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Bobby Thomson was a pretty decent outfielder in his day, but we remember him to this day for a reason, and only one.
Seventy years ago, on Sunday, Thomson hit the home run that gave him baseball immortality. Announcer Russ Hodges combined joy and disbelief as he kept telling himself, “Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!
The Dodgers had lost the pennant.
Reiss Knehr, Dodgers Nation turns her hopeful eyes to you.
Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” may be the most dramatic moment in the Dodgers-Giants rivalry, but it is far from the only one. The famous and the less famous have eliminated the other guys from a championship.
The Hall of Fame did. Juan Marichal did it to the Dodgers on the last day of the 1971 season. Joe Morgan did it to the Dodgers on the last day of the 1982 season.
Some not-so-famous guys did it. Steve Finley did it to the Giants on the penultimate day of the 2004 season. Kevin Gross did it to the Giants on the last day of the 1993 season, in a game that marred Salomon Torres’ career forever. .
Gross pitched a full match, backed by two home runs from Hall of Famer Mike Piazza.
In his eighth big-league start, with the Western National League championship on the line, Torres scored five goals and did not survive the fourth inning.
On Sunday, with the NL West Championship on the line, Knehr is set to play the Giants in what would be his fifth big-league start.
This is not the perfect scenario. Knehr plays for the San Diego Padres.
San Diego Padres starting pitcher Reiss Knehr delivers against the Atlanta Braves on September 24. Knehr is scheduled to start Sunday against the San Francisco Giants.
(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)
The Giants are set to face the Dodgers this weekend, not the Padres, so one rival could eliminate the other on the same pitch. And, with the Giants leading NL West by one game, Knehr can’t take them out. He could, however, force them into a one-game tiebreaker with the Dodgers on Monday.
If Knehr overthrows the Giants on Sunday in San Francisco, and the Dodgers beat the Milwaukee Brewers at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers loyalists will toast him like he’s one of their own. He may never have to pay for a drink in LA again.
The Giants beat the Padres on Friday, and a loss to the Dodgers would have seen the Giants win the division. The Giants have invited fans to stay and watch the end of the Dodgers game on the big screen at Oracle Park. The Dodgers won.
There would be no clinch Friday.
Fans packed the stadium on a postcard-perfect afternoon on Saturday, the first sold-out here against an unnamed Dodgers team since California stadiums returned to full capacity in June.
Fans were ready for a celebration, singing shortstop Brandon Crawford with vocals of “MVP!” and stand in clutch moments as if they could, like Zack Littell and Darin Ruf to land heroic feats. The Giants led with five outs. They lost.
There would be no clinch on Saturday.
Even before the Giants left Oracle Park on Saturday afternoon, before the Dodgers played their game in Los Angeles, the Giants seemed resigned to the likelihood that the Dodgers would win on Saturday night, and that Sunday would count.
“We expect to play a meaningful game tomorrow,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said.
“Obviously we wanted to win the game and not have to rely on someone else,” said Giants infielder Evan Longoria. “It’s kind of the story of the season. I think overall the squad were disappointed after today’s game, feeling we had opportunities to win the game.
“But at the end of the day, the Dodgers are also a good team. We have 106 wins and we will go into the 162 game to try to decide the division.
There may not be a clinch on Sunday.
If not, future generations of Dodgers fans might pose this question as a treasured anecdote: who was that kid who shrunk the Giants to size this last Sunday of the 2021 season, the one who saved the season for the Dodgers?
David Reiss Knehr is 24 years old and the one and only major league product from St. Dominic High in Oyster Bay, NY.
His high school is not that relevant. But, if you’re a Dodgers fan looking for a sign that Knehr could carve his name in the tradition of the Dodgers-Giants rivalry on Sunday, consider where Knehr went to college: Fordham University. It’s Vin Scully’s alma mater.
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