A Giant History - My Case for My Team

[Author's note: Currently, Socratesofswat is holding a blogging contest where one blogger is assigned to "make a case" for their favorite team.  See contest details, here.  With that, I give you my case for my team, the San Francisco Giants.]

Chicks dig the long ball.  In fact, if rule changes, park dimensions, and attendance figures are any decent barometer, apparently, so do the rest of us.  And when it comes to hitting the long ball, few franchises have done it better over their collective history than the Giants.  

The San Francisco Giants (and before that, the New York Giants) have nearly always been about power.  Whether launching baseballs into the short right field porch at the Polo Grounds, the windswept bleachers at Candlestick Park, or the impossibly perfect scenery of McCovey Cove at AT & T Park, some of the game's most prolific home run hitters have plied their trade for the franchise.  As if to add an exclamation point to that, Barry Bonds passed Hammerin' Hank this season atop the All-time home run list.  However, he's not alone in franchise lore.  Before him, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Mel Ott combined to hit over 1,650 homers in their respective careers.  Including Bonds, all are members of the 500-home run club, and Bonds and Mays rank number 1 and 4 on the All-time home run list.  As if that weren't enough, the team has always had other star players who could reach the cheap seats with some regularity as well.  Although they weren't top-tier greats like Bonds, Mays, and McCovey, they brought their share of venom at the plate.

 

  

The "Baby Bull", Orlando Cepeda, got his start with the Giants.  Cepeda made five All-star teams while with San Francisco and hit a career-high 46 bombs for the team in 1961.  In 1951, Bobby Thomson hit one of the most famous home runs in baseball history (off the rival Dodgers, no less!) and gave Russ Hodges an excuse to make one of the greatest calls anyone has ever heard.  The Giants win the pennant, indeed. In fact, Giants' home run hitters have been around from the very start.  Roger Connor, whose 138 career homers topped the category until the Bambino passed him in 1921, was a Giant.  Bill Terry, the last NL player to hit .400, cranked out 23 homers and slugged over .600 that year (1930) as a Giant.  The aforementioned Mel Ott spent all 22 of his big league seasons with the team and led the NL in home runs six times.   

 

  

In 1986, Will "The Thrill" Clark homered in his very first MLB at-bat, an impressive blast to dead center in the cavernous Astrodome against the great Nolan Ryan.  Three seasons later, he had an NLCS for the ages, hitting a blistering .650 with a pair of homers and 8 RBI in 5 games against the Cubs.  (As an aside, one of my favorite Will Clark stories supposedly happened in the NLCS that year.  Just before he sealed the deal with a go-ahead, run scoring base hit in Game 5, he was getting set to leave the on-deck circle when he was encouraged by teammates to "Just do it."  Clark responded by answering emphatically, "It's done.")  Speaking of the postseason, Jeffrey "Hackman" Leonard hit 4 homers in 24 at-bats during the 1987 NLCS against St. Louis and proceeded to circle the bases with "one flap down" each time.  In the 1954 World Series, a little known reserve outfielder and pinch-hitter extraordinaire named Dusty Rhodes launched a pair of homers in the team's sweep of the Cleveland Indians.  

 

  

And the list goes on.  Names like Matt Williams, Jack Clark, Kevin Mitchell, and Jim Ray Hart conjure up yet more images of towering home runs for the team in Black-and-Orange.

 

You want pitching?  Christy Mathewson won all but one of his 373 career victories with the Giants.  In 1905, he started three games for the team in the World Series against the A's and threw three complete game shutouts.  27 innings pitched and zero runs allowed, earned or otherwise.  In 1908, he won 37 games with a 1.43 ERA and 11 shutouts.  

 

  

"King Carl" Hubbell might best be known for striking out five of the game's greatest hitters (Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, and Joe Cronin) in a row during the 1934 All-Star Game.  However, his Hall of Fame career includes more than just that one spectacular moment.  Armed with a devastating out pitch, the screwball, Hubbell dominated in the hitter-happy 1930's.  He routinely posted an ERA over a full run below the league average, leading the league in that category three times.  He also won two MVP awards (1933 & 1936), a remarkable achievement for a pitcher.

 

The "Dominican Dandy", Juan Marichal, was one of the first great Latin American pitchers.  Before Pedro Martinez or Johan Santana, there was Marichal.  With his signature high leg kick, Marichal set the standard for other great Latin American pitchers to follow.  With 243 career wins (at a .631 winning percentage clip), a 2.89 career ERA, and 52 shutouts, it was an impressive standard.  

 

  

You want defense?  How about "The Catch"?  You don't even have to mention who made it or when it happened.  It is one of the enduring images of the game, seared into the memories of baseball fans everywhere.  The great Willie Mays, the "Say Hey Kid" himself, on a dead run with his back turned completely to the plate simply reached up and plucked Vic Wertz' thundering drive out of the air with the ease of someone picking an apple off of a tree.  

 

  

You want trophies and hardware?  The franchise has 5 World Series titles and 20 NL Pennants.  Their players have accumulated over 30 Gold Gloves, 13 MVP awards, and 5 Rookie of the Year awards.  Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Juan Marichal , and Willie McCovey alone have made 47 All-Star teams among them.  

 

  

You want managers?  How about John Joseph McGraw?  McGraw, whom the playwright George Bernard Shaw once called "the one true American", was an icon in the game.  He was savagely competitive and baited umpires relentlessly.  However, he was also was a supreme motivator and regularly molded his players into winners.  So great was his ability to transform raw eager youngsters into confident, competent ballplayers that it was noted "he would take kids out of the coal mines and out of the wheat fields and make them walk and talk...and play ball with the look of eagles."  He managed the team for 31 seasons and won 2,583 games and 3 World Series titles while at the helm.  Along with Connie Mack, McGraw remains probably the greatest combination of longevity and success ever to manage an MLB baseball team.  

 

  

You want ballparks?  People like to wax poetic about Fenway's Green Monster or Wrigley's ivy-covered walls, but the image of home run balls landing in the chilly waters of McCovey Cove at the Giants' new home, AT & T Park, competes favorably on an aesthetic basis with any ballpark that was ever built.  Add to that a perfect view of the Bay Bridge just over the left field bleachers and cable car bells ringing and fog horns blasting with every homer off the bat of a Giants' player, and you have an experience that is uniquely San Franciscan.  By the way, the stadium's actual address is 24 Willie Mays Plaza.  Enough said.  

 

  

Some may argue that the counterpoint to the outstanding ambience at AT & T is the Giants' old home, Candlestick Park.  A cold, concrete basin built in the middle of a wind tunnel, Candlestick achieved some degree of infamy for its lack of charm and equally inhospitable playing conditions.  However, many locals will tell you that that was precisely what made Candlestick oddly great in its own twisted way.  You didn't go to watch a game there sipping lattes and getting a tan.  You sat there with a cup of joe, freezing half to death solely because you wanted to watch a baseball game and were willing to put up with the elements howling in your face just to do it.  And the more opposing fans and players groused about the conditions, the more the locals embraced the place.  Yes, it was a dive, but it was OUR dive.  In a brilliant bit of marketing, the team started to offer "Croix De Candlestick" pins to fans who stayed all the way through extra inning night games as a reward for their "bravery" in enduring the elements.  Adding to the legend was the moment during the 1961 All-star Game when Giants reliever Stu Miller was allegedly forced into a balk by one of the 'Stick's infamous gusts.  Though many have disputed how much Miller was actually affected by the wind that day, a balk was, in fact, called, and most who were familiar with the conditions at Candlestick had no trouble accepting the fact that the wind was definitely strong enough there to cause a pitcher to lose his balance on the mound.  

 

  

Even the team's New York home had tremendous character.  The Polo Grounds were shaped like a horseshoe and included, in various incarnations, a daunting centerfield wall over 500 feet from home plate.  However, that nearly unreachable distance was offset by the shallow distances directly down each foul line.  Right field was particularly inviting, just 257 feet away from hitters.  And it was the place where John McGraw presided like baseball royalty.  It was the place Ralph Branca and Vic Wertz were made famous in anguish when guys for the home team made history against them.  And, sadly, it was a place that met the wrecking ball in 1964 after the team left for the West Coast.  Sometimes, we are in such a hurry to get to the future that we trample the past to get there.  

 

  

However, in the Giants' case, there is plenty to celebrate about one of baseball's most storied franchises.  The San Francisco/New York Giants are the team of Christy Mathewson and Willie Mays.  They are the team of baseball's All-time home run leader and a legacy of home run hitting legends.  They conjure up images of "Splash Hits" and windblown infields and horseshoe configurations.  They are unforgettable because of "The Catch" and "The Shot Heard 'Round the World".  They are Russ Hodges screaming about won pennants in the broadcast booth and Lon Simmons telling home runs goodbye.  

 

  

Mostly, they are about the cities they have played in.  While in New York, they were McGraw's tough guys, giving no quarter to the enemy.  In San Francisco, they have been controversial but independent and resilient.  And they are my team.  Always have been and always will be.  Perhaps, it is fitting that they play Tony Bennett's "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" after every home game, because when he sings about cable cars climbing halfway to the stars it reminds me that sometimes certain things are so connected to certain places that they simply cannot be seen anywhere else.  Like watching my favorite team play in my hometown.  

 

  

Stats:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/connoro01.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/cepedor01.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/t/terrybi01.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/o/ottme01.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/clarkwi02.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/l/leonaje01.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/r/rhodedu01.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SFG/

http://www.baseball-reference.com/m/mathech01.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/h/hubbeca01.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/m/maricju01.shtml

http://www.baseballlibrary.com/ballplayers/player.php?name=Carl_Hubbell_1903

 

Other Sources:

http://www.tv.com/george-bernard-shaw/person/173281/trivia.html

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/quotes/quomcg2.shtml

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/stadium/st_polo.shtml

http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/past/PoloGrounds.htm

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6287756