Open Mic: New York Giants' Amazing, Yet Forgotten Sports Achievement

Let me set the stage for you...

The year is 1951. It's August and the New York Giants are thirteen games behind the division leading Brooklyn Dodgers. Then out of no where, the struggling Giants start playing good baseball and winning games at a torrid pace.

Manager Leo Durrocher kept his team feeling confident as the team won an amazing sixteen games in a row and thirty seven of the last forty four—an amazing achievement that seems to be forgotten to this day.

But, the story does not end there. As if there wasn't enough drama in winning that many games, they still did not do enough to take the division lead over the mighty Dodgers.

Instead, there was a tie on the last day of the regular season and a three game playoff was instituted to see which team would win the National League Pennant.

After winning the last seven games, and forcing the playoff, the Dodgers won home field advantage and would play the first game at home on Ebbets Field. The Giants would win the first game, but then the Dodgers quickly responded to win game two. It all came down once again to another dramatic stage.

It was game three, bottom of the ninth inning, and the Giants were trailing 4-1. Alvin Dark led off the bottom half of the inning by singling and then Don Mueller followed suit. With runners on first and second, Whitey Lockman doubled to cut the lead to 4-2, with runners now on second and third. The Dodgers then took pitcher Don Newcombe out of the game and replaced him with Ralph Branca. Then on a 1-1 pitch, Thomson hit the ball on a line shot down the line resulting in the most famous call in baseball history:

It was a miracle and a record that still stands to this day; a team winning 37 out of 44 games including separate 16 and seven game winning streaks. That alone, combined with all the drama, places this at the top of the list of greatest sports achievements of all time.