The other side of "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" story

"LOS ANGELES -- Vin Scully has been responsible for some of the most memorable calls in baseball history. Kirk Gibson's home run, Don Larsen's perfect game, Hank Aaron's 715th home run, Bill Buckner's muffed ground ball.

The Hall of Fame broadcaster was merely in the building for Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World" in 1951.

Scully said that as soon as the ball was hit, he'd looked down to the club seats at Branca's fiance.

"Ann, Ralph's wife to be, was sitting in the club box," Scully said. "I knew she was there, so when the ball was hit and everything went crazy, I instinctively looked down there.

"I can remember it in order. Ann, when the ball went in the seats, opened up her purse, and rather calmly, took out a handkerchief, closed the purse, opened the handkerchief, and then buried her face in the handkerchief. I'll always remember that.""

""To me, and again I'm coloring this perhaps out of friendship, the fellow who came out of that incident 10 feet tall was Ralph Branca," Scully said. "He was subject to every old-timers day, recreating the home run, blah, blah, blah. Their names were completely linked, you couldn't say one without the other.

"Although it was very easy to take bows, and Bobby [Thomson] did it very well. He didn't gloat or anything. He was a very unassuming hero. Ralph to me really carried the cross exceptionally well. One of the reasons, I think, I don't think it was the first Saturday, but certainly by the next [weekend], Ralph and Ann were getting married.

"I always thought, out of the ashes of this thing, Ralph just kept growing in stature because he took it so well.""

"Ann sat in the backseat in tears, her father's second cousin Francis Rowley, a Jesuit priest, come to console her. Rowley turned to Branca.

"Forget it, Ralph" he said,..."It could have happened to anyone. You did your best."

Branca's mind cleared. He had lost the pennant.

A need to make sense of his lot welled in Branca. He had once been a great pitcher. And at twenty-five, he remained a good man. He did not smoke, did not cheat, and save an occasional highball, did not drink.

And so he answered Rowley, a man of the cloth, with a desperate and familiar question. "Yes, Father," he said "but why did it have to be me? Why me?"

Father Rowley,....he did not hesitate with his answer. "The reason God picked you to throw that pitch," he said, "was because He knew that your faith was strong enough to withstand the agonies that would follow. That you would know it was His will and you had done your best and no one could ask more of any man."

Branca listened. Here in a sedan in an empty parking lot in Harlem was an answer that made sense, that jibed with scripture and his world view and his sense of self, an answer elastic enough to accommodate all that was sure to follow. Here was a reply tantamount to a reprieve. The home run was a crucible. Fiancée at his side, Branca drove off.
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