Giants move was quiet

[Ottman]

I'm too young to remember the Giants and the Dodgers playing in New York although my father has 8mm film of the Cardinals and Mets playing at the Polo Grounds in 1963. I find the whole Giant/Dodger move extremely interesting. There seems to be a myriad of reasons and theories. Can anyone recommend a book that definitively deals with the subject? Does such a book exist, and if not one should be written!

[Perseus71]

I just wanted to add in that the Giants also were talked about in a move to Denver, before the expansion team got awarded to them. The Denver Post, at the time, put the "D" on the baseball cap and put Denver in the Giants logo. Quite sickening to tell you the truth... The Denver Giants?

The Giants have a nice home now, but like I said in the Dodger forum,"How do you leave the #1 market in the country?" The Mets are worth more than the Dodgers and Giants combined, so the NY National League team gets the last laugh. Plus a better stadium now!

[nl1899fan]

Compared to the Brooklyn Dodgers move to LA which was in the newspapers every day, there was very little written about the Giants move to SF. O'Malley was always being quoted, nothing much was ever said about Stoneham. Was it that nobody believed Stoneham would move, or that none of the City fathers cared if they did. I remember stories about Stoneham begging to come to meetings with the city fathers and O'Malley, but he was never invited. How come?

I never have understood this myself. It seemed like New York didn't care if the Giants left-very little is written about this half of the double move west.
Pretty ironic, since the Giants were once THE team in town until that Babe Ruth guy showed up.

The city bigshots probably figured if the Giants left the Dodgers wouldn't dare to do so too even though the signs were all there and the NL insisted that a move west would be a package deal. True the Giants were in bad shape by 1957 but more effort should have been made to keep them-had they stayed put two more years the Giants would have done well financially in New York when Cepeda, Mc Covey, Marichal and the rest came up.

[aqib]

Were I a professor in an MBA program, here's an assignment I'd give to each student:

Make an economic case for the Dodgers (or Giants) leaving NY in 1957.

Then make the opposite case.

Would make for interesting reading, I suspect.

That would have made getting my MBA so much more fun, but I am sure anyone who made too strong of a case FOR the Dodgers move would fail in my school because I went to NYU. The University president is John Sexton the same one who was in the HBO documentary telling the story of how his Catholic school teacher wouldn't let them listen to game 7 of the 1955 series as a punishment. Towards the end of the movie he says "Walter O'Malley is in the 7th layer of Dante's h**l with some of the most vile people of the 20th century." So I am pretty sure if I wanted to graduate my case would have to say "yeah the Giants should go because who likes the Giants anyway, they were a bunch of cheaters and we all hate the Giants, but the Dodgers they should stay"

[tonypug]

Interesting concept. I would enroll in that course just to do the project.

[EbtsFldGuy]

Were I a professor in an MBA program, here's an assignment I'd give to each student:

Make an economic case for the Dodgers (or Giants) leaving NY in 1957.

Then make the opposite case.

Would make for interesting reading, I suspect.

[tonypug]

TonyPug's posts raise an interesting question that has been marginally considered from time to time on this and the Brooklyn Dodgers board: i.e. the effect of the safety of the neighborhood on the longevity of the stadium.

There are examples both ways. The Phillies HAD to leave Connie Mack because North Philly had deteriorated to the point that fan attendance was so negatively affected. Yet the White Sox not only stayed in a bad part of the South Side, but built a new park there. And there is Detroit, and Cleveland before the city rebuilt itself and its reputation.

The Polo Grounds neighborhood in 1957 was worse than Ebbets Field's (Crown Heights/Flatbush), but the Mets drew well for the two years they were there in 1962 & 1963. And the Bronx near Yankee Stadium has not been the best of places for years.

Yet there has always been an ample police presence at Yankee Stadium on game days and there have been improvements in parking, transit, etc.

I believe the same could have been done for the PG, but EF would have been harder, because of its location. Still, I am convinced that both parks could exist today, with proper financing and adjustmets. Whether they were suitable for the now-indispendable luxury box construction is another matter.

Nonetheless, how interesting is it that Giants and Dodger fans are still ruing the moves 49 years later.

Shows the impact those teams had in NYC and beyond. I'd bet that there is no such passion left in Boston (for the Braves), or St. Louis ( for the Browns). There is a Phila A's website, however.

End of my Sunday morning musings.

Not bad for a Sunday morning. I was 10 when the teams left for the west coast. I remember going to both Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds from 1954 on.I never felt insecure, but of course I was always in the company of my father and older brother.Ebbets Field and Brooklyn were doomed because O'Malley was looking to move well before 1957. O'Malley had no intention of using any of his own money to build a new stadium. The Giants were a different situation. The Dodgers were still making a healthy profit despite what O'Malley tried to say. The Giants were having real financial problems. The Polo Grounds could have been renovated, but the question was would it have nade a difference. Stoneham didn't think it would make a difference. O'Malley encoraged the talk about safety and security issues, it helped his cause.

[EbtsFldGuy]

TonyPug's posts raise an interesting question that has been marginally considered from time to time on this and the Brooklyn Dodgers board: i.e. the effect of the safety of the neighborhood on the longevity of the stadium.

There are examples both ways. The Phillies HAD to leave Connie Mack because North Philly had deteriorated to the point that fan attendance was so negatively affected. Yet the White Sox not only stayed in a bad part of the South Side, but built a new park there. And there is Detroit, and Cleveland before the city rebuilt itself and its reputation.

The Polo Grounds neighborhood in 1957 was worse than Ebbets Field's (Crown Heights/Flatbush), but the Mets drew well for the two years they were there in 1962 & 1963. And the Bronx near Yankee Stadium has not been the best of places for years.

Yet there has always been an ample police presence at Yankee Stadium on game days and there have been improvements in parking, transit, etc.

I believe the same could have been done for the PG, but EF would have been harder, because of its location. Still, I am convinced that both parks could exist today, with proper financing and adjustmets. Whether they were suitable for the now-indispendable luxury box construction is another matter.

Nonetheless, how interesting is it that Giants and Dodger fans are still ruing the moves 49 years later.

Shows the impact those teams had in NYC and beyond. I'd bet that there is no such passion left in Boston (for the Braves), or St. Louis ( for the Browns). There is a Phila A's website, however.

End of my Sunday morning musings.

[tonypug]

I agree about the hunger part, but not about the assessment of the area around the PG. It was no better in 1962 than it had been in 1957. Maybe NYC put more cops there on game day, but it was still a high crime area. Illustratively, several years after the Mets left, two NYC cops, Piagenti and Jones, were murdered by militants in the Polo Grounds Houses complex.

I agree the area was no better or worse in 1957 and 1962. But the fans had a reason for going to the Polo Grounds again. Thanks for your support.

[EbtsFldGuy]

There was a hunger for National League baseball. The fan base was always there it just had to be full tapped. The area around the Polo Grounds didn't get any safer, yet people still came out. If it was truly an unsafe area. people would not have gone to see the Mets, hunger or no hunger.

I agree about the hunger part, but not about the assessment of the area around the PG. It was no better in 1962 than it had been in 1957. Maybe NYC put more cops there on game day, but it was still a high crime area. Illustratively, several years after the Mets left, two NYC cops, Piagenti and Jones, were murdered by militants in the Polo Grounds Houses complex.

[tonypug]

The San Francisco team also came very close to moving to the Tampa Bay area in 1992. If not for former NL President Bill White, the Tampa Bay Giants would likely have become a reality.

Peter O'Malley, not Bill White blocked the sale of the Giants to Tampa Bay. He made the it wouldn't be fair to the fans of San Francisco if they lost their team speech. Its funny his father never felt that way when he left Brooklyn.

[tonypug]

My guess is the Mets outdrew the NY Giants because of the novelty of National League Baseball being back in New York after not having an NL team in town the previous 4 seasons. It didn't even matter that the Mets were arguably the worst team in MLB history over a two year period and that the area the Polo Grounds was in wasn't the ideal place to visit. The hunger for National League baseball was the overriding factor in the equation.

There was a hunger for National League baseball. The fan base was always there it just had to be full tapped. The area around the Polo Grounds didn't get any safer, yet people still came out. If it was truly an unsafe area. people would not have gone to see the Mets, hunger or no hunger.

[D6+]

What is easy to forget two decades later is that the Giants were all set to leave SF in about 1978 for Toronto. I recall watching the Channel 5 (in NYC) 10 o'clock news with Bill Jorgensen one Friday night in 1978 (maybe 79)when the lead was "The San Francisco Giants are no more." Only some last minute local efforts prevented that move.

Greenpeach has it right. Had the Giants gone to Shea, they would have thrived. In addition to the euphoria over getting out of the PG and its attendant dangers, people would have loved Shea, as the Mets fans did for several years. And yes, the quality of the young players the Giants had beginning in 1958 would have made that team a contender and keen draw in Shea - and a natural rival for the Yankees.

Horace Stoneham was honorable about his move, announcing it in August - unlike O'Malley, who milked every second of hope out of the adoring faithful in Brooklyn, waiting until October to announce his departure. Horace was a decent man, who was dealt a bad hand. Too bad he did not prosper, instead of that other fellow.

The San Francisco team also came very close to moving to the Tampa Bay area in 1992. If not for former NL President Bill White, the Tampa Bay Giants would likely have become a reality.

[D6+]

I understand attendence was going down, the last three years were,824,000.629.000 and 653,000. People said they wouldn't go because of the area, how come the Mets drew 922,000 and 1,080,000 their two years in the Polo Grounds? I found it strange when the Giants moved to SF they had a bunch of good young players Orlando Cepeda, Jim Davenport, Willie McCovey ready to play. Why not bring some of them up early to New York, it might have helped attendence and created more interest.

My guess is the Mets outdrew the NY Giants because of the novelty of National League Baseball being back in New York after not having an NL team in town the previous 4 seasons. It didn't even matter that the Mets were arguably the worst team in MLB history over a two year period and that the area the Polo Grounds was in wasn't the ideal place to visit. The hunger for National League baseball was the overriding factor in the equation.

[DODGER DEB]

One thing I've always wondered, during the first few years in LA, which feeling was stronger - your dislike for O'Malley and his LA Dodgers, or your love for the players who had been Brooklyn Dodgers? For example, were you cheering for Snider and Hodges and Podres in the '59 Series, even though they were playing for LA?

First, please understand that OUR DODGERS, the real DODGERS, died on October 9, 1957. I have never, and would never, root for a team that not only was stolen from US for pure greed, but a group that also stole OUR NAME...and after all these years, continues to use it!

We were very close to OUR Players and always wished them well, no matter where they played. In 1958, we traveled to Philadelphia to see them play, and of course, we saw them in NY. As the years passed, most of OUR players either retired, or in a few cases, moved on, for a year or two, to other teams, like the METS, Pirates, Orioles, or Tigers etc.

c.