The telephone rang in the visitors' bullpen shortly before 4 o'clock in the afternoon of Monday, Oct. 3. Coach Clyde Sukeforth, a respected baseball "lifer," picked it up. On the other end of the line was Brooklyn Dodgers' manager, Charley Dressen, calling from the dugout. He wanted Sukeforth's recommendation as to which of two pitchers warming up, 16-game winner Carl Erskine or Ralph Branca who had won 13 games during the season, he should bring in to close out the game. Sukeforth had noted that while warming up Erskine had bounced a couple of curve balls in front of the plate, creating the danger of a wild pitch. He also knew that Dodgers' Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella was out of the game with an injury and that backup catcher Rube Walker, not nearly as good defensively, had taken his place. In addition, he knew that the opposition had runners on second and third. The game was on the line. He replied to Dressen without hesitation, "Branca."

The site was the Polo Grounds in New York and the year was 1951.

It was the last of the ninth inning. The New York Giants trailed the Dodgers, four to two, but had runners in scoring position with one out when Branca was summoned into the game.

As he trudged in from the bullpen to meet his destiny, Ralph Branca knew that awaiting him on the deck circle was the Giants slugging third baseman, Bobby Thomson. What he didn't know was that also waiting for him behind a window in the manager's office of the Giants' clubhouse located beyond centerfield, about 500 feet from home plate, was Giants coach Herman Franks.

Franks was alone -- that is, if you don't count the high powered telescope and the electronic buzzer system connected to the Giants' bullpen that he had with him.

Using a system devised, but by no means invented, by Giants manager Leo Durocher, Franks used the telescope to read the enemy catcher's signs to the pitcher, then, using the buzzer system, relayed them to the bullpen, one buzz for a fastball, two for a curve. Waiting there was backup catcher Sal Yvars with a baseball in his hand. If Yvars casually tossed the ball in the air, the batter knew that a breaking ball was coming. If he held onto it, a fastball was on the way.

The idea had been brought to Durocher by Henry Schenz, a utility infielder who told his skipper that, while with the Chicago Cubs, he used to hide in the scoreboard at Wrigley Field and steal signs using a telescope.

The Giants' system had been in effect since July 20, from that point on, the Giants had a record of 24 and six when playing at home. They caught the Dodgers, who had led them by 13 and a half games, and forced a three-game playoff series, of which this was the third and deciding game. Bobby Thomson, who would hit Branca's second pitch, a fastball up and in, into the leftfield seats for baseball's most iconic home run, had been hitting just .241 when the system was installed; he raised his average 52 points, to .293, by season's end. He hit 32 home runs that season, the most ever in his career.

Even 70 years ago, electronic eavesdropping was far from a new idea. As far back as 1898, the Philadelphia Phillies used an underground wire all the way from their clubhouse in the outfield to the first base coach's box. When their chicanery was discovered, they were made to stop but otherwise went unpunished. So too, when the Giants cheating of '51 was revealed a half a century after the fact, in a 2001 Wall Street Journal expose, MLB took no action.

"Oh that Leo," was the general reaction. "What a wily rascal he was. He'd do anything to beat you, even if it meant bending the rules." Or totally fracturing them.

Small wonder, then, that the Houston Astros felt secure in their 2017 scheme of using TV cameras, a monitor, and trash can lids (talk about low tech!) to give batters a heads up as to what pitch was coming. After all, they must have reasoned, what's the worst thing that could happen? If caught, they'd do what teams had always done for more than a century; just shrug and say that everyone else was doing it, too. That would be the end of it. They thought.

When the Giants' skulduggery was uncovered 50 years after they had committed the crime, those who were still around showed no remorse and in fact took pride in their involvement. "Everybody was stealing signs," said a smiling and winking Herman Franks. "I don't know anything about our club (doing that)." Franks, who was 88 years old at the time, went to his grave, at age 95, convinced that his reputation had only been enhanced by his role in the scheme.

But times have changed. Major League Baseball is cracking down on electronic sign stealing. It's no longer tolerated. Perhaps, in retroactive punishment, Leo Durocher's plaque should be removed from the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown (Durocher died in 1991). Maybe the Giants' National League Pennant title from 1951 should be vacated. After all, we've torn down memorials to Civil War generals. Why not do the same with baseball managers?

Perhaps the best example to follow is that set by Ralph Branca and Bobby Thomson. They spent more than half a century making joint appearances together, reliving their memories of that eventful day, which made one of them a hero, the other a goat. In the process, they had become extremely close friends who cared deeply about one another.

When the story of the sign-stealing caper came out, Branca's first thoughts were of Thomson. "He still had to hit the pitch," he said. "That wasn't an easy thing to do."

Thomson, who insisted, contrary to Yvars's contention, that he'd not been forewarned of the fateful pitch, said of his old friend, "Maybe, after all these years, this will take some of the pressure off him."

- Dick Flavin is a New York Times bestselling author; the Boston Red Sox "Poet Laureate" and The Pilot's recently minted Sports' columnist.