New York No More

On August 19, 1957 (sixty-one years ago today), the board of directors of the New York Giants baseball team voted 8-1 to move the franchise (which had been in New York City for seventy-four years) to San Francisco.  (Such a thing would never happen in Brazil.)  It had only been three short years before (1954) that the Giants won the World Series beating the favored Cleveland Indians in four games.  

Prior to the move, the Giants competed with two other teams in New York, the Yankees and the Dodgers, for fans to attend their home games, which were played at the Polo Grounds in Manhattan on West 155th Street next to the Harlem River.  In 1925, the Giants were number one in attendance in the city.  Ten years later (1935) they were number one again, but it would be for the last time.

In 1951, the Giants won the National League pennant (lost to the Yankees in the World Series in six games) and had an average home attendance of 13,584.  Three years later, in their last championship season in New York, their average home attendance rose to 15,198.  By 1957, it had dropped to 8,493.  

Per Giant President, Horace Stoneham, "Attendance has been going down here.  Kids are still interested, but you don't see many of their parents at games."  Moving to San Francisco, where the Giants would be the sole local team, was an opportunity "too good to pass up."  Average home attendance in their new home in 1958 was 15,711, a 79% increase over the prior year.  Last year (2017) it was 40,785, twice the Giants best year in New York.

When I was growing up in the early 1950s, baseball was by far the most popular sport in America.  It was the "National Pastime."  Living where I did, New York was the closest major league city.  So everybody in Oswego was either a Yankee, a Dodger, or a Giant fan.  Most were Yankee fans, especially since they had won the World Series five straight years, from 1949 to 1953.

However, my older brother Paul was a Giant fan, so I became a Giant fan.  When he went to college in Philadelphia, he switched to the Phillies.  But, I have remained a Giant fan my whole life, even when they moved from New York to San Francisco.

The move meant little to me since I lived 300 miles from their former home in New York and never went to any of their games.  I simply followed the Giants in newspapers, magazines, on the radio and on television.  Their name (Giants) and their colors (black and orange) remained the same, so I remained loyal.

When I was nine years old (1954), the Giants won the World Series (as discussed above).  I thought it would happen again real soon.  However, it would be another 56 years (2010) until the San Francisco Giants would win their first World Series, defeating the Texas Rangers in five games.  In 2012, they won again beating the Detroit Tigers in four.  2014 brought a third championship in five years, with a victory over the Kansas City Royals in seven games.

In 1972, on a drive to California (see last week's post), I went to the only Giant home game I have ever been to, at Candlestick Park.  I hope to do it again one day at their new San Francisco home, AT&T Park.  

Ironically, tomorrow the Giants will be back in New York...but only to play some games against the team that replaced them in that city, the Mets.  They'll return home to San Francisco next Friday.