New York Giants (baseball)

1904–07

1908–16, 1919–22, 1928–29

1923–27, 1930–31

In 1902, after a series of disastrous moves that left the Giants 53+1⁄2 games behind the front-runner, Freedman signed John McGraw as player-manager, convincing him to jump in mid-season from the Baltimore Orioles (1901–1902) of the fledgling American 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 to John 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 three World 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, and John Montgomery Ward, the player-lawyer who formed the renegade Players' League in 1890 to protest unfair player contracts. McGraw, a veteran of the infamous 1890s Baltimore Orioles, in his three decades managing the Giants, McGraw managed star players including Christy Mathewson, "Iron Man" Joe McGinnity, Jim Thorpe, Red Ames, Casey Stengel, Art Nehf, Edd Roush, Rogers Hornsby, Bill Terry and Mel Ott.

The Giants under McGraw famously snubbed their first modern World Series chance in 1904 by refusing the invitation to play the reigning world champion Boston Americans (Red Sox) because McGraw considered the newly established American League of 1901, as little more than a minor league and disliked its firebrand president, Ban Johnson. He also resented his Giants' new intra-city rival New York Highlanders, who almost won the pennant but lost to Boston on the last day, and stuck by his refusal to play whoever won the 1904 AL pennant.

Hall of Fame pitcher Christy Mathewson

The ensuing criticism resulted in Brush's taking the lead to formalize the rules and format of the World Series. The Giants won the 1905 World Series over Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics, with Christy 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 the Chicago Cubs due to a late-season home tie game with the Cubs resulting from the Fred Merkle baserunning "boner". They lost the postseason replay of the tie game (ordered by NL president Harry 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 umpire Bill Klem. This could have been a disastrous scandal for baseball, but because Klem was honest and the Giants lost the duel between Christy Mathewson and Mordecai "Three-Fingered" Brown 4–2, it faded over time.

The Giants at the batting cage in 1923

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, the Federal League of 1914–1915, with the "jumping ship" signings of many of their stars, finished in last place). After losing the 1917 Series to the Chicago 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, the Yankees, who had won the first two of their many pennants, led by their new young slugger Babe Ruth, then losing to the Yankees in 1923 after the original Yankee Stadium had opened that May. They also lost in 1924, when the Washington Senators won their only World Series while in D.C. From 1923 to 1927, the team held their spring training at Payne Park in Sarasota, Florida.[7]

The "Shot Heard 'Round the World," or Bobby Thomson's come-from-behind ninth-inning walk-off home run that won the National League pennant for the Giants over their bitter rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, in the deciding game of a three-game playoff series ended one of baseball's most memorable pennant races. The Giants had been 13+1⁄2 games behind the league-leading Dodgers 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.

Willie Mays, 1954

In Game 1 of the 1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds against the Cleveland Indians, Willie Mays made "The Catch," a dramatic over-the-shoulder catch of a fly ball by Vic 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 pitcher Marv Grissom walked Dale Mitchell to load the bases. Grissom then struck out Dave Pope looking and got Jim Hegan to fly out to left fielder Monte Irvin to end the inning.

Grissom got out of another jam in the ninth when 1953 AL MVP Al Rosen flew out to Irvin with two outs and two on.

In the tenth, Grissom faced more trouble, but got Hall of Fame pitcher Bob 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 walk Hank Thompson. And with runners on first and second with one out, pinch hitter Dusty 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. The 1954 World Series title would be their last appearance in the World Series as the New York Giants, with the team moving to San Francisco to start the 1958 season.

In addition to Bobby Thomson and Willie Mays, other memorable New York Giants of the 1950s include Hall of Fame manager Leo Durocher, coach Herman Franks, Hall of Fame outfielder Monte Irvin, outfielder and runner-up for the 1954 NL batting championship (won by Willie Mays) Don Mueller, Hall of Fame knuckleball relief pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm, starting pitchers Larry Jansen, Sal Maglie, Jim Hearn, Marv Grissom, Dave Koslo, Don Liddle, Max Lanier, Rubén Gómez, Al Worthington, and Johnny Antonelli, catcher Wes Westrum, catchers Ray Katt and Sal Yvars, shortstop Alvin Dark, third baseman Hank Thompson, first baseman Whitey Lockman, second basemen Davey Williams and Eddie Stanky, outfielder-pitcher Clint Hartung and utility men Johnny Mize, Bill Rigney, Daryl Spencer, Bobby Hofman, Joey Amalfitano, Tookie Gilbert, and 1954 Series hero Dusty Rhodes, among others. In the late 1950s and after the move to San Francisco two Hall of Fame first basemen, Orlando Cepeda and Willie 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 didn't 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 considering Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota, which was home to their top farm team, the Minneapolis 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 the Minnesota Twins in 1961).

At this time, the Giants were approached by San Francisco mayor George Christopher. Despite objections from shareholders such as Joan Whitney Payson, majority owner Horace Stoneham entered into negotiations with San Francisco officials around the same time the Dodgers' owner Walter 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 and Brooklyn 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 the New York Yankees until 1962, when former Giants minority owner Joan Whitney Payson founded the New York Mets and brought National League baseball back to the city (as part of MLB's first wave of expansion). Mets chairman M. 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.