The Christmas Kid

“I love the Dodgers,” he once said, forcing a smile after a girl turned him down at a dance. “I don’t need nothing else.”

But then it was October 3, 1951, the third game of the playoffs against the Giants. On this chilly gray day, Frankie Bertinelli did not go to work. Frankie Bertinelli was genuinely sick. He had been sick for months. In July, Charlie Dressen said, “The Giants is dead,” and everybody thought the Dodgers manager was right. But on August 12, the Giants started their ferocious run for the pennant under the leadership of the turncoat Leo Durocher. They had won thirty-seven of their previous forty-four games, sixteen in a row at one time, the last seven in a row enabling them to catch and tie the Dodgers. It was as if everything Frankie Bertinelli knew about certainty, even justice, was eroding. Leo Durocher had been the greatest Dodgers manager of all time and then defected to the Giants; it was as if Benedict Arnold could end up a hero. It was wrong. It was awful.

“This can’t be,” Frankie said after Jim Hearn pitched the Giants to a 3–1 victory in the first game at Ebbets Field. Frankie Bertinelli got so mad that day he threw his radio across the room. When he turned it on, half the stations were missing, including WMGM, which broadcast the Dodgers games. The next day, the Dodgers came roaring back at the Polo Grounds. Labine pitched a six-hitter; Rube Walker hit a home run over the right-field roof. The Dodgers slaughtered the Giants, 10–0. That night, Frankie Bertinelli was elated. But on the morning of October 3, he looked out at the gray, overcast sky and was filled with dread.

That afternoon, he sat in the kitchen, listening to the horrible Giants announcers on WMCA, while his mother made coffee and tried to get him to eat something, anything. Sal Maglie was pitching for the Giants, and Frankie Bertinelli could picture his face: lean, mean, shrewd, hard. Newcombe was pitching for the Dodgers, big and strong, but always something wrong, never quite what he should be. First inning: Reese and Snider walk. Robinson singles to left, scoring Reese; 1–0 Dodgers. This weird Russ Hodges says the lights have been turned on at 2:04. Lights! In a day game! Frankie Bertinelli sat on the floor. Newcombe is pitching great, but then in the last of the seventh, Irvin doubles, and Lockman moves him to third with a bunt single. Irvin scores on Thomson’s sacrifice fly; 1–1. Frankie Bertinelli’s stomach knotted, churned, flopped around. Then, top of the eighth, the Dodgers score three runs, and in the last of the eighth, Newcombe strikes out the side; 4–1 Dodgers! Justice! Certainty! Beauty!

And then it’s the last of the ninth. Newcombe still pitching. Alvin Dark singles through the right side. Okay. So what? Keep the ball down. Get a double play. But no…Don Mueller singles to the right of Hodges, who for some insane reason is holding Dark tight on first with a three-run lead. Dread. Then Newcombe gets Monte Irvin to pop up a foul ball to Hodges. One out, two to go…And then here comes Whitey Lockman. Walk him. Load the bases, get the double play! Something about Lockman…and then Lockman slices a double down the left-field line. Dark scores. Mueller slides like a crazy man into third and breaks his ankle! They’re carrying him out through center field, all the way to the clubhouse. In the Dodgers bullpen: Carl Erskine and Ralph Branca are warming up. And Bobby Thomson is the batter.…

“Bring in Erskine,” Frankie Bertinelli shouted, while his mother moved around the kitchen. “Not Branca. Please not Branca. Thomson hit a homer off Branca in the first game! Into the upper deck! Please not Branca…” But Dressen calls in Branca. Clint Hartung goes in to run for Mueller at third. And it’s Branca. “Walk Thomson!” Frankie Bertinelli shouted. “Walk Thomson and pitch to the kid, to that Willie Mays. He’s a kid, he won’t handle the pressure, he—”

And then Frankie went silent, and listened to Russ Hodges:

Bobby Thomson…up there swinging…He’s had two out of three, a single and a double, and Billy Cox is playing him right on the third-base line.…One out, last of the ninth…Branca pitches…and Bobby Thomson takes a strike called on the inside corner.…

Frankie Bertinelli got up, walked around, leaned his forehead on the wall. He could hear other radios from open windows.

Bobby hitting at.292…He’s had a single and a double and he drove in the Giants’ first run with a long fly to center. Brooklyn leads it, 4–2.…Hartung down the line at third, not taking any chances…Lockman with not too big of a lead at second, but he’ll be running like the wind if Thomson hits one.… Branca throws…There’s a long drive…it’s gonna be, I believe…THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!…Bobby Thomson hits into the lower deck of the left-field stands.…THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT AND THEY’RE GOING CRAZY!