‘51: The Summer That Brooklyn Lost the Pennant

This work covers one of the most controversial pennant races in baseball history. The Brooklyn Dodgers were leading the pennant race by 13 games in early August when the New York Giants installed a powerful telescope in one of their clubhouse windows and aimed it at the opposing catcher, some 500 feet away, enabling a Giants coach to steal the signs and signal them to the Giants bullpen, which would then flash them to the Giants batter. Thus at home games every Giants hitter knew what was coming, and Bobby Thomson was ready to hit the pennant-deciding home run. Was it an honest race or did the Giants cheat? Amazingly the facts behind this scheme remained secret for 50 years, until 2001.