Lizzie: Thank you this post, it is fitting and lovelyBaseball legend Ralph Branca has died at the age of 90, and as everybody knew would happen, the headline on his obituary remembers him for a single pitch he threw on an October afternoon sixty-five years ago. But he was far more than that single pitch -- he was also the last surviving member of the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, and the very first member of that famous team to befriend one Jack Roosevelt Robinson. He embraced the integration of the Dodgers from the moment of Robinson's arrival, and they remained close long after both had left baseball. Branca was one of the pallbearers at Robinson's funeral in 1972.
Branca broke in with the Dodgers in 1944, as a teenage rushed-to-the-big-leagues wartime prospect, but he made his mark in 1947, winning 21 games to lead the staff, and continued as one of the best pitchers in the National League thru that infamous 1951 season. The following spring training, he was injured in camp, and never regained his former effectiveness. He was traded to the Tigers, drifted around for a few years, and retired at the end of the 1956 season.
He was among the small number of ex-Dodgers to appear at a solemn farewell ceremony on the day demolition began at Ebbets Field in 1960, and a few years later he resurfaced as the co-host -- with Howard Cosell, no less -- of the New York Mets' pregame radio show. Branca here proved himself an adept commentator who could have a more substantial career in broadcasting had he so chosen. In 1963, he briefly regained the national spotlight setting a record for consecutive games won on the NBC-TV game show "Concentration." He never returned to baseball as a coach, manager, or executive, but remained an avid fan.
The day after his infamous pitch in 1951, Branca married Ann Mulvey, daughter of one of the Dodgers' minority owners. They remained together until her passing earlier this year.
