This story was originally published on April 15, 2007
Wars can change the world. So can elections, revolutions and great inventions. But sometimes all it takes is a little ground ball to third base.
On the warm afternoon of April 15, 1947, at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field, the Boston Braves' Dick Culler led off the game with a soft bouncer to third. The Dodgers' Spider Jorgensen fielded it and, with a slight hesitation that perhaps was an unconscious nod to posterity, threw to first.
Waiting there in the speckled light, about to leap into history, was a pigeon-toed, 28-year-old rookie.