Why Branca? Assessing Dressen's Options

Ralph Branca passed away at the age of 90 on the day before Thanksgiving. It was a singular moment in time—he was called in by Brooklyn manager Charlie Dressen to protect a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth in the third and deciding game of a playoff to determine the National League pennant-winner in 1951, needing just two outs to get the Dodgers to another World Series against the Yankees—but Branca's pitch to Bobby Thomson resulting in the "Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" home run was one of those iconic moments in baseball history that make baseball junkies thankful for the historical heritage of America's National Pastime. As the victim of Thomson's home run—a victim perhaps twice over because of revelations that later surfaced about the Giants' using a powerful spyglass to steal opposing catchers' signs from their center field clubhouse at the Polo Grounds—Branca fairly asked, Why me? In fact, Dressen probably felt he had no other choice.

Why Branca? Assessing Dressen's Options

Taking a 4-1 lead into the last of the 9th, three outs away from the pennant, Dodgers manager Charlie Dressen needed Don Newcombe to go the distance, exhausted as he was from having now faced 87 batters in 22⅔ innings in three games over five days just to keep Brooklyn's hopes alive for the pennant. The reason why was because the underlying reality, which Dressen surely knew, was that the Dodgers no longer had a bullpen worthy of the name. But after a pair of singles and a double made the score 4-2 with the tying runs in scoring position, only one out, and Bobby Thomson coming to bat, Dressen knew Big Newk could go no further.

He needed just two outs. But who was he gonna call?

Clyde King, who Yankee fans of a certain age remember as one in a long line of managers George Steinbrenner hired and fired in the 1980s, had been the ace of the Dodgers pen . . . until throwing 23⅔ innings in 11 games in 27 days from July 26 to August 22 took such a toll on his arm that he was never the same again—as in, really, never. At the time, King was 14-5 with 5 saves and a 3.36 ERA in 38 games out of the bullpen. He appeared in only 10 games the rest of the way in 1951, pitching just 14⅓ innings, and had a 10.67 earned run average, then pitched 58 more games and had an ugly 5.16 ERA the next two years before leaving his big league pitching career behind. So . . . no King to come save the day.

Dressen had 27-year-old Bud Podbielan available. While King's absence caused Dressen to virtually demand complete-games in games that could be won from his starting pitchers, it was Podbielan who pitched the most innings in relief for the Dodgers in their hectic month of September to hold back the surging Giants. Podbielan was the winning pitcher in relief of Newcombe's intrepid 5⅔ innings of relief in the 14-inning season-finale against the Phillies that set up the playoff for the pennant. 

But Podbielan had pitched in only 54 big-league games in parts of three seasons, rarely in the high-stakes situation he was thrust into in that game against Philadelphia. Given his relative inexperience, it is highly unlikely Dressen even considered him in a game of this magnitude, the very pennant at stake with just two more outs needed.

Dressen also almost certainly did not consider either Johnny Schmitz or Phil Haugstad. Schmitz had given up four runs in four innings in his previous appearance and was a southpaw, against whom the right-handed Thomson so far in his career was batting .385 with 10 hits, including a pair of doubles and a homer. And in 1951, Thomson was 2-for-2 against Schmitz. The right-handed Haugstad was awful in September, giving up 9 runs in 7 innings, including a homer to Mr. Thomson.

With Clem Labine having pitched a complete-game victory the day before to keep the Dodgers' hope alive, Dressen was left with only three possible options from his core of starting pitchers. Preacher Roe, his 22-3 record on the season notwithstanding, was not in the mix because recent arm problems had made him ineffectual. That left Ralph Branca and Carl Erskine, both warming up in the bullpen, getting ready for this moment.

Why Branca? Dressen has been criticized for calling on Branca because Bobby Thomson treated him like a batting-practice pitcher in 1951. For the year, Thomson was 4-for-12 against Branca, including two home runs since the beginning of September. The second of those was the difference in the Giants' victory—and Branca's loss—in the first playoff game. And Branca in general had not pitched well of late. After starting the season 12-5 with a 2.60 ERA, Branca was 1-7 with a 5.71 ERA since the beginning of September, although he did pitch well—8 innings, 3 runs allowed—in the first game of the playoff.

Why not Erskine? Carl Erskine was 16-12 on the year, 8-6 with a 4.83 ERA in 19 starts, and 8-6 with a 3.97 ERA in 27 relief appearances. The standard narrative of why Branca and not Erskine is that Dressen made his decision after Oisk bounced a pitch warming up in the bullpen. The subtext of how his decision is portrayed is along the lines of Dressen losing his grip, not thinking clearly in a fraught moment with everything—everything—on the line. What was he thinking, letting Branca pitch to Bobby Thomson, who had been especially unkind to Mr. Branca the last three games they faced each other, including the game-winning long ball two days before? Thomson, however, was also batting .333 against Erskine (3-for-9) with two homers, both back in May.

What was Dressen thinking? He might have been thinking that Erskine was having control and location problems in his most recent appearances. In his three previous games—two starts and one in relief—Erskine had given up 8 walks, only one intentional, in 12⅓ innings. And he had averaged 4 walks in 9 innings in 38⅓ innings since the beginning of September, compared to 3.6 per 9 in 151⅓ innings through August. Upon hearing of Erskine's bounced pitch while warming up to enter the game, Dressen may have been reminded of the young right-hander's lack of control of late and concluded Oisk was too much of a risk with two runners in scoring position, representing the tying runs, and the pennant on the line.

And so, Charlie Dressen may have decided Ralph Branca was his only choice to pitch to the Giants' Bobby Thomson. 


NOTE: I cover this and other aspects of Dressen's decisionmaking concerning the third and final game of the 1951 playoff in the chapter, "Charlie Dressen's Worst Day at the Office," in my recent book, The Golden Era of Major League Baseball: A Time of Transition and Integration (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). Here's the link to the publisher's website:

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442252219/The-Golden-Era-of-Major-League-Baseball-A-Time-of-Transition-and-Integration#

Charlie Dressen's Worst Day at the Office--Explaining Why Branca and Not Erskine

Managers are relentlessly criticized by us passionate fans for decisions made and not made in heartrending losses, but as knowledgeable as we fans like to believe we are, we do not know all the considered factors that go into those decisions. At this year's annual SABR conference in Houston from July 30 to August 2, I presented on Charlie Dressen's worst inning in baseball, identifying some possibilities of what Brooklyn's manager might have been thinking--emphasis on "might"--in the decisions he made in that fateful ninth that led to Bobby Thomson's home run and "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" This first of two Insights assumes Dressen knew exactly what he was doing when he chose Ralph Branca to pitch to Thomson instead of Carl Erskine and offers a possible explanation of why Erskine's inopportune bounced pitch while warming up was so troubling to his manager.

Charlie Dressen's Worst Day at the Office--Part I

A double by Whitey Lockman had narrowed the Dodgers' lead to 4-2 over the Giants in the last of the ninth at the Polo Grounds in the third and final playoff game that would decide the 1951 National League pennant after New York's 37-7 record to finish the schedule had entirely erased Brooklyn's 13-1/2 game lead on August 11 to force a playoff. With the tying runs in scoring position, one out and Giants' slugger Bobby Thomson coming to bat, it was obvious Brooklyn starter Don Newcombe could go no further. Including his 8.1 innings in this game, Newcombe had now faced 91 batters in 23 innings pitched in 3 games over five days--which included a season-saving shutout of the Phillies on the next-to-last day of the season (on only two days of rest after a complete game victory against the Braves) and 5.2 innings of shutout relief from the 8th to the 13th inning the very next day against the Phillies in a game the Dodgers absolutely had to win (and did, in the 14th) to force the playoff. But who was Dressen gonna call to relieve Newk?

A good question, because ... the underlying reality was that Brooklyn no longer had a bullpen worthy of the name. For most of the season the Dodgers did have a decent bullpen--Brooklyn relievers were 27-16 with 15 saves and a 3.79 ERA through the end of August.  But in September, the Dodger bullpen was a shambles. With a collective ERA of nearly 5.00, the Dodgers' relievers were sufficiently ineffective that every Dodger victory down the September stretch except for the 14-inning win on the final day of the scheduled season required a complete game effort from Dressen's starting pitcher. What happened to the bullpen?

Well, Dressen using Clyde King, his best reliever, for 23.2 innings in 11 games over 26 days between July 24 and August 22 is what happened. Clyde King is best remembered as one in a long line of Steinbrenner managers, both after and before Billy Martin, but in 1951 he was the Dodgers' relief ace. As of August 22, King had a 14-5 record with 5 saves and a 3.36 ERA in 38 appearances. On that day, however, King pitched a total of four innings to win both games in a doubleheader. He was never the same thereafter, and I do mean never, and certainly not in 1951. He appeared in only 10 more games with a 10.67 ERA, including 12 earned runs in only 9 September innings.

With King unavailable, Dressen had few options. Bud Podbielan, who was the winner of that 14-inning schedule finale that (temporarily) saved the Dodgers' season, and Johnny Schmitz pitched the most innings in relief for the Brooklyn in September, but the southpaw Schmitz wouldn't do because Thomson was a right-handed slugger and despite Podbielan having pitched well in seven relief appearances down the stretch, his limited major league experience (only 54 games in parts of three seasons, all of which included time in the minors) made it unlikely that Dressen would have trusted him in such a critical situation--two outs away from a pennant. Another right-hander, Phil Haugstad, was similarly inexperienced and had given up 25 runs in 30.2 innings.

Then there were the starting pitchers. Preacher Roe was a superb 22-3 on the season and had limited Thomson to a .250 batting average and only one home run in eight at bats, but he had been ineffective his last two starts and was probably suffering from the arm trouble that would plague him the entirety of next year. There is no indication Dressen ever considered Roe. So warming up for the Dodgers were Ralph Branca and Carl Erskine. Bobby Thomson was batting .333 against both Brooklyn pitchers in 1951 with 9 at bats against Erskine and 12 against Branca (not including his epic at bat still to come). And Thomson had hit two home runs off both pitchers, his pair off Erskine coming in May and and his pair off Branca since the beginning of September, including a two-run blast that beat Branca in the first game of this playoff for the pennant.

Branca had pitched poorly down the stretch, although his start in the first playoff game was not bad--3 runs (2 thanks to Thomson's home run) in 8 innings. But before then, Branca had lost five of his six September starts, including his last four, and in four of those decisions failed to last six innings and had an ugly ERA of 11.35. Branca had started three games against the Giants since the beginning of September and lost them all, by 8-1 (September 1), 2-1 (September 9) and 3-2 just two days before. In those three games, Bobby Thomson had tagged Branca for 3 hits in 6 at bats, including the two home runs, plus he had walked twice.

Erskine, for his part, in four starts and three relief appearances had his best ERA month of the season in September, although that ERA was a shade under 4.00 at 3.99. But he lost both of his last two starts, giving up 11 runs (8 of them earned) in 10.1 innings. Erskine had not faced the Giants since August 8, when he got the win by allowing only one run in 7 innings of relief. Thomson faced off against him three times that afternoon, and Erskine got him out each time.

The standard narrative of why Branca and not Erskine mentions that Dressen's decision was made after Oisk bounced a pitch while warming up to come (maybe) into the game. The subtext of how this decision was made is usually portrayed along the lines of Dressen losing his grip, that he was not thinking clearly in the heat of the moment. What was he thinking, letting Branca pitch to Bobby Thomson, who had gone deep against him just the other day to win game one?

What was he thinking? We of course can only speculate, but what he certainly must have known was that Erskine was having difficulty of late with his control and location. In his last three appearances of the season (two starts and one in relief), Erskine had given up 8 walks--only one intentional--in 12.1 innings. And he had averaged 4 walks per 9 innings in 38.1 September innings, compared to 3.6 per 9 in 151.1 innings through August. Hearing of Erskine's bounced pitch while warming up to enter the game may have caused Dressen major heart palpitations and convinced him that Oisk was not the pitcher for this moment in time--even though Thomson had been treating Ralph Branca like a batting practice pitcher in the last three games they faced each other, including the game-winning shot two days before. (It's not as though Branca had been a control artisan recently, by the way, as he had walked five Giants batters in eight innings in his playoff start ... but, at least he didn't bounce any pitches in the bullpen ... presumably.)

While the decision to bring in Branca seems reasonable given the alternatives--especially if Dressen was indeed concerned about Erskine's recent inability to pitch consistently within the strike zone, Charlie Dressen still had one immediate decision to make: whether to pitch to Bobby Thomson with the tying runs in scoring position, one out, first base open and the pennant on the line ... or pitch to the rookie waiting on deck, one Willie Mays.

That will be the subject of my next post.