When the Giants left New York...

[Honus Wagner Rules]

...did you:

a) Continue to follow the San Francisco Giants

b) Followed another team (which one?)

c) Didn't follow any team

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Anyone? :o

[Honus Wagner Rules]

So far there have been 81 views and only one vote?

[POLO GROUNDS 1957]

I would vote but i was not born until 1961.

[Williamsburg2599]

So far there have been 81 views and only one vote?
I guess there isin't a lot of NY Giants fans around here....

[Brownieand45sfan]

I guess there isin't a lot of NY Giants fans around here....
Yeah, it's weird. There are almost as many posts for the Browns as the Giants. And the former were a lot less popular, less successful team that left earlier than the Giants (and had its name obliterated by the successor city.)

[KCGHOST]

I would vote, but I was a Dodger fan in those days, so my vote (Followed Another Team) would be misleading.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

So far there have been 81 views and only one vote?
We are now up to 239 views and still only one vote?

[POLO GROUNDS 1957]

Well there are still alot of new york giants fans out there but they are not like the brooklyn dodgers fans are today.like i said before i would have voted in this poll but i was born in 1961.

[Brownie31]

We are now up to 239 views and still only one vote?

Frustrating. I'd vote but I didn't live in New York in 1957.

Brownie31

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Frustrating. I'd vote but I didn't live in New York in 1957.

Brownie31
Where you a NY Giants fan in 1957?

[Brownie31]

Where you a NY Giants fan in 1957?

Not really a baseball fan then. I was only seven and didn't get interested heavily in baseball until junior high in the mid sixties.

Brownie31

[DoubleX]

Yeah, it's weird. There are almost as many posts for the Browns as the Giants. And the former were a lot less popular, less successful team that left earlier than the Giants (and had its name obliterated by the successor city.)

The thing I find very interesting about the New York Giants is the apparent lack of nostalgia. This is a team that had a great tradition in New York City, had a lot of success, and featured a number of great players, not to mention a great manager and had arguably the greatest player in the game when they moved. Yet, I've in or around New York City most of my life, and its only the Dodgers leaving that seems to still resonate, whereas the Giants leaving seems to be just a footnote. Perhaps its because the Giants were situated too close to the Yankees and over time, just became too overshadowed by the Yankees and could not compete with the Yankees for the fans, whereas the Dodgers, situated several miles away in Brooklyn, had cultivated its own fanbase?

[Shotgun Shuba]

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that NY still has a NL team. The Mets wear the same logo, played in the same park and have occupied the same slot the Giants abandoned in New Yorker's hearts. Brooklyn has never gotten a team back. It also has to do with the fact that the Giants were really in a downward spiral when they left and I doubt they were really missed after 1962. New York truly loves the Mets, a relationship formed from the pain of losing the two teams, and really has no interest in a team that has languished on the west coast. God help Giant fans if the Cubs ever win a world series.

[DoubleX]

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that NY still has a NL team. The Mets wear the same logo, played in the same park and have occupied the same slot the Giants abandoned in New Yorker's hearts. Brooklyn has never gotten a team back. It also has to do with the fact that the Giants were really in a downward spiral when they left and I doubt they were really missed after 1962. New York truly loves the Mets, a relationship formed from the pain of losing the two teams, and really has no interest in a team that has languished on the west coast. God help Giant fans if the Cubs ever win a world series.

I was mostly under the impression that even though the Mets are in many ways a facisimile of the Giants (logo, played in the polo grounds), the Mets inherited more of the Dodgers following. Early Mets teams featured a number of former Dodgers such as Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Roger Craig, Charlie Neal, and Don Zimmer, and Brooklyn and Queens geographically share the whole long island thing.

New York does really like the Mets, but for the past 15 years, they've been clearly the city's second team, and by a considerable margin at times during that span. However, the Mets have had a renaissance in the past couple of years, in terms of fan interest, and I think if they could win a championship or two, they could supplant the Yankees for top dog.

[Shotgun Shuba]

I think that the Yankees success in this era has tilted the town back to the center, not towards the Yanks. New York has always been a National League town. Even during the Yankees run circa 77-81 the Mets and their awful team still were more popular. During the 80's when both teams were good the Mets were still The Team, I think, regardless of the bloated free agents brought in(Winfield, Henderson, Clark) by the Boss. Lately you have seen the Yankees clearly being better and grabbing the headlines. Nationally and internationally it's no contest, the Yankees are Americana. They might still be second in their own town though.

Many Dodger fans did become Mets fans but I always got more of a Giants vibe at Shea just because of the the Hats and uniforms(earlier on) and early Mets ownership.

[DoubleX]

I think that the Yankees success in this era has tilted the town back to the center, not towards the Yanks. New York has always been a National League town. Even during the Yankees run circa 77-81 the Mets and their awful team still were more popular. During the 80's when both teams were good the Mets were still The Team, I think, regardless of the bloated free agents brought in(Winfield, Henderson, Clark) by the Boss. Lately you have seen the Yankees clearly being better and grabbing the headlines. Nationally and internationally it's no contest, the Yankees are Americana. They might still be second in their own town though.

Many Dodger fans did become Mets fans but I always got more of a Giants vibe at Shea just because of the the Hats and uniforms(earlier on) and early Mets ownership.

I think up until the early 90s, the Mets had the edge, but the Yankees zoomed well by the Mets by the late 90s, and I think the Mets have only recently begun to close the gap. The Yankees are, and have been for over a decade, the headline team in New York. It can also be seen in the fact that the Yankees have very heavily outdrawn the Mets in the past decade. It really hasn't been close as the Mets have been in the bottom half of the NL in attendance most years in the past 10-15 years, whereas the Yankees have for the past decade, consistently been at or near the top of the league.

Anyway, we digress from the topic here, which is the Giants.

[punker268]

Yeah. uhm i voted but i was born in '94

[MelOtt]

Yeah I voted as well but to be honest I was not a Giants fan until 1984 and I was born the same year as the Miracle Mets.

[brewcrew82]

Where you a NY Giants fan in 1957?

Strange that some that have voted were not alive when the Giants moved. :rant:

[Walt B]

I followed the SF Giants ONLY because I remained a Willie Mays fan!

[Honus Wagner Rules]

I followed the SF Giants ONLY because I remained a Willie Mays fan!

That's a pretty good reason! :thumbsup:

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Strange that some that have voted were not alive when the Giants moved. :rant:

:think: :think:

[GIANT]

...did you:

a) Continue to follow the San Francisco Giants

b) Followed another team (which one?)

c) Didn't follow any team

Yes, when the Giants left New York I continued to follow them. It was made somewhat easier because WINS 1010 in New York carried recreations of the Giant games. Les Keider was the play by play man. The Yankees were never an option, although I did attend some of their games usually on Old Timers Day when many former Giants were invited.

[SHOELESSJOE3]

A Yankee fan but at the same time always loved the Giants of New York. Not much interest since they moved to the coast. Magic time in N.Y. when the Giants, Dodgers and Yanks were there at the same time.

[Dalkowski110]

Can I vote for my Dad? He just stopped rooting for any one team until the Mets came along in 1962.

[WESWESTRUM]

I stayed a GIANTS fan for years. I still get a thrill seeing them in their beautiful home uniforms. I was 10 when they broke my heart and I still grieve, as much as any Dodger fan who ever lived. But what's the use of crying in your beer like a bunch of sloppy drunks who think they're entitled to the world's sympathy? I don't know, I mean Brooklyn never had anything else, and then when they finally had a great club they were robbed at the height of their joy. The Giants were the most successful team in the League and second to the Yanks in all baseball. They led the NL in pennants and were 2nd in World Series when they left, and even won 2 pennants and 1 Series in the fifties, which was better than any other team outside NYC. To this day they lead all of baseball in total wins! So maybe Giants fans just felt it was more classy to lick their wounds in silence. I know that Jimmy Cannon, who I read was a Yankee fan and the best sportswriter of my lifetime, said in an article in 1952 (which I have a reprint copy of): "It is the Giants who are the home team of New York." And that's good enough for me.

[penncentralpete]

i was a dodger fan, but my giant-fan buddies agreed with me after a while......................because the giants and dodgers results took so long to appear (their games ending at 1am EST) in the NY papers, we soon lost all interest. it seemed we, as fans of SF and LA, were always a day behind! soon after, we all became METS fans. pete

[keyrocco]

First of all, you could not automatically root for the "Evil Empire, dba N.Y. Yankees". You could follow the Giants by listening to their games being recreated by Les Keiter on WINS. OR, if you had a shortwave radio, the Giants simulcast their local San Francisco play-by-play broadcasts on a shortwave radio station on weekends. It was quite a thrill to be able to hear Russ Hodges again do play-by-play with his, "....bye bye baby" signature,home run call. In 1962 all of this became moot when the Mets were born and suddenly the Giants were hard to root for.

[ChinaBasin]

Manhattan's only NL team, now on the cusp of 50 years away from the Polo Grounds - still has a proud history (as some folks here have pointed out). The fact that their time in NYC is little remembered (by comparison to the Dodgers and the Yankees) doesn't take away from their legacy as the team of Matthewson, Ott, Mays, McCovey and Marachal. (Expect a ton of news articles next year about the 50th anniversary of the departure of the Dodgers and the Giants.

I grew up an LA Dodger fan, but became a Giant fan after living in SF for 10 years; I have much respect the long-suffering SF fans - some of you have no idea how brutal Candlestick for the nearly frostbitten - swirling fog and damp, bone-chilling cold - baseball had no business being there. Even if the attendance dropped in the '70s, it's amazing they drew as many as they did. Seal's Stadium at 16th and Bryant in SF was the perfect sunny spot for a downtown ballpark, but they didn't have the smarts to realize in the '50s that baseball -should- be played in the heart of our cities.

I wish I was alive when they played at the Polo Grounds - just the fact that they were Manhattan's team, and have one of the best cumulative records in NL history speaks volumes. I look forward to the post-Bonds era when they can go back to being a -team- and less a spectacle. Sabean will work his magic with more $ to spend. It will return.

[Brownieand45sfan]

>>McCovey and Marachal

You mean signed by the New York team, but never playing for them.

[Ralph Zig Tyko]

The Jints left when I was eleven. That sucked blue goldfish.
I rooted for them in SF and remain an occasional apologist, if not a fan. When the Mets were born in '62, I became a fan of the Amazin' Nine. Irony is that in 1966 I, too, became a former New Yawka and migrated to the bay area of California. With satellites and the internet, it's now easy to root from afar. It wasn't always the case, Gawd knows.
It's a damn shame that NY didn't retain eminent domain on the names "Giants" and "Dodgers".
Also, the NY on Met caps is different than the NY Giant logo.

[rcl986@aol.com]

Also, the NY on Met caps is different than the NY Giant logo.[/QUOTE]

Yes, way different! The current Mets NY logo looks like something crazily created by entwining several sharp fish hooks together. Not at all the logo they inherited from the Giants of the late forties and fifties nor the logo they themselves used for several years.

[ChinaBasin]

Agreed about the NY Mets logo looking like fish-hooks. I'm looking for the best place for replica NY Giants gear, especially un-fitted hats. Suggestions?

[Ralph Zig Tyko]

Here's a link to a post I wrote about my new [1951 style] Giants cap.
http://pushpull.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/is-your-osenburg-soft-mine-is/