Brooklyn's Ralph Branca-Sports and Torts: Ralph Branca

Branca probably is best (or worst, if you’re a Dodgers fan) remembered for allowing the game-winning home run to Bobby Thomson in a one-game playoff that put the New York Giants in the 1951 World Series. (He later found out Thompson knew which pitch was coming) Four years earlier — on April 15, 1947 — Robinson broke baseball’s color line. Branca took what was then regarded as the bold move of standing alongside Robinson during pregame ceremonies at Ebbets Field. And Branca talks about that and more during his more than 40-minute interview that was conducted when he was in Chicago recently for the Chicago Sun-Times Sports Collectibles Convention.