I was surprised  but probably shouldn’t have been  that so many people had never heard of Bobby Thomson, who died at his home in Savannah, Ga., last week at the age of 86.

Thomson was among a small handful of public figures whose names have resonated most strongly with me through nearly my entire life. I was fresh out of kindergarten when he hit the most famous home run in history  the “shot heard round the world” that deeply traumatized the Brooklyn Dodgers and their fans and propelled the New York Giants into the 1951 World Series against the Yankees.

My dad, Chester Herbert (who was only in his 20s at the time), had an upholstery shop on Central Avenue in East Orange, N.J., and I was in the back of the shop with a cast of characters straight out of Damon Runyon. My mother’s name was Adelaide, and there were assorted craftsmen and hangers-on with names like Moe and Brownie and Earl Love and my beloved Uncle Breeze.

We were listening to the game on the radio. Nearly everyone was rooting for the Giants. But things looked beyond bleak when Thomson came to bat in the bottom of the ninth in the third and deciding game of a playoff series to determine who would win the National League pennant. There was one out and two runners were on base, and the archrival Dodgers were ahead, 4-2.