New York Giants: A Baseball Album
By Richard Bak
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About this ebook
17 National League pennants and 8 world pennants the team won during this period, there were the unique personalities and imperishable moments that remain so much a part of the lore of the game: John McGraw s pugnacity, Christy Mathewson s fadeaway, Fred Snodgrass s muff, Mel Ott s leg kick, Carl
Hubbell s scroogie, Bobby Thomson s home run, and Willie Mays catch. Even the Giants ballpark, the Polo Grounds, had a personality of its own, with a center field that seemed as expansive as Utah and abbreviated foul lines that turned many an ordinary fly ball into a mighty home run.
Richard Bak
Richard Bak, sports historian and author of New York Yankees: The Golden Era, tells the story of this historic team with an illustrated chronicle using nearly 190 vintage photographs, period advertisements, and historic scorecards to recapture 75 years of memories provided by the New York Giants, a team that�with apologies to Tony Bennett�may have moved to San Francisco but left its heart in Manhattan.
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New York Giants - Richard Bak
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INTRODUCTION
SEVENTY-FIVE SUMMERS
The New York Giants have sent more men to the Baseball Hall of Fame than any other team, a distinction that only begins to hint at the place this storied franchise holds in the long history of America’s national pastime.
Between 1883 and 1957, a span of 75 summers, the Giants were one of professional sports’ great dynasties. Aside from the 17 National League pennants and eight world championships (in 1888, 1889, 1894, 1905, 1921, 1922, 1933, and 1954) the team won during this period, there were the unique personalities and imperishable moments that remain so much a part of the lore of the game: John McGraw’s pugnacity, Christy Mathewson’s fadeaway, Fred Snodgrass’s muff, Mel Ott’s leg kick, Carl Hubbell’s scroogie, Bobby Thomson’s home run, Willie Mays’ catch. Even the Giants’ ballpark, the Polo Grounds, had a personality of its own, with a center field that seemed as expansive as Utah and abbreviated foul lines that turned many an ordinary fly ball into a mighty home run.
This illustrated chronicle uses nearly 190 vintage photographs, period advertisements, and historic scorecards to recapture 75 years of memories provided by the New York Giants, a team that—with apologies to Tony Bennett—may have moved to San Francisco but left its heart in Manhattan.
THE OLD AND THE NEW. Jim Mutrie and Bill Terry exchange pleasantries in 1933, on the 50th anniversary of the Giants’ debut in the National League. The octogenarian Mutrie had been one of the Giants’ original owners and the 34-year-old Terry was in his first full season as the club’s manager.
One
MY STRONG FELLOWS
THE 1883 GOTHAMS. Seen here is the inaugural edition of the New York Giants, who for their first few seasons were known as the Gothams. Pictured, from left to right, are (front row) Mickey Welch and Dasher Troy; (middle row) Pat Gillespie, Tip O’Neill, John Clapp, Ed Caskin, and Roger Connor; (back row) Buck Ewing, Frank Hankinson, Mike Dorgan, and Monte Ward. New York opened up league play on May 1, 1883. A crowd of 15,000, including former President U.S. Grant, watched New York beat Boston, 7-5.
THE MAN WHO NAMED THE GIANTS. Sports promoter Jim Mutrie owned and managed New York entries in the National League and American Association, frequently upgrading the former with top-notch players from the latter. After his National League team finished a close second to Cap Anson’s Chicago White Stockings in 1886, Mutrie exclaimed, My big fellows! My giants!
The name stuck.
BUCK EWING. The first catcher to use a pillow
glove was Buck Ewing, a future Hall of Famer widely regarded as one of the brainiest men in the game. Ewing was one of several players used to stock the Giants from the failed Troy franchise after the 1882 season. Ewing hit ten home runs for the sixth-place Giants in 1883, at the time a major league record. The versatile Ewing played all nine positions during his career and displayed surprising base running ability, stealing 53 bases in 1888, the season he batted lead-off for the Giants’ first pennant winner.
TOBACCO CARD, C.1887. The historic connection between nicotine and the national pastime was never stronger than in the 19th century, when most American males either chewed or smoked tobacco. In the 1880s, New York’s La Hacienda Cigar Company issued colorful trade cards featuring several major league stars, including the Giants’ Hall of Fame pitcher, Smiling Mickey
Welch.
SMILING MICKEY. Good-humored Mickey Welch gave New York fans something to smile about, winning 311 games during a big-league career that stretched from 1880 to 1892. His ten years with the Giants included a 44-11 record in 1885, a season in which the diminutive Brooklyn native won 17 in a row. Welch, who once pitched 105 straight complete games, attributed his success to his favorite beer, for which he wrote the following jingle: Pure elixer of malt and hops/Beats all the drugs and all the drops.
ORATOR O’ROURKE. Jim O’Rourke, the product of a poor Connecticut farm family, grew into one of baseball’s great ambassadors during his half-century as player, activist, and executive. The eloquent O’Rourke had a law degree from Yale and was a major contributor to New York’s 1888–89 pennant winners. Principally an outfielder, he batted .310 during his Hall of Fame career, which included one last game in 1904 as a 52-year-old catcher for John McGraw’s Giants.
THE ORIGINAL POLO GROUNDS, 1886. Between 1883 and 1888 the Giants played