Pafko at the Wall

Summary

"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. The Giants win the pennant." (Russ Hodges, October 3, 1951)   On the 50th anniversary of "The Shot Heard Round the World", Don DeLillo reassembles in fiction the larger-than-life characters who on October 3, 1951, witnessed Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Jackie Gleason is razzing Toots Shor in Leo Durocher's box seats; J. Edgar Hoover, basking in Sinatra's celebrity, is about to be told that the Russians have tested an atomic bomb; and Russ Hodges, raw-throated and excitable, announces the game - the Giants and the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds in New York. DeLillo's transcendent account of one of the iconic events of the 20th century is a masterpiece of American sportswriting.

©1997 Don DeLillo. Originally published as the prologue to Underworld, ©1997 Don DeLillo; published by Scribner. Commissioned by 92nd Street Y as a live reading produced by Bernard Schwartz in 92Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall on October 3, 2019. All rights reserved. 2019 The Young Men's and Women's Hebrew Association. All rights reserved. (P)1997 Simon & Schuster Audio