobby Thomson died on August 16th, 2010, and my dad passed away a month later on September 19th. The last time I saw Dad, he gave me his remaining childhood baseball autographs.