{"id":408,"date":"2014-06-08T02:30:22","date_gmt":"2014-06-08T06:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/?p=408"},"modified":"2014-06-09T09:02:48","modified_gmt":"2014-06-09T13:02:48","slug":"ode-to-a-real-giant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/?p=408","title":{"rendered":"HAPPY FATHER’S DAY- AN ODE TO A REAL GIANT (REVISED) 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MY<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\nMy dad was Louis Mintz.\u00a0 Family man, librarian at the NY Public Library for over 40 years, father, Giants Fan.\u00a0 Not a day goes by when I don\u2019t think of him.\u00a0 He was always upbeat with an infectious smile that stayed with him even as cancer ravaged his body.\u00a0 Nobody ever said a bad word about him, the testament to his greatness.\u00a0 He loved my mom, loved his 3 boys, and worshipped the ground of his 3 granddaughters (his girlies, my daughters) and his grandson.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then there were the Giants.\u00a0 His love of the NY Giants somehow continued when the orange and black moved to San Francisco.\u00a0 I, wanting to be like him, started following the SF Giants in 1969.\u00a0 Up until 2010, I claimed it was the only wrong thing my father ever did.\u00a0 That all changed of course when Nelson Cruz swung and missed on a Brian Wilson pitch on November 1, 2010.\u00a0 It was the most compelling moment of my sports life as a fan.\u00a0 Forty-two years I waited, forty-two years!!\u00a0 In one night, all the hurt and pain was suddenly gone.\u00a0 Then viola!! The Giants stun the baseball world by winning it all again in 2012. Two World Championships in 3 years!! UNBELIEVABLE!! My only remorse is that \u201cSweet Lou\u201d wasn\u2019t around to savor it with me as he passed in 2003.\u00a0 I wish we could have talked about it, laughed about it and reminisced about it.\u00a0 When the World Series Trophy Tour stopped in Manhattan in January 2011 & again in January 2013, he surely would have treasured the moments as I did with my wife and my daughters.\u00a0 To think he would have met and shook hands with his idol Willie Mays.\u00a0 What a story that would have been!!
\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I became associated with the New York Giants because of my love and admiration for this man.\u00a0 Growing up I would hear him say things that would just pop out of the air for no apparent rhyme or reason.\u00a0 There would be the names that he would spew.\u00a0 Alvin \u201cBlacky\u201d Dark, Monte I\u201crrrrrrrrr\u201dvin, whom he called at times the \u201cOrange Cutie\u201d (evidently Monte Irvin\u2019s nickname) Bobby Thomson, \u201cThe Flying Scot\u201d,\u00a0Sal \u201cThe Barber\u201d Maglie, Bill \u201cThe Cricket\u201d Rigney, and just plain \u201cWillie\u201d, no need for any other name as I knew who he meant. Then there were the little sayings, The old \u201cPG\u2019s\u201d, \u201cThe June Swoon\u201d, and as Frankie Frisch would say, \u201cOh those bases on balls\u201d. Occasionally he would sing the Giants theme song, \u201cWe\u2019re calling all fans, all you Giants ballfans, come watch the home-team going places, round those bases\u201d. He in fact once wrote a letter to the SF Giants asking them for the recording, unfortunately to no avail.\u00a0 Then there was his mimicking Mel Ott\u2019s leg lift, and Hoyt Wilhelm\u2019s grip, legendary!
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dad would often tell me how the fans had to leave the stadium through the center field gate which meant walking on the field.\u00a0 He told me that he was once spiked by Johnny Beradino near the second base bag.\u00a0 He would also see doubleheaders often going from the Polo Grounds to Yankee Stadium (or the other way around, not sure) via the Macombs Dam Bridge to see both the football and baseball Giants on the same Sunday afternoon.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My dad left me and his family way too early.\u00a0 When the Giants finally won in 2010, I planted a little World Series Flag by his grave.\u00a0 It still waves proudly there today along with the newly implanted 2012 flag.\u00a0 I needed him to know his impact on me and how \u201cwe\u201d finally did it.\u00a0 I miss the many times, even as an adult when he would say to me after I was forlorn over a loss, \u201cWhat are you worried about?\u00a0 Do they worry about you?\u201d Although I am now somehow middle aged, I still hope I can be half the man he was.\u00a0 There were the Giants from the Polo Grounds, the Giants in San Francisco, and all the legendary players that donned the Giants uniform in both places.\u00a0 For my money though, my dad, Louis Mintz, was the greatest Giant of them all!\u00a0\u00a0 Happy Father\u2019s Day to you all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My dad was Louis Mintz.\u00a0 Family man, librarian at the NY Public Library for over 40 years, father, Giants Fan.\u00a0 Not a day goes by when I don\u2019t think of him.\u00a0 He was always upbeat with an infectious smile … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408","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\/408","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=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1826,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions\/1826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}