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| New York Giants | |||||
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| Information | |||||
| League | National League (1883–1957) | ||||
| Ballpark | Polo Grounds III (1891–1957) | ||||
| Established | 1883 | ||||
| Relocated | 1958 (toSan Francisco; became theSan Francisco Giants) | ||||
| Nicknames | |||||
| World Series championships | 5 | ||||
| Pre-modern World Series championships | 2 | ||||
| National League pennant | 17 | ||||
| Temple Cup | 1 | ||||
| Former name | New York Gothams (1883–1884) | ||||
| Former ballparks | |||||
| Colors | Black, orange, white[3][4] | ||||
| Retired numbers | |||||
| Ownership | List of owners
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| General manager | Chub Feeney (1950–1957) | ||||
| Manager | List of managers
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TheNew York Giants were aMajor League Baseball team in theNational League that began play in the1883 season as theNew York Gothams[a] and became known as the Giants in1885. They continued as the New York Giants until the teammoved toSan Francisco after the1957 season, where the team continuesits history as theSan Francisco Giants. The team moved west at the same time as its longtime rival, theBrooklyn Dodgers, also in the National League, moved toLos Angeles inSouthern California as theLos Angeles Dodgers, continuing the National League, same-staterivalry.
During most of their 75 seasons inNew York City, the Giants played home games at various incarnations of thePolo Grounds inUpper Manhattan.Numerous inductees of theNational Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum played for the New York Giants, includingChristy Mathewson (a member of the Hall of Fame's inaugural class),John McGraw,Mel Ott,Bill Terry,Willie Mays,Monte Irvin,Frankie Frisch,Ross Youngs andTravis Jackson. During the club's tenure in New York, it won five of the franchise's eight World Series championships and 17 of its 23 National League pennants. Famous moments in the Giants' New York history include the1922 World Series, in which the Giants swept the Yankees in four games,Bobby Thomson's 1951 home run known as the"Shot Heard 'Round the World", and the defensive feat byWillie Mays during the first game of the1954 World Series known as"the Catch".
The Giants had intense rivalries with their fellow New York teams theNew York Yankees and theBrooklyn Dodgers, facing the Yankees in six World Series and playing the league rival Dodgers multiple times per season. Games between any two of these three teams were known collectively as theSubway Series.
TheNew York Giants of theNational Football League were named after the team; to distinguish the two clubs, the football team was legally incorporated as theNew York Football Giants, which remains its corporate name to this day.
The New York Giants had an overall win–loss record of 6,067–4,898–157 (.553) during their 74 years in New York. Nineteen former New York Giants players were elected to theNational Baseball Hall of Fame.
The Giants began as the second baseball club founded by millionairetobacconistJohn B. Day and veteran amateur baseball playerJim Mutrie. TheGothams, as the Giants were originally known, entered theNational League seven years after its 1876 formation, in1883, while their other club, theMetropolitans played in the rivalAmerican Association (1882–1891). Nearly half of the original Gothams players were members of the disbandedTroy Trojans inupstate New York, whose place in the National League the Gothams inherited. While theMetropolitans were initially the more successful club, after they won the1884 AA championship, Day and Mutrie began moving star players to the NL Gothams, whose fortunes improved while the Metropolitans' afterwards slumped.
It is said that after one particularly satisfying victory over thePhiladelphia Phillies, Mutrie (who was also the team's manager) stormed into the dressing room and exclaimed, "My big fellows! My giants!"[6] From then on (1885), the club was known as the Giants. However, more recent research has suggested that theNew York World was already widely using the Giants nickname throughout the 1885 season, before the legendary game was played.[7]
The team won its first National Leaguepennant in1888, as well as a victory over theSt. Louis Browns in an early incarnation of the pre-modern-eraWorld Series. They repeated as championsthe next year with a pennant and world championship victory overBrooklyn.
The Giants' original home stadium, thePolo Grounds, also dates from this early era. It had been built in 1876 as a pitch for playing polo, and was located north ofCentral Park adjacent to Fifth and Sixth Avenues and 110th and 112th Streets, inHarlem in upperManhattan. After their eviction from that first incarnation of the Polo Grounds after the 1888 season, they moved further uptown to various fields which they also named the "Polo Grounds" located between 155th and 159th Streets inHarlem andWashington Heights, playing at the famous Washington Heights location at the foot ofCoogan's Bluff until the end of the 1957 season, when they moved toSan Francisco.
The Giants were a powerhouse in the late 1880s, winning their first two National League Pennants and World Championships in1888 and1889. But nearly all of the Giants' stars jumped to the upstart newly organized rival loop, thePlayers' League, whose New York franchise was also namedthe Giants, in 1890. The new team even built a stadium next door to the NL Polo Grounds. With a decimated roster, the NL Giants finished a distant sixth. Attendance took a nosedive, and the financial strain affected Day's tobacco business as well. The Players' League dissolved after the single season, and Day sold a minority interest in his NL Giants to the defunct PL Giants' principal backer,Edward Talcott. As a condition of the sale, Day had to fire Mutrie as manager. Although the Giants rebounded to third place in 1891, Day was forced to sell a controlling interest to Talcott at the end of the '91 season.
In 1894, the Giants, as runner-up in theNational League, took part in the1894 Temple Cup championship series against theBaltimore Orioles, sweeping in four games and winning the firstTemple Cup.
Four years later, Talcott sold the Giants toAndrew Freedman, a real estate developer with ties to theTammany Hall, the political machine of theDemocratic Party that ran New York City. Freedman was one of the most detested owners in baseball history, getting into heated disputes with other owners, writers and his own players, most famously with star pitcherAmos Rusie, author of the first Giants no-hitter. When Freedman offered Rusie only $2,500 for 1896, the disgruntled hurler sat out the entire season. Attendance fell off throughout the league without Rusie, prompting the other owners to chip in $50,000 to get him to return for 1897. Freedman even hired former owner Day as manager for part of the 1899 season.[8][9]
In 1902, after a series of disastrous moves that left the Giants53+1⁄2 games behind the front-runner, Freedman signedJohn McGraw as player-manager, convincing him to jump in mid-season from theBaltimore Orioles (1901–1902) of the fledglingAmerican League and bring with him several of his teammates. McGraw went on to manage the Giants for three decades until 1932, one of the longest and most successful tenures in professional sports. Hiring "Mr. McGraw", as his players referred to him, was one of Freedman's last significant moves as owner of the Giants, since after that 1902 season he was forced to sell his interest in the club toJohn T. Brush. McGraw went on to manage the Giants to nine National League pennants (in 1904, 1905, and every year from 1911 to 1913) and threeWorld Series championships (in 1905, 1921, and 1922), with a tenth pennant and fourth world championship as Giants owner in 1933 under his handpicked player-manager successor,Bill Terry.
The Giants already had their share of stars beginning in the 1880s and 1890s, such as"Smiling" Mickey Welch,Roger Connor,Tim Keefe,Jim O'Rourke, andJohn Montgomery Ward, the player-lawyer who formed the renegadePlayers' League in 1890 to protest unfair player contracts. McGraw, a veteran of the infamous 1890sBaltimore Orioles, in his three decades managing the Giants, McGraw managed star players includingChristy Mathewson,"Iron Man" Joe McGinnity,Jim Thorpe,Red Ames,Casey Stengel,Art Nehf,Edd Roush,Rogers Hornsby,Bill Terry andMel Ott.
The Giants under McGraw famously snubbed their first modernWorld Series chance in1904 by refusing the invitation to play thereigning world championBoston Americans (Red Sox) because McGraw considered the newly establishedAmerican League of 1901 as little more than aminor league and disliked its firebrand presidentBan Johnson. He also resented his Giants' new intra-city rivalNew York Highlanders, who almost won the pennant but lost toBoston on the last day, and stuck by his refusal to play whoever won the 1904 AL pennant.
The ensuing criticism resulted in Brush's taking the lead to formalize the rules and format of the World Series. TheGiants won the1905 World Series overConnie Mack'sPhiladelphia Athletics, withChristy Mathewson nearly winning the series single-handedly with a still-standing record three complete-game shutouts and 27 consecutive scoreless innings in that one World Series.
The Giants then had several frustrating years. In 1908, they finished in a tie with theChicago Cubs due to a late-season home tie game with the Cubs resulting from theFred Merkle baserunning "boner". They lost the postseason replay of the tie game (ordered by NL presidentHarry Pulliam) to the Cubs (after disgruntled Giants fans had set fire to the stands the morning of the game), who would go on to win their second (consecutive, and their last for the next 108 years) World Series. That post-season game was further darkened by a story that someone on the Giants had attempted to bribe umpireBill Klem. This could have been a disastrous scandal for baseball, but because Klem was honest and the Giants lost the duel betweenChristy Mathewson and Mordecai "Three-Fingered" Brown 4–2, it faded over time.
The Giants experienced a mixture of success and hard luck in the early 1910s, losing three straight World Series in 1911–1913 to the A's, Red Sox and A's again (two seasons later, both the Giants and the A's, decimated by the short-lived rival third loop, theFederal League of 1914–1915, with the "jumping ship" signings of many of their stars, finished in last place). After losing the1917 Series to theChicago White Sox (the last World Series win for the White Sox until 2005), the Giants played in four straight World Series in the early 1920s, winning the first two over their Polo Grounds tenants, theYankees, who had won the first two of their many pennants, led by their new young sluggerBabe Ruth, then losing to theYankees in1923 after the originalYankee Stadium had opened that May. They also lost in 1924, when theWashington Senators won their only World Series while in D.C. From 1923 to 1927, the team held their spring training atPayne Park inSarasota, Florida.[10]
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McGraw handed over the team to Bill Terry midway through the 1932 season. Terry served as manager for nine-and-a-half years, serving as player-manager until 1936. Under Terry, the Giants won three pennants, defeating theSenators in the1933 World Series but swept by the Yankees in consecutive fall classics,1936 and1937. Aside from Terry himself, the other stars of the era were sluggerMel Ott and southpaw hurlerCarl Hubbell. Known as "King Carl" and "The Meal Ticket", Hubbell gained fame in the first two innings of the1934 All-Star Game (played at the Polo Grounds) by striking out five future AL Hall of Famers in a row:Babe Ruth,Lou Gehrig,Jimmie Foxx,Al Simmons andJoe Cronin.
Ott succeeded Terry as manager in 1942, but the war years proved to be difficult for the Giants. Midway during the 1948 seasonBrooklyn Dodgers managerLeo Durocher left as Dodgers skipper to manage the Giants, not without controversy. Not only was such a midseason managerial switch unprecedented, but Durocher had been accused of gambling in 1947 and subsequently suspended for that whole season byBaseball CommissionerAlbert "Happy" Chandler. Durocher's ensuing eight full seasons managing the Giants proved some of the most memorable for their fans, particularly because of the arrival of five-tool superstarWillie Mays, their two pennants in 1951 and 1954, their unexpected sweep of the powerful (111–43)Cleveland Indians in the1954 World Series and arguably the two most famous plays in Giants history.
The "Shot Heard 'Round the World," orBobby Thomson's come-from-behind ninth-inningwalk-off home run that won the National League pennant for the Giants over their bitter rivals, theBrooklyn Dodgers, in the deciding game of a three-game playoff series ended one of baseball's most memorable pennant races. TheGiants had been13+1⁄2 games behind the league-leadingDodgers in August, but under Durocher's guidance and with a 16-game winning streak, got hot and caught the Dodgers to tie for the lead on the next-to-last day of the season.
In Game 1 of the1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds against theCleveland Indians, Willie Mays made "The Catch," a dramatic over-the-shoulder catch of a fly ball byVic Wertz after sprinting with his back to the plate on a dead run to deepest center field. At the time the game was tied 2–2 in the eighth inning, with men on first and second and nobody out. Mays caught the ball 450 ft (140 m) from the plate, whirled and threw the ball to the infield, keeping the lead runner,Larry Doby, from scoring. Doby advanced to third on the play, and then new pitcherMarv Grissom walkedDale Mitchell to load the bases. Grissom then struck outDave Pope looking and gotJim Hegan to fly out to left fielderMonte Irvin to end the inning.
Grissom got out of another jam in the ninth when 1953AL MVPAl Rosen flew out to Irvin with two outs and two on.
In the tenth, Grissom faced more trouble, but gotHall of Fame pitcherBob Lemon to line out with runners on the corners and 2 outs, preserving the tie game.
In the bottom of the tenth, Willie Mays drew a 1 out walk and stole second base, thus prompting Lemon to intentionally walkHank Thompson. And with runners on first and second with one out, pinch hitterDusty Rhodes hit a walk off home run that just squeaked over the right field wall at an estimated 260 feet (79 m).
The underdog Giants went on to sweep the series in four straight, despite the Indians'American League 111–43 regular season. The1954 World Series title would be their last appearance in the World Series as theNew York Giants, with the team moving to San Francisco to start the 1958 season.
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In addition toBobby Thomson andWillie Mays, other memorableNew York Giants of the 1950s includeHall of Fame managerLeo Durocher, coachHerman Franks, Hall of Fame outfielderMonte Irvin, outfielder and runner-up for the 1954 NL batting championship (won by Willie Mays)Don Mueller, Hall of Fameknuckleball relief pitcherHoyt Wilhelm, starting pitchersLarry Jansen,Sal Maglie,Jim Hearn,Marv Grissom,Dave Koslo,Don Liddle,Max Lanier,Rubén Gómez,Al Worthington, andJohnny Antonelli, catcherWes Westrum, catchersRay Katt andSal Yvars, shortstopAlvin Dark, third basemanHank Thompson, first basemanWhitey Lockman, second basemenDavey Williams andEddie Stanky, outfielder-pitcherClint Hartung and utility menJohnny Mize,Bill Rigney,Daryl Spencer,Bobby Hofman,Joey Amalfitano,Tookie Gilbert, and 1954 Series heroDusty Rhodes, among others. In the late 1950s and after the move to San Francisco two Hall of Fame first basemen,Orlando Cepeda andWillie McCovey, joined the team.
The Giants' final three years in New York City were unmemorable. They stumbled to third place the year after their World Series win, and attendance fell off precipitously. Even before then, the Polo Grounds had become an albatross around the team. It had not been well maintained since the 1940s, and any renovations would have been hindered by the fact that the Giants did not own the parcel of land on which it stood. The Polo Grounds had almost no parking, and the neighborhood around it had become less desirable.
While seeking a new stadium to replace the crumbling Polo Grounds, the Giants began to contemplate a move from New York, initially consideringMetropolitan Stadium inBloomington, Minnesota, which was home to their top farm team, theMinneapolis Millers. Under the rules of the time, the Giants' ownership of the Millers gave them priority rights to a major league team in the area (the Senators wound up there as theMinnesota Twins in 1961).
At this time, the Giants were approached bySan Francisco mayorGeorge Christopher. Despite objections from shareholders such asJoan Whitney Payson, majority ownerHorace Stoneham entered into negotiations with San Francisco officials around the same time the Dodgers' ownerWalter O'Malley was courting the city of Los Angeles. O'Malley had been told that the Dodgers would not be allowed to move to Los Angeles unless a second team moved to California as well. He pushed Stoneham toward moving, and so in the summer of 1957 both the Giants andBrooklyn Dodgers announced their moves to California, ending the three-team golden age of baseball in New York City.
New York would remain a one-team town with theNew York Yankees until 1962, when former Giants minority ownerJoan Whitney Payson founded theNew York Mets and brought National League baseball back to the city (as part of MLB's first wave of expansion). Mets chairmanM. Donald Grant had represented Payson on the Giants board, and as such had been the only board member to vote against the Giants' move to California. The "NY" script on the Giants' caps and the orange trim on their uniforms, along with the blue background used by the Dodgers, would be adopted by the Mets, honoring their New York NL forebears with a blend of Giants orange and Dodgers blue.
The historic and heated rivalry between the Giants and theDodgers is more than a century old. It began when the Giants andBrooklyn Bridegrooms (later known as the Dodgers) faced each other in the1889 World Series, the ancestor of the Subway Series, and both played in separate, neighboring cities (New York and Brooklyn were separate cities until 1898, when they became neighboring boroughs of the newly expanded New York City). When both franchises moved toCalifornia after the 1957 season, the rivalry was easily transplanted, as the cities ofSan Francisco andLos Angeles have long been economic, political, and cultural rivals, representative of the broaderNorthern/Southern California divide.
The following inducted members of the Hall of Fame played or managed for the Giants, but either played for the Giants and were inducted as a manager having never managed the Giants, or managed the Giants and were inducted as a player having never played for the Giants:
The New York/San Francisco Giants have retired 11 numbers. Two were retired while the team was in New York. After the team moved west, they retired three more numbers used by New York players and honored two New York players who played before numbers were commonly worn.
Every New York Giant whose number has been retired has been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
In 1944, Carl Hubbell (#11) became the first National Leaguer to have his number retired by his team.[11] Bill Terry (#3), Mel Ott (#4), and Hubbell played or managed their entire careers for the New York Giants. Willie Mays (#24) began his career in New York and moved with the Giants to San Francisco in 1958.
Similarly honored areJohn McGraw (3B, 1902–06; manager, 1902–32) andChristy Mathewson (P, 1900–16), members of the New York team before the introduction of uniform numbers; they have the letters "NY" displayed in place of a number.
BroadcasterRuss Hodges (1949–57) is represented by an old-style radio microphone displayed in place of a number.
The Giants have had ten official recordedcaptains over the years:[12]
| Total Games | Wins | Losses | Win % | |
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| New York Gothams/Giants regular season record | 10,965 | 6,067 | 4,898 | .553 |
| New York Giants postseason record[15][b] | 82 | 39 | 41 | .488 |
| All-time regular and postseason record | 11,047 | 6,106 | 4,939 | .552 |
| Pre-World Series postseason record | 23 | 16 | 7 | .696 |
| Overall record | 11,070 | 6,122 | 4,946 | .552 |
The Giants have been noted for their classic black-and-orange look throughout their history – whether in New York or San Francisco.
| Awards and achievements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Pittsburgh Pirates 1901–1903 | National League champions New York Giants 1905 | Succeeded by Chicago Cubs 1906–1908 |
| Preceded by | World Series champions New York Giants 1905 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Chicago Cubs 1910 | National League champions New York Giants 1911–1913 | Succeeded by Boston Braves 1914 |
| Preceded by Brooklyn Robins 1916 | National League champions New York Giants 1917 | Succeeded by Chicago Cubs 1918 |
| Preceded by Brooklyn Robins 1916 | National League champions New York Giants 1917 | Succeeded by Chicago Cubs 1918 |
| Preceded by Brooklyn Robins 1920 | National League champions New York Giants 1921–1924 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | World Series champions New York Giants 1921–1922 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Chicago Cubs 1932 | National League champions New York Giants 1933 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | World Series champions New York Giants 1933 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Chicago Cubs 1935 | National League champions New York Giants 1936–1937 | Succeeded by Chicago Cubs 1938 |
| Preceded by | National League champions New York Giants 1951 | Succeeded by Brooklyn Dodgers 1952–1953 |
| Preceded by Brooklyn Dodgers 1952–1953 | National League champions New York Giants 1954 | Succeeded by Brooklyn Dodgers 1955–1956 |
| Preceded by | World Series champions New York Giants 1954 | Succeeded by |
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