Branca didn't always control himself. He hit Thomson with a pitch in an old timers' game. That was after he'd learned that not only Thomson's home run, but also the Giants' exceptional stretch run that caused the playoff, had been assisted by illegal sign stealing from the center field clubhouse signaled to the batter from the right field bullpen. Branca, who became an insurance salesman after baseball, was quite successful at that because his name was well known, and he profited from the publicity he got from many co-appearances with Thomson over many years. They had been friends, driving around the country in the same car after the end of one season in the 1940's, when they played together on a barnstorming exhibition baseball tour. But Branca did not forgive Thomson for covering up the whole sordid business and never admitting what Durocher's Giants had done. Strange that Howard Cosell, who narrated the program from which the video above is drawn, never told it like it is about this iconic event, for he was also close to Branca. I think that MLB, which was not prosperous in the 1950's, knew that the Giants' 1951 season gave the fans of all the mediocre MLB teams (ie almost all of them) cause for hope that their team could salvage a pennant after a perfectly mediocre start, and the legendary events thereby kept a good fraction of the 2 leagues in business. Professional baseball is like the hot dog you eat there; you don't want to know how it's made.