At 85, Branca’s Life Takes Another Turn

Ten years ago, Joshua Prager laid out the facts in great detail: When Bobby Thomson hit his Shot Heard ‘Round the World in 1951 off Ralph Branca, Thomson’s Giants were stealing the signs from Branca’s Dodgers.

↵Well, Prager’s back with another revelation: Branca, now 85, had a Jewish mother but never knew it. In the Jewish tradition, this means that Branca -- a practicing Catholic for all his life -- is himself Jewish. And one of his uncles died in Auschwitz.