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Some of baseball’s best writers of that era described what happened next.
Dick Young wrote, “Before he (Robinson) could win the game with his no. 18 seat-smasher, Robby (Jackie Robinson) had to save it. He did it with as self-punishing and spectacular a money play as the 31, 755 attending fans, thousands of whom had poured down from Brooklyn, will ever see...... Eddie Waitkus shot a low, slightly looped liner to the right of second. It seemed ticketed for the hole, labeled Hit..... Game....Pennant.....But Robby diving face-first speared the ball an instant before he hit the ground. As he struck, his elbow dug into his stomach and he lay there in a crumpled heap. Many fans failed to realize he had held the ball until, in his pain, Robby rolled on his side and flipped the pill clear.
“And here he lay, for several minutes, while trainer Harold Wendler administered to him, trying to restore Jack’s breath, and clear his dazed head. Finally Robby wobbled to his feet and walked off the field to an ovation....”
Arch Murray of the New York Post wrote, “They couldn’t have done it without Jackie Robinson, who started the game as the goat and wound up as the hero. Robbie has had some great days in the five seasons that he has worn Brooklyn spangles, but there’ll never be one to match this one in his memory book. That catch saved the game.
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Red Smith wrote this eloquent version, “The ball is a blur passing second base, difficult to follow in the half light, impossible to catch. Jackie Robinson catches it. He flings himself headlong at right angles to the flight of the ball, for an instant his body is suspended in mid-air, then somehow the outstretched glove intercepts the ball inches off the ground.3
“Of all the pictures left in memory,” wrote Smith, “the one that will always flash back shows (Robinson) stretched at full length in the insubstantial twilight, the unconquerable doing the impossible.”4
The catch that Jackie Robinson had made to save the game and the pennant had been that close. And that great.
Q--What is your first thought when Waitkus hits the line drive?
“It’s a base hit and the game is over. I turned to my left and see this marvelous second baseman named Jackie Robinson, dives after the ball, he catches the line drive in the webbing of his glove, and then hits the ground. His elbow hits him in his stomach. He rolls over, and then Pee Wee runs over, and Gil runs over and then I run over from the mound to see if Jackie is all right.”
“We don’t see the ball. We don’t see the ball at all. The umpire hasn’t yet made the out call. Jackie is laying on his stomach with the ball in the glove. When Pee Wee got there and I got there, Jackie said, ‘I’ve got the ball.’ He was hurting because his elbow hit him in the stomach and he held onto the ball. God bless him. And he made the play.”
“We worried about him whether or not he was unconscious. It could have been at least a minute before the umpire made the call. The umpire had to find the ball. Nobody could see it. It didn’t ricochet off Jackie. There was a roar from Dodger fans when Jackie got up, he had the ball.”
Q--Is that Jackie’s greatest fielding play?
“I don’t know if it is his greatest, but it sure parallels the greatest that I ever saw him make. He was that kind of player.”
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A sequence of photos by Associated Press ran in the New York Post on October 1, 1951 showing the game-saving diving catch by second baseman Jackie Robinson. Many observers believe it was Robinson's greatest defensive play. |
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