THE LAST REMNANT OF THE POLO GROUNDS DESERVES A REDEDICATION CEREMONY WORTHY OF THE BALLPARK’S HISTORY

BY:MICHAEL ARONSON
The San Francisco Giants, including legend Willie Mays, are in town now to celebrate their latest championship with fans of old.
Say hey — then insist that the city give the Giants’ old home, the Polo Grounds, the hallowed place in history that it has earned.
Before they headed West, the Giants won five World Series there. The Yankees, football Giants, Mets and Titans/Jets also once called it home.
Yet for years, the stadium’s only remnant, a 80-step stairway, sat rusty and broken. In 2008, this page adopted the stairs and enlisted the five ex-Polo Grounds teams to help fund repairs. They came through with half a million dollars. Major League Baseball chipped in another $50,000. The National Football League didn’t give a penny.
The fixes have been made and all that’s needed is a nice ceremony to rededicate the stairs, honor the five teams and fête the incomparable Mays. Have it in June, when the Mets host the Giants.

SAN FRANCISCO — Stu Miller, who will be remembered more for committing history’s most famous balk than for his formidable pitching, died Sunday at his home in Cameron Park, Calif. He was 87.

http://m.giants.mlb.com/news/article/105613450/former-giants-orioles-pitcher-stu-miller-dies-at-87

The Giants and Orioles, the teams with whom Miller distinguished himself the most during his 16-year Major League career, announced his death Monday.
Baseball’s spotlight glared upon Miller during the 1961 All-Star Game, which cemented Candlestick Park’s reputation as an oversized air conditioner. This, according to legend, was the Midsummer Classic in which Miller was blown off the mound. That wasn’t exactly what happened.
A game recap in the 1963 book “The Giants of San Francisco” cited unusually withering temperatures that forced 95 fans to receive treatment for heat prostration during the early innings. But Candlestick’s infamous breezes took over by mid-afternoon. Recalled Dodgers shortstop Maury Wills, who played the entire game for the National League, “I saw the same hot-dog wrapper hover over the infield for three or four innings with the wind taking it in different directions, about 100 feet off the ground.”
Miller, the Giants right-hander making his first and only All-Star appearance, relieved Sandy Koufax in the ninth inning with one out, Roger Maris on first base, Al Kaline on second and the NL clinging to a 3-2 lead.
In the 1979 book “SF Giants: An Oral History”, Miller said the flags in center field were “almost torn off the flagpole by the time I got in. It was actually the windiest day I had ever seen there, and I was certainly used to it by then. So I came in and anchored myself into the wind, as usual.”
As the 5-foot-11, 165-pound Miller went into the stretch position to pitch to Rocky Colavito, a sudden gust upset his balance. Miller threw the pitch anyway, but was called for a balk after doing so, due to his erratic movement. Kaline scored the tying run as third baseman Ken Boyer misplayed Colavito’s subsequent grounder.
Ultimately, Miller persevered and received the decision in the NL’s 5-4, 10-inning victory.
Miller, who ranked among the top 20 finishers in Most Valuable Player Award voting four times, broke into the Majors with the Cardinals in 1952. He performed for four other teams, including the Giants (1957-62) and Orioles (1963-67), and compiled a 105-103 record with a 3.24 ERA and 154 saves in 704 career appearances. He was among 43 former Giants to merit a plaque on AT&T Park’s Wall of Fame, a distinction reserved for the franchise’s finest San Francisco-era (since 1958) performers. Miller also was elected to the Orioles Hall of Fame in 1989.
After alternating between starting and relieving, Miller moved almost exclusively to the latter role in 1959, one year after he recorded an NL-best 2.47 ERA. He topped the NL with 17 saves in 1961 and the AL with 27 in 1963. He won 14 games in relief in 1961 and again in 1965. Though Miller relied primarily on a changeup, he overwhelmed enough hitters to average 8.35 strikeouts per nine innings from 1963-65.
“For what he had, he was amazing,” said left-hander Johnny Antonelli, a Giants teammate of Miller’s from 1957-60. “He made some of those hitters look pretty bad. He had a great idea of how to pitch, changing speeds. It was really funny to watch sometimes. He would throw a pitch that floated up there, someway, somehow, and it looked like it was going to be a fastball. But it came in there slow and they would just swing through it. He would make certain hitters look sick. That was Stu Miller.”
A native of Northampton, Mass., Miller is survived by his wife, Jayne; six children, Scott, Lori, Kim, Marc, Gary and Matthew; five grandchildren and one great-grandson.
Chris Haft is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Haft-Baked Ideas, and follow him on Twitter at @sfgiantsbeat. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

THE TWENTY-FOUR SURVIVING MEMBERS OF THE NY GIANTS
■Joey Amalfitano 1954-55 B:1/23/1934
■Johnny Antonelli 1954-57 B: 4/12/1930
■Jackie Brandt 1956 B: 4/28/1934
■Ed Bressoud 1956-57 B: 5/2/1932
■Pete Burnside 1955, 1957 B: 7/2/1930
■Foster Castleman 1954-57 B: 1/1/1931
■Gil Coan 1955 B: 5/18/1922
■Ray Crone 1957 B: 8/7/1931
■Joe Garagiola 1954 B: 2/12/1926
■Billy Gardner 1954-55 B: 7/19/1927
■Harvey Gentry 1954 B: 5/27/1926
■Monte Irvin 1949-55 B: 2/25/1919
■Joe Margoneri 1956-57 B: 1/13/1930
■Willie Mays 1951-52, 1954-57 B: 5/6/1931
■Windy McCall 1954-57 B: 7/18/1925
■Mike McCormick 1956-57 B: 9/28/1938
■Ron Samford 1954 B: 2/28/1930
■Red Schoendienst 1956-57 B: 2/2/1923
■Daryl Spencer 1952-53, 1956-57 B: 7/13/1929
■Wayne Terwilliger 1955-56 B: 6/27/1925
■Ozzie Virgil 1956-57 B: 5/17/1933
■Bill White 1956 B: 1/28/1934
■Al Worthington 1953-54, 1956-57 B: 2/5/1929
■Roy Wright 1956 B: 9/26/1933
Monte Irvin is the oldest living member of the New York Giants (95), while Mike McCormick is the youngest at 76.

SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS ANNOUNCE PLANS FOR UPCOMING SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS 2014 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY TOUR PRESENTED BY BANK OF AMERICA TOUR BEGINS ON JANUARY 7TH AND CONCLUDES ON OPENING DAY IN SAN FRANCISCO, APRIL 13TH

The San Francisco Giants announced today that they will take all three of their World Championship Trophies (2010, 2012 and 2014) on public tour beginning in early January of 2015.
This will be the third public trophy tour held in the past five years. The focus of the San Francisco Giants World Championship Trophy Tour presented by Bank of America is to share the trophies with Giants fans in Junior Giants communities throughout northern and central California, Oregon and Nevada.
Junior Giants is the flagship program of the Giants Community Fund, which serves more than 22,000 boys and girls in 87 underserved communities throughout northern and central California and southern Oregon. It is a free and non-competitive baseball program that has served as a model for MLB youth initiatives. Using baseball as the hook, Junior Giants provides opportunities for children to learn the meaning of leadership, teamwork, confidence and integrity, as well as the importance of education, health and bullying prevention.
“We saw in 2012 how powerful it was for us to create a trophy tour which not only allowed us to connect with our fans, but also with the more than 22,000 kids who participate in our Junior Giants baseball program. It’s an honor to have the opportunity to do so again,” said Larry Baer, Giants president and chief executive officer.
In partnership with their Junior Giants Leagues, the Giants will offer public viewing opportunities in the following cities throughout the months of January, February and March. Fans will have the chance to have their photo taken with the trophies and to support the Junior Giants in their community. Continue reading →

BY:Alden Gonzalez
Alvin Dark, a Rookie of the Year and three-time All-Star shortstop who managed the Giants and A’s to the World Series, died Thursday. He was 92. There are now only 25 remaining Giants who played in NY.

Dark played 14 seasons in the Majors, suiting up for the Boston and Milwaukee Braves, New York Giants, Cardinals, Cubs and Phillies, establishing himself as one of the best all-around shortstops in his era. He batted .289/.333/.411 in a career that spanned from 1946-60, compiling 126 homers, 2,089 hits and 59 stolen bases.
He later was manager of the Giants, leading them to the 1962 World Series, which they lost to the Yankees in seven games, and also the A’s, taking them to the World Series championship in 1974, the last of their three consecutive titles.
“We are saddened to learn of Alvin’s passing,” the A’s said in a statement. “He was a true baseball man who will always hold a prominent place in our history, both in Kansas City and Oakland. A’s fans will never forget the 1974 team he managed to a third consecutive World Series title. Our condolences go out to his family and friends.”
A product of Louisiana, Dark was Major League Rookie of the Year in 1948, was captain of the Giants throughout the 1950s and played in three World Series, winning one with the Giants while batting .412 in the 1954 Fall Classic.
Dark did so much more than play baseball, though. Continue reading →

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/giant-memories_b_6052520.html

Peter Dreier

The San Francisco Giants are once again in the World Series. I’ve been watching the games on TV, but I’m not rooting for them. As a kid, I was shattered when my team, the New York Giants, moved to the Bay Area in 1958. I felt betrayed. It must have been similar to what children feel when their parents divorce. This wasn’t the way that adults were supposed to act.

In their early years on the West Coast, the Giants had some outstanding players — Willie Mays (who had played for the team in New York) as well as Juan Marichal, Felipe Alou, Orlando Cepeda, and Willie McCovey. But the Giants left my heart in New York, not San Francisco. I would never again cheer for the Giants.

My memories about the New York Giants were rekindled this week, not only by the World Series, but also by a photograph that my teenage daughter discovered while she was rummaging through miscellaneous files and boxes in our house. It was an 8 ½ by 11 glossy photo of a one-time major league pitcher in a New York Giants uniform, posing as though he had just completed his follow through.

In the upper right hand corner is a fading but still legible autograph written with a dark black pen:

“To Peter Dreier (a future major leaguer) Your friend, Johnny Antonelli” Continue reading →

Charlie Mead an outfielder for the NY Giants has passed. (Thanks to NYGPS Member Perry Barber for the info!) Mead played for the Giants from 1943-1945. There are now only 26 remaining Giants who played in NY.

By Andrew Hendriks
http://www.canadianbaseballnetwork.com/articles/remembering-charlie-mead/
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Charlie Mead of Vermillion, Alta., was one players responsible for keeping baseball alive during the second great war. Signed by the Detroit Tigers he began his pro career with the in 1940 with class-C Hot Springs Bathers and class-C Henderson Oilers. He spent 1941 with class-C Texarkana Twins and the next year with class-B Winston-Salem Twins. He signed with the New York Giants in 1943 and spent 97 games at double-A Jersey City Giants before getting the call.
Suiting up for the New York Giants, Mead appeared in 87 games between the years of 1943 and 1945, belting a total of three home runs and hitting .245 while patrolling the outfield at the famed Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan. He made his debut Aug. 28, 1943 making 34 starts at age 22, going hitless as Van Mungo pitched the Giants to a 12-0 win over the Boston Braves and Red Barrett. Mead had his first hit in the majors of Whitlow Wyatt in a 4-1 loss to the Brooklyn Dodgers. His first homer came Sept. 28 when he took Ray Starr deep in a 5-4 loss to the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field. He made the second most starts behind Hall of Famer Mel Ott, the Giants playing manager in right field and three more in centre. On the season he hit .274 with one homer and 13 RBIs in 37 games.
The next year in 1944, he hit .179 with one homer and eight RBIs in 39 games. Mead went deep against Freddy Schmidt in a 10-4 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals in a 10-6 loss and knocked in a pair in a 5-4 win over the Boston Braves. He made 11 starts in left, four in right and three in centre. His third career homer game in 1945 when he homered against Lefty Wallace in a 7-3 loss to the Boston Braves. He batted .270 with one homer and six RBIs in 11 games, as he started 10 times in right. When the troops returned home following an ally victory in 1945, many of the reserve ballplayers were given their release, opting to return to the minors or finding other post-baseball careers outside of the game. Mead, who was a mere 24 years old by the end of the 1945 season, decided to continue his career as a professional, signing on with the unaffiliated Vancouver Capilanos of the Class B Western International League, where he would become a star over the course of the next six seasons, helping the Caps take home league titles in 1947 and 1949 respectively. Continue reading →

Giants win 8th World Championship as a franchise!!

ED LUCAS: MLB PLAYOFFS ARE FULL OF MAGICAL MOMENTS, JUST ASK BOBBY THOMSON

The NYGPS final meeting of the calendar year took place October 1st with our keynote speaker Ed Lucas. It was truly an unbelievable and awe inspiring night hearing Ed talk about how baseball robbed him of his eyesight and ultimately gave him a a rich and rewarding life. This event happened 63 years ago to the date right after Bobby Thomson’s Shot Heard Round the World!! We thank the entire Lucas Family and Jay Goldberg, owner of the Bergino Baseball Clubhouse http://www.bergino.com/ for making it such a wonderful night. BTW 15 hearty fans stayed as Madbum threw a complete game shutout of the Bucs. GO GIANTS!!

Our organization is heavily mentioned in this article:

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2014/10/lucas_mlb_playoffs_are_full_of_magical_moments_just_ask_bobby_thompson.html

On Oct. 3, 1951, one of baseball’s greatest moments occurred, just a few miles from Hudson County. No, it did not happen, like so many other fall sports milestones, at Yankee Stadium. Instead, it took place at a ballpark that was demolished 50 years ago, directly across the Harlem River from The House that Ruth Built.

The Polo Grounds, on 155th Street in Harlem, was home to baseball’s New York Giants. In mid-August 1951, the Giants were 13 1/2 games behind their rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers. They came back, tying the Dodgers on the last day of the season.

The teams split the first two games of a three-game playoff and then headed to the Polo Grounds for the deciding match. In the bottom of the ninth, with the Giants down by two runs and two men on base, Bobby Thomson stepped to the plate at 3:58 p.m. and hit a walk-off home run to send his team to the World Series. “The Shot Heard ’Round the World” was a fitting conclusion to a miracle season.

The day has special significance to me, not just because I was a rabid Giants fan. I was 12 years old at the time, living in Lafayette Gardens. After Thomson’s homer, I ran out to celebrate with my friends by pitching in a sandlot game. As I threw the ball it was hit back to me at tremendous speed, smashing me right between the eyes.

That scuffed-up white ball with the red stitches spinning in the gloam of a fading Jersey City October sunset, 63 years ago, was the last thing I ever saw.

The Giants lost the 1951 World Series to the Yankees but enjoyed success after that. Thanks to their young superstar, Willie Mays, they won the 1954 World Series. Sadly, three years later they followed the Dodgers to the West Coast, setting up shop in San Francisco. Their old ballpark was completely torn down in 1964.

The San Francisco Giants have advanced to the NLDS this year and will have many passionate fans cheering them on. One group will be following its favorite team picturing an orange “NY” on the cap instead of “SF.”

The New York Giants Preservation Society was founded by Gary Mintz in 2012. For a team that doesn’t exist, the group is quite active. They even have their own website and Facebook page, with fans all over the world sharing memories.

I was invited to speak to a gathering of their club Wednesday night, at the Bergino Baseball Clubhouse on East 11th Street in New York City, a great spot for baseball fans to visit, just around the corner from Union Square. It was interesting to hear sounds of recognition from audience members as I talked about my days watching the Giants old farm team in Jersey City and how visits to the Polo Grounds helped me get through the depression after I went blind. Some of these guys have been Giants fans longer than I’ve been alive.
Continue reading →

TWENTY-SEVEN MEMBERS OF THE NY GIANTS REMAIN

FROM WIKIPEDIA: George Elwell Spencer (July 7, 1926 – September 10, 2014) was an American pitcher in Major League Baseball. A right-hander, he was primarily a relief pitcher for the New York Giants and the Detroit Tigers.[1] Spencer stood 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) tall and weighed 215 pounds (98 kg).

A graduate of Bexley High School in Columbus and The Ohio State University, where he played quarterback on the OSU varsity football team,[2][3] Spencer was a key member of the 1951 Giants’ pitching staff, leading the club in saves and winning ten of 14 decisions, including a key August start over the front-running Brooklyn Dodgers. The Giants would famously overcome a 13½-game, mid-August deficit to tie Brooklyn on the season’s final day, then defeated the Dodgers for the National League pennant on Bobby Thomson’s historic Game 3 home run.

THE TWENTY-SEVEN SURVIVING MEMBERS OF THE NY GIANTS
■Joey Amalfitano 1954-55 B:1/23/1934
■Johnny Antonelli 1954-57 B: 4/12/1930
■Jackie Brandt 1956 B: 4/28/1934
■Ed Bressoud 1956-57 B: 5/2/1932
■Pete Burnside 1955, 1957 B: 7/2/1930
■Foster Castleman 1954-57 B: 1/1/1931
■Gil Coan 1955 B: 5/18/1922
■Ray Crone 1957 B: 8/7/1931
■Alvin Dark 1950-56 B: 1/7/1922
■Joe Garagiola 1954 B: 2/12/1926
■Billy Gardner 1954-55 B: 7/19/1927
■Harvey Gentry 1954 B: 5/27/1926
■Monte Irvin 1949-55 B: 2/25/1919
■Joe Margoneri 1956-57 B: 1/13/1930
■Willie Mays 1951-52, 1954-57 B: 5/6/1931
■Windy McCall 1954-57 B: 7/18/1925
■Mike McCormick 1956-57 B: 9/28/1938
■Charlie Mead 1943-45 B: 4/29/1921
■Stu Miller 1957 B: 12/26/1927
■Ron Samford 1954 B: 2/28/1930
■Red Schoendienst 1956-57 B: 2/2/1923
■Daryl Spencer 1952-53, 1956-57 B: 7/13/1929
■Wayne Terwilliger 1955-56 B: 6/27/1925
■Ozzie Virgil 1956-57 B: 5/17/1933
■Bill White 1956 B: 1/28/1934
■Al Worthington 1953-54, 1956-57 B: 2/5/1929
■Roy Wright 1956 B: 9/26/1933
Monte Irvin is the oldest living member of the New York Giants (95), while Mike McCormick turns 76 next week and is the youngest.

By: Paul Post
NEW YORK — John Thorn’s memory is quite sharp, especially when it comes to recalling his first big league ballgame, a 1956 contest between the Giants and Dodgers at the Polo Grounds.

That’s why Major League Baseball’s official historian is so pleased by the restoration and reopening of the John T. Brush Stairway, near the once-hallowed ballpark site.
The steps, which begin atop fabled Coogan’s Bluff, above the site where the Polo Grounds stood, are among the last visible reminders of the Giants’ proud legacy in New York, which includes their 1954 World Series championship, 60 years ago this fall, best remembered for Willie Mays’ dramatic Game 1 play known simply as “The Catch.”
“The symbolic value of this project is enormous,” Thorn said. “It connects the fan to a great deal of baseball history even beyond the New York Giants. That ballpark was the palace for fans in New York in the early 20th century. Remember, Yankee Stadium didn’t open until 1923. Ballparks are repositories of memories. That’s where we congregated. Ballparks do it better than any other structure.”
Brush was an early Giants owner who died in 1912. Harry N. Hempstead, Brush’s son-in-law who followed as Giants owner, had the stairway built and presented it to the city during a ceremony on July 9, 1913.
For the next half-century, the stairs carried countless fans from Edgecombe Avenue down to ticket windows behind home plate. However, the Polo Grounds was razed in 1964, one year after the Mets left upper Manhattan for Shea Stadium, their new home in Queens. Continue reading →