Our next NYGPS meeting will be on June 21 at the Bergino Baseball Clubhouse at 6:30PM, with author Robert Garratt, who will be talking about his new book entitled: HOME TEAM: THE TURBULENT HISTORY OF THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS, a great new book on the Giants that NY fans will very much enjoy if they have kept their fandom when the team moved westward.
Here is the synopsis:
In 1957 Horace Stoneham took his Giants of New York baseball team and headed west, starting a gold rush with bats and balls rather than pans and mines. But San Francisco already had a team, the Seals of the Pacific Coast League, and West Coast fans did not immediately embrace the newcomers.
Starting with the franchise’s earliest days and following the team up to recent World Series glory, Home Team chronicles the story of the Giants and their often topsy-turvy relationship with the city of San Francisco. Robert F. Garratt shines light on those who worked behind the scenes in the story of West Coast baseball: the politicians, businessmen, and owners who were instrumental in the club’s history.
Home Team presents Stoneham, often left in the shadow of Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, as a true baseball pioneer in his willingness to sign black and Latino players and his recruitment of the first Japanese player in the Major Leagues, making the Giants one of the most integrated teams in baseball in the early 1960s. Garratt also records the turbulent times, poor results, declining attendance, two near-moves away from California, and the role of post-Stoneham owners Bob Lurie and Peter Magowan in the Giants’ eventual reemergence as a baseball powerhouse. Garratt’s superb history of this great ball club makes the Giants’ story one of the most compelling of all Major League franchises.
This should be a terrific meeting following the ones with Dan Taylor, Jerry Liebowitz & Hal Bock, and our impromptu session at the Polo Grounds with Mark Melacon. Please RSVP ASAP as we expect a full house. Books can be purchased for $26 that night. (Hard-covered)
