Bobby Thomson Controversy What was controversial about thomson? Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson. Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? the team used a telescope, manned by coach Herman Franks in the Giants clubhouse behind center field, to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers.
WHere ther any penalties for this?
Were there any penalties after Bobby Thomson's team stole finger signals from opposing catchers?
Longstanding rumors that the Giants engaged in systematic sign stealing during the second half of the 1951 season were confirmed in 2001. Several players told the Wall Street Journal that beginning on July 20, the team used a telescope, manned by coach Herman Franks in the Giants clubhouse behind center field, to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers. Stolen signs were relayed to the Giants dugout via a buzzer wire. Joshua Prager, the author of the Journal article, outlined the evidence in greater detail in a 2008 book.  Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson. Branca was privately skeptical of Thomson's denials but made no public comment at the time. Later he told The New York Times, "I didn't want to diminish a legendary moment in baseball. And even if Bobby knew what was coming, he had to hit it.... Knowing the pitch doesn't always help." Whether the telescope-and-buzzer system contributed significantly to the Giants' late-season 37-7 win streak remains a subject of debate. Prager notes in his book that sign stealing was not specifically forbidden by MLB rules at the time and, moral issues aside, "...has been a part of baseball since its inception". Sign stealing using optical or other mechanical aids was outlawed by MLB in 1961.  Thomson however, late in his life, rebuked his prior claims of not receiving the sign on the Shot Heard 'Round the World, and admitted that the sign was received. CANNOTANSWER
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Robert Brown Thomson (October 25, 1923 – August 16, 2010) was a Scottish-born American professional baseball player, nicknamed the "Staten Island Scot". He was an outfielder and right-handed batter for the New York Giants (1946–53, 1957), Milwaukee Braves (1954–57), Chicago Cubs (1958–59), Boston Red Sox (1960), and Baltimore Orioles (1960). His pennant-winning three-run home run for the Giants in 1951 is popularly known as the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", and is one of the most famous moments in baseball history. It overshadowed his other accomplishments, including eight 20-home-run seasons and three All-Star selections.  "It was the best thing that ever happened to me", he said.  "It may have been the best thing that ever happened to anybody."

Early life
Thomson was born in the Townhead area of Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. He was the youngest of six children born to parents James and Elizabeth. He arrived in the United States two years later. James, a cabinet maker, had moved to New York City shortly before Bobby's birth and sent for his family in 1925.

Thomson grew up on Staten Island in New York City and signed with the New York Giants for a $100 bonus right out of Curtis High School in 1942. On December 5, 1942, he joined the United States Army Air Forces and trained as a bombardier. His entire service was within the continental United States. He played semiprofessional baseball in the summer of 1945 while awaiting his discharge.

Early baseball career
Thomson batted .283 with 29 home runs and 82 runs batted in (RBIs) in his rookie year, 1947. The following season, he batted .248 with 16 home runs. In 1949, Thomson had career bests in RBIs (109) and batting average (.309). His batting average dropped to .252 in 1950. He then hit a career-high 32 home runs in 1951, the fifth-best total in the major leagues; he also had the fourth-highest slugging average in baseball that year.

The "Shot Heard 'Round the World"

Thomson became a celebrity for his walk-off home run off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca to win the 1951 National League pennant. The home run, nicknamed the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", was dramatic, as until 1969, league pennants were only decided by a playoff when the teams involved finished the regular season in a tie.  Prior to 1951, playoffs had only been necessary in 1946 (NL) and 1948 (AL).

Although in mid-August, the Giants were  games behind the league-leading Dodgers, they won 37 of their final 44 games to tie Brooklyn on the final day of the regular season, forcing a three-game playoff.  The Giants won the first game 3–1 as a result of a two-run home run by Thomson (off Branca).  Brooklyn's Clem Labine shut out the Giants in the second game, 10–0.  The decisive contest, played on October 3 at the Polo Grounds, was the first major sporting event televised coast-to-coast in the United States.  The Dodgers took a 4–1 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning, but Giants shortstop Alvin Dark singled, advanced to third on a single by Don Mueller, and scored on a double by Whitey Lockman.  With Lockman on second and pinch runner Clint Hartung at third, Thomson's walk-off home run turned looming defeat into a 5–4 victory. The moment was immortalized by Giants play-by-play announcer Russ Hodges's excited multiple repetitions: "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!"

Waiting in the on-deck circle to hit behind Thomson was rookie Willie Mays. The Giants' season ended, however, at the 1951 World Series; the Yankees swept the last three games to win the best-of-seven series, four games to two. Thomson batted .238 in the series with no home runs.

The bat from the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" is in the collection of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. The uniform worn by Thomson on that day is apparently a part of a large private collection owned by Dan Scheinman, a member of the San Francisco Giants ownership group.

Sign stealing

Longstanding rumors that the Giants engaged in systematic sign stealing during the second half of the 1951 season were confirmed in 2001.  Several players told The Wall Street Journal that beginning on July 20, coach Herman Franks used a telescope positioned in the Giants clubhouse behind center field to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers.  Stolen signs were relayed to the Giants dugout via a buzzer wire. Joshua Prager, the author of the Journal article, outlined the evidence in greater detail in a 2008 book.

Although Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch, Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed Rube Walker's fastball sign to Thomson.  Branca was privately skeptical of Thomson's denials, but made no public comment at the time.  Later, he told The New York Times, "I didn't want to diminish a legendary moment in baseball.  And even if Bobby knew what was coming, he had to hit it.... Knowing the pitch doesn't always help."  Whether the telescope-and-buzzer system contributed significantly to the Giants' late-season 37–7 win streak remains a subject of debate.  Prager notes in his book that sign stealing was not specifically forbidden by MLB rules at the time and, moral issues aside, "...has been a part of baseball since its inception".  Sign stealing using optical or other mechanical aids was outlawed by MLB in 1961.

Later years
In 1952, Thomson led the National League with 14 triples while batting .271 with 25 home runs and 109 RBIs for the Giants. In his final season with the Giants in 1953, Thomson hit 26 home runs and 106 RBIs, and a .288 average. That winter, he was sent to the Milwaukee Braves in a multiplayer deal.  During his first spring training with the Braves in 1954, he suffered a broken ankle, which allowed rookie Hank Aaron to earn a place in the Milwaukee lineup. Thomson batted a career-low .232 in 1954.

The Braves traded Thomson back to the Giants during the 1957 season, and he was in the lineup for the club's final game at the Polo Grounds. The Giants moved to San Francisco for the 1958 season, but Thomson was gone, traded to the Cubs. He spent two seasons in Chicago before closing out his major-league career in the American League with the Red Sox and Orioles.  He played one final season in 1963 with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan.

Thomson was a career .270 hitter with 264 home runs and 1,026 RBIs in 1,779 games. He was selected an All-Star in 1948, 1949, and 1952.

In the 1990s, over 40 years after his famous home run, Thomson received a letter from a Marine who had been stationed in Korea in 1951:
"I was in a bunker in the front line with my buddy listening to the radio.  It was contrary to orders, but he was a Giants fanatic. He never made it home, and I promised him if I ever got back, I'd write and tell you about the happiest moment of his life.  It's taken me this long to put my feelings into words.  On behalf of my buddy, thanks, Bobby."

After baseball, Thomson became a sales executive at a New York City paper-products company.  He lived in Watchung, New Jersey, until 2006, when he moved to Savannah, Georgia, to be near his daughter Nancy and his grandchildren.  He died August 16, 2010, at his home in The Marshes of Skidaway Island, a continuing care facility in Savannah.

Honors
Scottish baseball team Edinburgh Diamond Devils named their home Bobby Thomson Field. It was opened by Thomson himself in 2003, while he was in Scotland to be inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.

The UK Chapter of The Society for American Baseball Research is named the Bobby Thomson Chapter.

The Curtis High School Field in Staten Island was renamed Bobby Thomson Field in 2007.

Thomson was inducted into the Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame in the class of 1995.

See also

 List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
 List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
 List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders

References

External links

ESPN/The Associated Press obituary
BBC obituary
Thomson's profile at Baseball Library
 Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run 1951. According to the description at Cleveland Public Library's site: "45? min., recorded on tape with Luke Sewell interview/ Between 1973 and 1987 historian Eugene Converse Murdock interviewed 76 former baseball players in 22 states. Most had been active in the 1930s. Murdock was chairman of the history department at Marietta College from 1972 until his retirement in 1986. The interviews were not professionally recorded, and the audio quality is variable."
Joshua Prager's The Echoing Green
Baseball's 25 Greatest Moments: The Shot Heard 'Round the World at The Sporting News
 
Article, The Herald (Scotland)

National League All-Stars
Baltimore Orioles players
Boston Red Sox players
Chicago Cubs players
Milwaukee Braves players
New York Giants (NL) players
Major League Baseball center fielders
Major League Baseball left fielders
Bristol Twins players
Jersey City Giants players
Rocky Mount Rocks players
United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II
Major League Baseball players from Scotland
Scottish emigrants to the United States
Sportspeople from Glasgow
Sportspeople from Staten Island
Semi-professional baseball players
1923 births
2010 deaths
Curtis High School alumni
People from Watchung, New Jersey
Sportspeople from Somerset County, New Jersey
United States Army Air Forces officers
Military personnel from New Jersey
Across the United Kingdom, many services such as hospitals and schools depend on private or corporate donation. In the sixteenth century,(before 1560 in Scotland) the Church and the nobility were the only source of such support. By the nineteenth century, government and local authorities had taken over this responsibility. Poor Laws in the nineteenth century provided a more secure form of help for the poor and gradually the use of mortifications declined. Sometimes a hospital, Bedehouse, or care home was given money directly to further its purposes. The City of Aberdeen like many across Scotland, and in the rest of the United Kingdom, administers charitable trusts to benefit its residents (approximately £8m in 2013). Some of these date back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.  In general these mortifications were endowed to benefit Guildry members, the poor, medical, educational, cultural, arts and heritage purposes individuals and groups. Recently the City Council has re-organised these charities together with OSCR. Some of the charities have been wound up with residual funds allocated to other charities with similar purposes in Aberdeen.

Mortifications for the poor 

The city of "new" or Royal Aberdeen has been in receipt of many bequests from individuals and organizations. Some of these were intended to alleviate the poverty of widows, guild or Trades and craft members.  The bequest by Marione Douglas, Lady Drum in 1633 was supplemented by a number of other benefactors. Lady Drum gave 3000 Scots Merks

"... to Widows of that have beine the wyffes of burgesses of Aberdeine, and who have leived, both in ther widowheide, and in the tyme of ther life and mariage and cohabitatione with ther hushands, .... of good lyfe and conversation, frie of anie publict scandle, or offence, ...."

A hospital or house was commissioned to provide a lodging for the ladies.  It was known as Lady Drum's Hospital. In 1634, Jean Goold or Guild mortified 50 Merks Scots (In 1849, this sum was worth some £26 15s 6d). to assist "poor widows and virgins".  Jean Guild was the "relick" or widow of a David Anderson(e) of Finzean, a burghess of Aberdeen. The text of the document indicates the strict standards to be met when allocating the funds.
" ... be it kend till all men, be thir present letters, Me Jeane Goold, relict of umquhile David Andersone of finzeauch, burges of Aberdeine, to the honor of Almightie God, to have frielie given and mortified to the provost Baillies Councell and Communitie of the said brugh of Aberdeine, and to ther Successors, in all tyme enmeing, for the use underwreittin, the Soume of fyve hundreth nierkes, usuall money of Scotland, to be bestowed and employed upone anuel rent where most convenient employment can be hade be advyse of the Provest Baillies and Councell of the said brugh, for the tyme, and the yeirlie anuel rent therof, I ordayne to be given and bestowed, be the master of the mortified moneyes of the said brugh, for the tyme, to Bessie Leask, .... and Beatrix Mollysone, and efter both ther deceiss, I appoynt and ordayne the anuel rent of the said fyve hundreth markes to be given and bestowed, from then furth, towards the helpe and maintenance of poore vidowes and virgines, within the said brugh of Aberdeine, of the qualitie efter specified, viz : to widowes that lies beine the wyiffes of burgesses of Aberdeine, merchands, or craftsmen, livand, both in the tyme of ther widowheide, and in the tyme of ther mariage and cohabitatione with ther husbandes, of good lyfe and conversatione, frie of anie publict Scandell or offence, and to aiged virgines who are borne bairnes in Aberdeine, and who have lived in the state of virginitie, and continowes in that estate ..  to ther lyves end, frie of publict Scandell, as said is ..  and if anie of the saids widowes or virgines, that sail happen to be admitted, sail prove scandelous, efter ther admissione therunto, I ordayne them to be simpliciter discharged therof, upon just tryall and notice taken of ther scandelous carriage, be the Provest Baillies and Councell of the said brngh, whome I appoynt to be judges for trying of the said Scandell or miscarriage ...."
Additional bequests were made to the initial money by Lady Drum by several benefactors until the end of the seventeen hundreds (Alexander Galloway £226 13s 4d (Scots) 17th February, 1700; Mrs Agnes Durie (Divvie?) 1000 Merks Scots (£55 11s 1d); Jean Cattanach £200 0s 0d and Miss Bell Cattanach of £100 (Sterling)). The 1633 mortification by Lady Drum led to the building of a hospital in 1671. In 1721, maiden daughters of Burgesses of Guild were also admitted.  This house was demolished in 1798. The City of Aberdeen has a plaque adjacent to the spot where the "hospital" was located on Upper Kirkgate.

The present
The Aberdeen City Council has decided to wind up a number of  these charities that have insufficient funds to operate efficiently. An interesting example relates to the house or hospital founded  by Lady Drum in 1633. After discussions with OSCR the residual funds from the Lady Drum Hospital have been allocated to another local charity, the Instant Neighbour scheme. OSCR have decided that historic charities should be amalgamated to maximize potential income to beneficiaries. OSCR's functions in Scotland, amongst others are to: Keep a public Register of charities; Encourage, facilitate and monitor compliance by charities with the provisions of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005. In general, the future of many "historic" charities or trusts is in doubt. Many Pre-reformation hospital charities or trusts have been wound up in recent years due to the absence of beneficiaries and diminishing income from mortification and the old "Feu" system. Feuing was in practice abolished in Scotland in 2000. An example was the  Bishop Gavin Dunbar's Hospital, SC003765 which no longer operates.

See also
Aberdeen poorhouses
Aberdeen trades hospitals
Bishop Dunbar's Hospital
Cowane's Hospital
Hospital chantry
Kincardine O'Neil Hospital, Aberdeenshire
Hospitals in medieval Scotland
Mitchell's Hospital Old Aberdeen
Scottish Bedesmen

References

External links

Aberdeen
History of Aberdeen Rebecca Patek is an American choreographer and performance artist.

References

External links
 Website for Rebecca Patek
 2ge(a)ther we are w/hole, TimeOut New York

American choreographers
American performance artists
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)