Seat 3, Row C

That morning, burly Barney Doyle went to early Mass, hurried through breakfast and left the house at 8:30--to get a good seat for the doubleheader between the Giants and the Dodgers. Doyle, 53, a ship's carpenter, was a faithful Giant fan; whenever he could, he went to watch his favorites. He took along a friend's son, freckled Otto Flaig, 13.

From their seats in the upper grandstand of Manhattan's vast Polo Grounds, they faced home plate and, above it, rising over the top of the oval grandstand, a row of dingy apartment houses on Coogan's Bluff. In one of these houses, a young Negro, with a .45 pistol he had found in Central Park, was preparing for a celebration all by himself; he had saved his only bullet for July 4.

In the stadium, Doyle, Flaig and 49,000 others sat watching as the Dodgers, at 20 minutes after noon, walked onto the bright green grass of the field.

Up on Coogan's Bluff, 14-year-old Robert Peebles had climbed onto the roof of his dirty yellow apartment house, raised his .45 pistol and fired it, for the fun of it, into the air. His bullet looped swiftly over the Polo Grounds, sped toward Seat 3, Row C, Section 42. Just as Barney Doyle, his score card in hand, turned to speak to young Otto Flaig, the bullet smashed into Doyle's left temple, sank into his brain and stayed there. Doyle, suddenly bleeding, slumped forward.

"What's the matter?" asked Otto, and got no answer: Doyle was already dead. After police carried off the body and helped Otto away, standees scrambled for the two vacant seats, and the game began.

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