| Sunday, September 30, 1951.
In New York and across the nation, baseball fans opened their sports pages to see that the Giants and the Dodgers are tied with 95 wins and 58 losses.
 Neither team will receive a break from the Braves or the Phillies. The Braves have just 76 wins and the Phillies have won 73 games in 1951, but each team will play their game just as if it is the World Series.
The game begins poorly for the Dodgers and every bad action by them is known by the Giants in Boston within moments.
In the Dodgers’ at bat in the first inning off Phillies’ starter and 15-game winner Bubba Church, Jackie Robinson has runners on first and third and grounds into an inning-ending double play and the Dodgers fail to score.
The Dodger starter, Preacher Roe, starting on two days’ rest, doesn’t have his best stuff, and the Phillies score four runs in the second inning for a 4-0 lead.
In Brooklyn, the Ebbets Field groundkeepers are working on the field, getting things ready for a hoped to be playoff game the next day. An unidentified man appears in the empty grandstand and calls out to them, “Second inning, 4-0----Philadelphia.”1
Q--Preacher Roe starts and is not effective. Did you think you would be pitching at all in this game?
“Under the circumstances, we thought we were going to lose. We really didn’t have any future plans for the season. We could see the Giants were leading in Boston. I had no plans to be pitching. I had pitched the night before.”
In the third inning, Roe is relieved by Branca and the Phillies score two
more runs when Bubba Church singles just past Jackie Robinson. The game, pennant, and season are slowly slipping away as the Phillies take a 6-1 lead.
As the third inning is over, an unidentified person walks into a Brooklyn diner and asks the score. “6-1, Phillies” said the counterman with tears in his eyes.2
A pall grows in Brooklyn.
Q--Down 6-1 in the third inning, what is the mood in the dugout?
“We’d like to think that we have to get back into the game. And being on the Dodgers and among the Dodgers I played with, we had hope, but we also had some doubts. We had a shadow of a doubt that we were not able to get back in this game.”
Q--Are you watching the game in the bullpen?
“I’m in the dugout, like always. Sitting there, I knew I didn’t have to pitch and there was no reason to sit in the bullpen.”
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