See
more of the story
The Brooklyn Dodgers led the New York Giants by 13 games on the morning of Aug. 12, 1951. The Giants won 37 of their 44 remaining games to tie the Dodgers at 96-58.
The teams then played a best-of-three series for the National League pennant. In the decisive Game 3, the Giants trailed 4-1 entering the bottom of the ninth, scored once, and then Bobby Thomson hit a three-run home run for a 5-4 Giants victory in the first nationally televised major league game in history.
The greatest sports writer of all, Red Smith, wrote an epic account of the scene, under the headline "Miracle at Coogan's Bluff'' in the New York Herald Tribune — a collection of sentences on a sports event that only can be enjoyed, never equaled.
There's a strong hunch the miraculous aura of that Giants comeback would have been lost a bit if the prize for the winners was bypassing a wild-card game.
The Giants and the Dodgers took their rivalry to California in 1958. And seven decades after Thomson's home run, the fight being shown by the Giants in attempting to overcome the Dodgers can't be much different than the borough battle ... except what's at stake is avoiding a chance to be one-and-done.
The popular numbers in the sportsbooks before the start of the season for bets on games won were these: Dodgers, 103.5 wins (highest number ever); Giants, 73.5 wins (22nd in MLB, 12th in the National League).
They have the two best records in MLB at the top of the NL West: Giants, 81-44 (.648), and Dodgers, 79-47 (.627), 2 ½ games behind.
"The overall thing about the Giants is simple: They have been good,'' said Jon Miller, the Hall of Fame broadcaster. "The starting pitching has been in the top two or three, and the bullpen has been outstanding in recent weeks. They average five runs a game and are leading the league in home runs.
"Those things explain how this team is doing it. The other question — 'How are these guys doing it?' — is hard to explain for people who haven't watched them every night.''
The Twins have connections to that "these guys?" element, both in family and being discarded by the club in the offseason.
We can start with Tyler Rogers, as identical as a twin brother can get to Twins reliever Taylor, other than Tyler being a righthanded submarine thrower and Taylor, currently injured, a lefthanded hard thrower with a tremendous slider.
Taylor made his big-league debut for the Twins on April 14, 2016, at 25. Tyler made his Giants debut on Aug. 27, 2019, at 28.
"I spent four years in Triple-A,'' Tyler said on the phone Tuesday. "I think it upset Taylor more than me about it taking so long for the Giants to call me up.''
Tyler laughed slightly at that. It was hearing about a true guffaw that caused some to root mightily for him to follow his brother to the big leagues.
That story is true, right, about you coming to Minneapolis after your minor league season ended in September 2018, and Twins fans in the Bat and Barrel club being very confused as to why this familiar face was drinking beer as the game was about to start?
"It is true,'' Tyler said. "The first two or three people that asked, I explained to them I was Taylor's twin brother, but as people kept asking, and I got more beers in me, I started saying, 'I decided to drink beer tonight instead of pitch' — something like that.''
No such leisure time for pranks now. Tyler leads the National League with 60 appearances. He has a 1.95 ERA and nine walks in 60 innings.
"There's a tradition of submariners — Dan Quisenberry, Kent Tekulve, Chad Bradford — being available every day, if needed, and I try to uphold that,'' Tyler said. "I throw two kinds of fastballs, a breaking pitch, and try to throw strikes.''
Tyler was able to affirm his brother's scouting reports on two recent Twins: outfielder/first baseman LaMonte Wade Jr. and reliever Zack Littell.
The Giants sent Wade back to Class AAA Sacramento twice, but he's now a staple against all righthanders, with an astounding 17 home runs in 227 at-bats. Littell was coerced to add a splitter by the Giants and has an 0.87 ERA in August.
"Taylor said LaMonte's an all-time great guy and Zack's just a big old country boy from North Carolina, and that's the truth,'' Tyler said. "We have this tight clubhouse, with all these characters blended together.
"We've figured out a way to win a lot of games. And it's a battle, because it seems like the Dodgers win every night."
