How Dodgers great Ralph Branca’s family legacy at NYU is still growing

Dylan Branca, a 6-foot-4 inch righty with a famous baseball last name, pitched a 1-2-3 inning with two strikeouts on Sunday in NYU’s 24-2 victory over the Merchant Marine Academy, part of a 4-0 opening weekend for the Violets.

Dylan’s great uncle, Ralph Branca, a member of NYU’s Athletic Hall of Fame for both baseball and basketball, enjoyed a largely successful baseball career outside of one fateful pitch.

And his grandfather, John R. Branca, earned both his undergraduate and Master’s degrees from the school to launch a career that saw him become a New York State assemblyman and chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission.

Dylan Branca poses for a photo outside the new Branca Baseball facility which is in the Palladium Athletic facility at NYU. Jason Szenes for New York Post

On Thursday, the Branca name becomes even more a part of the school’s athletic history when NYU officially opens the Branca Family baseball training center housed in the Palladium Athletic Facility on 14th Street.

The 4,400-square-foot facility, which the team has been using for several months, was an endowment from Dylan’s father.

John Branca, one of the nation’s most prominent entertainment attorneys, has represented the Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees and numerous other Rock & Roll Hall of Fame acts.

“I thought it was the right thing to do,” John Branca told The Post. “A bit of it was a tribute to my uncle Ralph and my dad and the other part of it is giving back.”

Ralph Branca’s major league career featured 88 wins, three All-Star selections and the “Shot Heard Round the World” — Bobby Thomson’s home run into the lower deck in left field at the Polo Grounds that gave the New York Giants the 1951 pennant over the Brooklyn Dodgers in a one-game playoff.

Brooklyn Dodgers great Ralph Branca poses for a picture on June 3, 1951. AP

Brothers John (John’s father and Dylan’s grandfather) and Ralph were two of 17 children born to John and Katherine Branca, and there were 13 kids living in a small house in Mount Vernon when the boys were in high school.

“My father was two years ahead of Ralph,” John, Dylan’s father, said. “On their high school team [AB Davis] that won the New York state championship, my father was the ace of the staff. He threw two no-hitters. Ralph played the outfield and pitched once in a while.

“My dad was 5-foot-10, Ralph was 6-3. My dad got drafted and spent four years in [World War II] on an aircraft carrier. When he came back, he used the GI Bill to go to NYU, and by that time Ralph was in the major leagues.”

Ralph Branca’s baseball infamy was largely unfair, as it turned out, as a 2001 Wall Street Journal story detailed how the Giants stole signs late in the 1951 season.

NYU players warm up in the new Branca Baseball facility which is in the Palladium Athletic facility at NYU. Jason Szenes for the New York Post

Many of them admitted it, though Thomson continued to insist he didn’t know which pitch was coming from Branca. Thomson died in 2010 at age 86, Ralph Branca in 2016 at 90.

“My dad would talk about it for years, that they were stealing the signs. And Ralph knew they were stealing the signs but would never say anything because he didn’t want to look like a sore loser,” John Branca, 73, said. “When it finally came out that they were stealing the signs, he felt vindicated.”

John Branca several years ago endowed a practice field at UCLA’s Jackie Robinson Stadium, and when Dylan started at NYU in 2022, he learned of the team’s logistical hardships.

The Violets play their home games in Staten Island in the minor league FerryHawks’ ballpark, and practices often required trips to 110th Street or Brooklyn or Queens.

Dylan Branca, a 6-foot-4 inch righty with a famous baseball last name, pitched a 1-2-3 inning with two strikeouts on Sunday in NYU’s 24-2 victory over the Merchant Marine Academy. Jeenah Moon for The New York Post

“Dylan told me the stories of what it took to get to the ballpark to practice,” John told The Post. “I said, ‘Dylan, you’ve got to be kidding me. You’re spending 45 minutes each way, and you’re in practice for four hours, and then you’ve got to go to Stern [Business School], where the median SAT was 1550 and the acceptance rate is 3 percent!’

“So I talked to Coach Kimbler and I said, ‘Doug, is there any way we can make it possible for the pitchers to get throwing in and the hitters to get batting practice in?’ He said they had this room they thought they could convert.”

Kimbler, who has coached the Violets since 2015 when baseball returned as a varsity sport after a 40-year hiatus, said the facility includes two batting cages, three pitching mounds and analytic devices such as TrackMan for the hitters and Rapsodo for the pitchers.

There’s a turf area where players can throw and field grounders, and a den with a refrigerator.

“It’s state of the art,” Kimbler said. “We had to travel all over the place. And now we have guys who can literally take the elevator because we have dorms above our facility.”

And so the Branca name carries on at NYU, emblazoned on a glass door at the new training facility and also on the mound with Dylan, who, like Ralph with the Dodgers, wears No. 13.

“I think it’s really cool to have Brancas playing baseball again at NYU,” he said.

“It’s wonderful,” his father adds. “I wish my dad and Ralph were around to see it. It chokes me up a little bit.”