{"id":3010,"date":"2026-01-23T15:50:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T20:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/?p=3010"},"modified":"2026-01-23T15:50:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T20:50:30","slug":"happy-96th-birthday-joe-margoneri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/?p=3010","title":{"rendered":"HAPPY 96TH BIRTHDAY JOE MARGONERI!!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

NYG Pitcher Joe Margoneri celebrates his 96th birthday on January 13th. He is one of the 6 surviving members of the New York Giants. Below is a list of the remaining living members of the NY Giants, with their birth-dates starting in January. I found a great article from 2013 on Joe which you can read below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25a0Joe Margoneri 1956-57 B: 1\/13\/1930 P<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25a0Joey Amalfitano 1954-55 B:1\/23\/1934 INF<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25a0Bill White 1956 B: 1\/28\/1934 1B<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25a0Al Worthington 1953-54, 1956-57 B: 2\/5\/1929 P<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25a0Jackie Brandt 1956 B: 4\/28\/1934 OF<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25a0Ray Crone 1957 B: 8\/7\/1931 P<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TIDBITS:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Joey Amalfitano and Al Worthington, are the only remaining NY Giants from the 1954 World Championship team, the last WS Championship they won in NY.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Joe Margoneri is the only NY Giant of the 6 remaining NY Giants to solely play for the franchise in NY and not in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Jackie Brandt, Ray Crone, Bill White, and Al Worthington, are the only remaining Giants who played for the team in NY and were members of the inaugural SF Giants in 1958.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Joey Amalfitano is the only NY Giant who played with the SF Giants, but not during the inaugural 1958 season in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Jackie Brandt (91) is the youngest living NY Giant and Al Worthington (96) is the oldest living NY Giant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOE MARGONERI’S JOURNEY TO THE POLO GROUNDS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe Margoneri\u2019s golden left arm was his ticket into professional baseball. Blessed with a blazing fastball, Margoneri caught the attention of the New York Giants scouts after pitching on the sandlots of Smithton, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had no high school baseball. I was playing semi-pro ball, working for the gentleman that ran the team. He owned a coal mine and coke oven,\u201d Margoneri said during a December 2012 phone interview. \u201cI was a young guy and I could throw the ball pretty good. I didn\u2019t know how hard I could throw it. The owner got to me after the game and said there was a scout, Nick Shinkoff, from the New York Giants that wanted to see me. My boss sort of kept it hush hush and didn\u2019t want me to see anybody else. It went on from there and that\u2019s how I got signed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThrough the grapevine, I think somebody else got a bonus for me,” he said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t verify it, but it doesn\u2019t matter. All I wanted to do was play baseball at 19, 20 years old. I signed a contract for $150 a month; I thought I was a millionaire. I got by strictly on a fastball too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His speed overpowered the hitters in the league, as he finished the season with a 23-4 record, and advanced two levels to Class B Sunbury the next season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI did decent there; I had 18 wins,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as he was poised to continue his ascent in the Giants organization, Uncle Sam called.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Army got me,\u201d he said. \u201cBack in those days, Korean War was coming on and the draft was still in progress. They were drafting guys and that\u2019s how I got in. I didn\u2019t volunteer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He spent the next two seasons (1952-53) stationed at Brooke Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was fortunate, I stayed state-side,\u201d he said. \u201cI played baseball down in San Antonio, Texas. It was what they called special service. They had football players, basketball players \u2014 all types of athletes down there in one section.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His teammates included some big names that were familiar to New Yorkers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon Newcombe and Bobby Brown were down there; Newcombe and I got to be pretty good friends,\u201d he recalled. \u201cHe used to be a salesman for one of the beer companies, and we used to travel around in this big ol\u2019 Cadillac.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His time in the service provided him with an opportunity to stay sharp for his return to the Giants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI pitched pretty well in the service,\u201d he said. \u201cWe played a lot of semi-pro teams in the oil fields of Texas, as well as the Air Force bases and Army bases. I came out and went to Nashville and won like 14 games there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During that 1954 offseason, Margoneri traveled south to play for Magallanes in the Venezuelan Winter League. He led the team to a second-place finish in the Caribbean Series, which included squaring off against his future teammate Willie Mays, who was playing for the powerhouse Santurce club of Puerto Rico. He handed Santurce their only defeat of the series, surrendering two runs in a complete game victory. His performance didn\u2019t go unnoticed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He showed up to spring training in 1955 and immediately caught the attention of Giants manager Leo Durocher. In the March 7, 1955 issue of the Long Island Star-Journal, Durocher raved about Margoneri\u2019s prospects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI like everything about the kid,\u201d Durocher said. \u201cI like his attitude \u2026 his poise \u2026 his motion \u2026 and, above all, his fastball. He\u2019s firin\u2019 harder than the others because he\u2019s ready. He pitched in one of those winter leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Giants felt he was ready for their highest minor league competition and sent him to their AAA team in Minneapolis. Margoneri helped lead the team to the 1955 Junior World Series Championship, defeating the Rochester Red Wings of the International League in the best of a seven-game series. The long season, including his time in the winter leagues, was almost a two-year stretch of non-stop pitching. Just as he was inching close to the major leagues, he started to have problems with his pitching arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when my arm trouble started. I was throwing 150 pitches per game and became a bit wild,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margoneri rested his arm in the offseason, and in 1956, he was rewarded for his perseverance. On April 25, 1956, he made his major league debut against the Brooklyn Dodgers at the Polo Grounds, pitching one scoreless inning in relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was just like a dream,\u201d he said. \u201cJust wanting to get there, and then I got there and hung on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margoneri did more than hang on, he excelled. By mid-August, he was 5-2 with a 2.77 ERA. Things were looking up for the left-hander, and then his sore arm resurfaced. He won only one of his next five decisions, finishing 6-6 with a 4.04 ERA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy arm went practically went dead. I lost 30% on my fastball. That was right in the middle of my arm being bad. I didn\u2019t want to tell anyone. [If you were hurt] you went down and you didn\u2019t come back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back at his rookie season, Margoneri savored the opportunity to brush shoulders with a future Hall of Famer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had my locker next to Willie Mays. He was phenomenal. He did everything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He even had a Mays moment of his own against the Chicago Cubs in New York, when he hit his lone major league home run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll never forget that baby!\u201d he said. \u201cIt was in the Polo Grounds off of Warren Hacker of the Cubs. It was a fastball. [I hit it to] right field, over the short fence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pitched 13 more games for the Giants in 1957, and was sent down to the minors for good halfway through the season. He continued to pitch until 1960 before moving on from baseball, where he worked in a paper mill for 30 years, retiring in 1991.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI started practically on the bottom in 1962 went until 1991 and moved up the ladder. I was a supervisor the last 15 years making corrugated boxes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still popular with the fans, he often receives mail requests to sign his 1957 Topps card. He gladly returns them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI still get a lot of index cards and bubble gum cards, a few of those per week. I send them back all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Topps honored him in their 2006 Topps Heritage set, traveling to his home in West Newton, Pennsylvania, for him to sign replica cards as special inserts in their packs. At 83, his focus now is his family, which includes a budding pitching star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI raised five daughters, 13 grand children and my fifth great-grandchild is on the way. I\u2019ve been married 58 years to my wife Helen. She went to one local high school and I went to another and she was my childhood sweetheart,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His granddaughter Nicole Sleith is an ace left-handed pitcher for Robert Morris University’s softball team. So does he offer words of wisdom about facing the likes of Duke Snider, Ernie Banks, and Stan Musial?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe doesn\u2019t need it,\u201d he said. She\u2019s good; she broke all kinds of records in high school and has a scholarship now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/www.baseballhappenings.net\/…\/joe-margoneris…\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NYG Pitcher Joe Margoneri celebrates his 96th birthday on January 13th. He is one of the 6 surviving members of the New York Giants. Below is a list of the remaining living members of the NY Giants, with their birth-dates … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3010"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3012,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3010\/revisions\/3012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}