Tag: New York Giants

OCT 23: Durocher Recognized

OCTOBER 23, 1951 | NEW YORK, NEW YORK – The Brooklyn Dodgers were comfortably in first place for most of the 1951 season. They had a 13-game lead on August 11th. That’s when everything changed. The New York Giants, lead by manager Leo Durocher, caught fire. made a dramatic comeback to win the National League pennant, and on this date in 1951 Durocher was voted Manager of the Year.

Leo Durocher was credited with patiently guiding the Giants through a horrible first half which included an 11-game losing streak. Durocher was also in charge when the Giants won 37 of their last 45 games. They tied the Dodgers on the last day of the season, forcing a 3-game playoff . The Giants’ Bobby Thomson settled the matter with the “shot heard ’round the world,” a stunning 3-run home run to win the pennant.

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Leo Durocher was flamboyant, combative and a solid shortstop during a 20-year playing career. He won over 2,000 games in a 26=year managerial career. As exhilarating as the 1951 season was, he felt the opposite emotion managing the collapse of the 1969 Chicago Cubs, a team that seemed headed for the World Series.

Leo Durocher was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.

Contributing Sources:
Leo Durocher-Stats
1951 game-by-game results/standings
Misc – Wikipedia

June 28 in baseball history – Unusual place to play

JUNE 28, 1911 | NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A new Polo Grounds opened for business on this date in 1911. The “previous” Polo Grounds was severely damaged by fire two and a half months earlier. The Polo Grounds was one of the most unusual stadiums in a sport known for unusual venues. It was described as horseshoe shaped, some say it looked like a bathtub. To put a baseball diamond in such a structure meant the left and right field foul lines were extremely short, less than 280 feet, while center field was a country mile – more than 470 ft.

Another unusual trait was that the left field upper deck extended more than 20 feet over the lower deck, which meant an outfielder could be waiting for the ball to drop in his glove, only for it land in the upper deck for a home run.

So why was the Polo Grounds called “The Polo Grounds”? For the reason you’d expect, the original of four structures to occupy the site was made for polo.

Here are the four New York major league baseball teams that called the Polo Grounds home:
• Metropolitans 1883-1885 member of American Association, dissolved in 1887
• New York (Baseball) Giants 1883-1957 moved to San Francisco in 1958
• New York Yankees 1912-1922 moved to Yankee Stadium in 1923
• New York Mets 1962-1963 moved to Shea Stadium in 1964

The Polo Grounds was also home to a couple National Football League teams; the New York Giants and New York Bulldogs. It also housed the New York Titans (now the Jets) of the American Football League (now the NFL). For baseball, the Polo Grounds was a very unusual place to play.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Giants history
Mets history
Yankees history
Metropolitans history

A STORY FROM APRIL 18 IN BASEBALL HISTORY-HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT OPENS

TODAY IN BASEBALL TAKES US TO NEW YORK CITY, APRIL 18, 1923. ‘The house that Ruth built’ opened on this date in 1923. That’s what Yankee Stadium quickly became known as.

Babe Ruth  came to the Yankees in 1920, the result of an infamous purchase from the Boston Red Sox. He went on to become the biggest drawing card in all of sports.

The Yankee Stadium that Ruth built, in effect, disappeared in the mid-1970's when it was completely overhauled.

Yankee Stadium was baseball’s first triple deck structure. It was also the first baseball venue to be called a “stadium.” Others were usually called “Parks” or “Fields.”

It had some interesting dimensions that changed from time to time. For most of the original stadium’s history the fences down the foul lines were quite inviting: 301 down the left and 296 down the right. Left quickly ballooned out to over 400 feet. Straight-away center-field was 461 feet from home plate. The Yankee Stadium that Ruth built, in effect, disappeared in the mid-1970’s when it was completely overhauled.

Before Yankee Stadium, the Bronx Bombers played their home games in the Polo Grounds as tenants of the New York Giants. Tenant and landlord had a falling out in 1920. The Yankees were told to leave as soon as possible. The discord was partly due to the Yankees Bronx Bombers doubling their attendance that season to almost 1.3 million fans, 100,000 more than the Giants. Babe Ruth, with his prodigious home runs, was the main attraction. So Yankee Stadium was built a quarter mile from the Polo Grounds.

The Yankees won the first of many World Championships in that inaugural year of 1923. The victim – their former landlord, the New York Giants. The Giants couldn’t wait for the Yankees to move into the house that Ruth built.

JAN 27: MLB EXPANDS

TODAY’S STORY TAKES US TO JANUARY 27TH 10 YEARS APART – 1956 & 1966. EVENTS ON THOSE DATES FORESHADOWED A MAJOR SHIFT BY MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL WEST & SOUTH.

On this date in 1956 the New York football Giants announced they would desert the Polo Grounds for Yankee Stadium. The New York baseball Giants also called the Polo Grounds home. The football team moving added to speculation that the baseball Giants wouldn’t be long for the Polo Grounds either.

The Associated Press reported that the baseball Giants were contemplating a “move across the Harlem River” to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx by 1957. Fat chance the Yankees would let that happen.

The baseball Giants ended up moving in 1958, but far beyond The Bronx. They moved across country to San Francisco. The Dodgers left Brooklyn for Los Angeles the same year.

Eight years later the City of Milwaukee tried to get the Braves back from Atlanta. The team left Wisconsin after the 1965 season, but hadn’t played any games in Georgia yet.

On this date in 1966 Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge Elmer Roller stopped short of ordering the league to expand to Milwaukee. He instructed that Major League Baseball should do everything “within their scope” to get a team in Milwaukee.

As it turned out, the Braves stayed in Atlanta.

The American League franchise Seattle Pilots left Puget Sound for Milwaukee in 1970. They changed their name to the Brewers and remain there to this day.

The Dodgers and Giants have been in their respective Los Angeles and San Francisco homes for more than 6 decades, and continue to thrive.

The Polo Grounds in New York was demolished in 1964.

More information:
Chicago Tribune, Judge Orders NL: Stay in Milwaukee, January 28, 1966
“They took our hearts too,” New York Times, May 28, 1957
United Press International, January 28, 1966
Associated Press, January 28, 1956
New York/San Francisco Giants history