Just as the history of the United States has been tied to the geography of North America, the history of New York Giants baseball was tied to the lopsided shape of the Giant’s ballpark bathtub, called the Polo Grounds. Polo was never played there, but the baseball and football Giants did play there, as did the Yankees before they moved to Yankee Stadium and the Mets before they moved to Shea. Jack Dempsey knocked out Firpo there, Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling and Billy Conn, Floyd Patterson regained his title by knocking out Ingemar Johansson, and Ray Robinson his middleweight title by knocking out Randy Turpin there.
It was located between 155 and 157 west of Eighth Avenue and east of the base of Coogan’s Bluff, which was located behind home plate. The playing area was 550 feet long from the bleachers behind home plate to the deeper center field wall of the clubhouse, which sloped down from the infield. Players and managers sitting in the dugout could see the outfielders only from the waist up. The left field bleachers were 380 feet from the right field bleachers and if you drew a line from home plate to second to the clubhouse wall, the left side of the field was a quarter acre larger than the right. That and the overhang of the upper deck of the left-field bleachers gave right-handed hitters an advantage.
The distance from home plate to the fifteen-foot-high concrete wall of the lower bleachers was 276 feet down the left-field foul line and 257 feet down the right, but the upper left-field bleachers extended twenty-five feet. over the field. . Beyond the free throw lines, the walls on both sides stretched two hundred feet into the bullpens in deep left and right field. Thus, the bullpen walls were 450 feet from home plate and curved toward the stands, 425 feet from home plate.
For hitters like Mel Ott (RIP 1958), the short distance from the foul lines made the Polo Grounds a haven. Ott hit 323 of his 511 home runs there and the upper deck just past the free throw line became known as Ottville. On the other hand, I often saw left fielder Sid Gordon get under a popup on the left field line and just as he raised the glove, the ball scraped the protruding upper deck for a home run.
I never saw anyone hit the ball in the stands, not even in batting practice, although the record books say Hank Aaron, Lou Brock and Joe Adcock managed to do it. The stands were separated into two sections with a sixty-foot-wide walkway between them that led to the Giant’s and visiting team’s clubhouses. The clubhouse windows overlooked home plate from deep in center field, leading to rumors that the telescopes were stealing and transmitting catchers’ signals to hitters. They even claim the Giants did that the day Bobby Thomson hit the game and pennant-winning home run off Ralph Branca. How can anyone believe that a team led by Leo Durocher, with Eddie Stanky playing second, would ever stoop to such a tactic?
Low-line shots into holes in center field could slope down to the wall of the stands for triples and inside-the-park homers. However, Ernie Lombardi (RIP 1977) would hit lines four hundred feet high that were caught. With his wide-set stance and long, beautiful swing of his, he was one of baseball’s great long-ball hitters, but his slowest baserunner. He led the league in hitting into double plays and teams regularly played with four outfielders and moved infielders back to the edge of the outfield grass with him at bat.
“Run like a piano on your back,” a man sitting in line behind me said one day.
“Besides the guys who wear it,” said the man next to him.
After games, twenty or thirty kids waited on Eighth Avenue outside the clubhouse to get autographs. We knew the Giants by sight, but not the guys on the visiting teams, so we looked for the guys with wet hair from showers. In those days, teams were considered ballplayers rather than businessmen and were friendlier. Four or five or more would sign as they walked toward the parking lot or subway entrance. One day, a young man stopped and signed for everyone. His hair was wet but none of us recognized him.
I looked at my book. “Buddy Marshall. Who is he?” Nobody knew. It turned out that he wasn’t a gamer, just a guy with wet hair and a twisted sense of humor.
Mel Ott was my favorite player, but from 1942 to 1948, while he was player-manager, the Giants finished the season in last place twice, fifth three times, fourth once, and third his first year. All the same. I rooted for outfielders Johnny Rucker, Sid Gordon, Willard Marshall, Joe Medwick, Danny Gardella, Red Treadway, Steve Filopowicz (he also played for the Giants), and Garland Lawing, who could throw the ball farther than he could hit it. I rooted for infielders Johnny Mize, Buddy Kerr, Bill Rigney, George Hausmann, Nap Reyes, Phil Weintraub, Jack Lohrke, Connie Ryan, pitchers Bill Lohrman, Ace Adams, Harry Feldman, Bill Voiselle, Monte Kennedy, Ewald Pyle, Hooks Iott, and Clint Hartung, and for receivers Sal Yvars, Gus Mancuso, Walker Cooper, Wes Westrum and Lombardi.
In the first game of a doubleheader against the Dodgers in 1944, Weintraub hit two doubles, a triple, a home run and scored in eleven runs, Lombardi won seven, Ott walked five straight times and scored six runs and the Giants won 26-8. . They finished fifth that year, but that one win carried me through the season. In 1947 they finished fourth and hit 221 home runs, the single-season record at the time; Mize shot 51, Marshall 36, Cooper 35, Thomson 29. Bill Rigney, who became Giant’s manager, would claim that he and his roommate shot 68 of 221. (His roommate was Johnny Mize ).
According to Rigney, Giants owner Horace Stoneham “didn’t like the bunt and he didn’t like to pitch, but he loved the home run. We could beat them 9-8,” Rigney said, “but not 2-1.” .”
Then in July 1948, good guy Mel Ott left and “good guys finish last” Leo Durocher, were fired by the Dodgers and became manager of the Giants. Immediately, the Giants became a faster and more aggressive team. On August 11 of the 1951 season, they were thirteen and a half games behind the Dodgers. Then, with Stanky, Thomson, Irvin and the pitchers leading the way, and with Willie Mays, Don Mueller and Irvin in the outfield, Whitey Lockman at first, Stanky at second, Alvin Dark at short, Thomson at third, Wes Westrum in the receiving and Sal Maglie, Larry Jansen, Jim Hearn and George Spencer pitching, have won thirty-seven of their last forty-four games, including their first sixteen in a row, and finished the season tied with the Dodgers for first place. Then, in the third of three playoff games, they beat the Dodgers on Thomson’s final two-out ninth-inning home run and won the championship in the most exciting pennant race in baseball history, all at the Pole. Grounds.
