Pafko at the Wall (novella)

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'Pafko at the Wall', subtitled "The Shot Heard Round the World", was released as a novella, in 2001 by Scribner, and is essentially a repackaging of the prologue from Don DeLillo's magnum opus novel, Underworld. It is also known as The Triumph of Death, in reference to the painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Many people consider this to be the best part of the novel.

From the back cover of the book,

"On the fiftieth anniversary of "The Shot Heard Round the World," Don DeLillo reassembles in fiction the larger-than-life characters who on October 3, 1951, witnessed Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Jackie Gleason is razzing Toots Shor in Leo Durocher's box seats; J. Edgar Hoover, basking in Sinatra's celebrity, is about to be told that the Russians have tested an atomic bomb; and Russ Hodges, raw-throated and excitable, announces the game -- the Giants and the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds in New York. DeLillo's transcendent account of one of the iconic events of the twentieth century is a masterpiece of American sportswriting."

The title character is Andy Pafko, who as the Dodgers' left fielder, saw Thomson's infamous shot go over his head.

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