Thomson’s home run was one of the most famous in baseball history. More than anything else, I think, what gave it such appeal among baseball fans is that it demonstrated that, in baseball, it truly ain’t over till it’s over (as Yogi Berra would say). The Giants had been trailing the Dodgers by 13 1/2 games on August 11. While the Dodgers seemed to try to coast after that, barely playing .500 ball over the last month-and-a-half of the season, the Giants won 37 of their last 44 games, including their last seven in a row.

Even with that extraordinary streak, the Giants just barely edged their way into a tie with the Dodgers, necessitating a three-game tie-breaking season. (That was before league playoffs became an annual event.) On the afternoon of October 3rd, the two teams found themselves tied at 1 game each. The Dodgers had a 4-1 lead going into the 9th, causing a lot of Giants fans to leave in despair. (Although I’m sure they all claimed later to still have been in the stadium when history was made.)

But the Giants rallied to pull to 4-2 with runners on 1st and 3rd. That brought up Thomson, who hit the 1-1 pitch over the fence and into baseball history.

It’s hard to imagine anything like that happening in any other sport. Oh sure, teams come back in football, basketball, hockey. And it can be quite exciting. But in all of those sports, teams that are trailing don’t just face their opponents. They face a clock. In baseball, the game doesn’t end until one team records 27 outs. It could go on forever.

I think that’s why Thomson’s home run was so celebrated — it signified baseball’s never-say-die spirit.

Perhaps it signified something else as well. The post-war belief that anything was possible, and nothing was impossible.

Located on the Stanford University campus, the Hoover Institution has one of greatest libraries on Earth, 25 miles-worth of materials on political, economic and social change.  It is also the home of some of the world’s most innovative scholars and thinkers in economics and foreign policy, including Nobel Prize winners and former Secretaries of State.  Hoover scholars frequently publish short policy pieces that are punchy and inventive.

And yet in the East Coast policy world, Hoover was punching below its intellectual weight.  The White House Writers Group was brought in to help Hoover better establish its presence in the nation’s capital, paving the way for its active Washington office.

WHWG continues to help organize salon dinners and lunches for its scholars to share ideas with media and policymakers. WHWG also places Hoover opinion-editorials, markets and promotes their books and papers to key decision-makers, and helped their TV show, Uncommon Knowledge, undergo a successful migration from broadcast to widely subscribed webcast.

Its work has covered a wide range of issues and activities, for example:

• Regarding telecommunications reform: Conveyed to the Washington policy community the dramatic changes in the telecommunications industry over the past two decades. WHWG’s messaging became shorthand throughout the policy world for describing how to bring regulations up to date.

• Regarding health care: WHWG help position the company as a health policy leader. This included helping to build relationships at the most senior levels between the company and other major players.

• Regarding patent reform: Through developing and organizing both briefings and conferences, WHWG helped the company advance the patent policy discussion in both the legislative and the judicial branches of the Federal government.