The New York Giants And The Polo Grounds… Not Much Left.
This is a little ditty written in 1947 by Horace Stoneham, the New York Giants owner. It served as their fight song until 1957, when they ceased to be.
“We’re calling all you fans,
all you Giants ball fans.
Come watch the home team
Going places round those bases.
Cheer for your favorites
out at Coogan’s Bluff.
Come watch the Polo Grounders
do their stuff.”
These are the words of my friend Bryan, who was nice enough to send me these pictures:
“Here is a photo of the top of the staircase, where it meets Edgcombe Avenue. As you can see, the entrance has been blocked off at street level. I wonder how long it has been since anyone walked on those stairs….. the last remaining piece of the Polo Grounds.”
(Detail of the plaque by the stairs.)
I remember the “ol’ gal,” as she was in 1951, when the Scotsman [Bobby Thomson] did his thang…
Here’s Leo and Willie, taken the day the than, soon to be great Mays was called up from the Minneapolis Millers:
… and in 1952 when these heroes of mine made up the every day lineup of [with apologies to Russ Hodges] My Giants.
L-R Whitey Lockman, Davey Williams, Hank Thompson, Alvin Dark, Don Mueller, Willie Mays, Monte Irvin, and Wes Westrum…
… and when Casey Stengel held court in the early Metropolitan days.
Here are some of my favorite pictures:
This was the last Willie Mays Baseball Card as a New York Giant [Topps 1957]
This was taken before the last game the Giants played in the Polo Grounds:
Here’s my least favorites, taken 1964:
Robert Zimmerman said it best. “I was so much older than, I’m younger than that now.”
pete said,
January 28, 2008 at 12:26 pm
i thoroughly enjoyed visiting this site. i will return. pete
Ralph Zig Tyko said,
January 28, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Until that time, Pete, until that time. [With apologies to William Goldman]
Don Pudell said,
March 25, 2008 at 4:16 pm
This is wonderful. A model of the Polo Grounds sits on my desk. I was at the twi-night double header in August 1957 against the St. Louis Cardinals on the day the move was announced as well as at the last game in 1957. 1951 and 1964 were the greatest. As my father and I watched Willies catch in Game 1 of the World Series against Vic Wertz we started screaming. My mother game into the living room to see what was going on. I said, “Never in my life again will I see a catch like this,” and I was right.
Now I am a Met fan. However, nothing beat growing up 10 blocks from Ebbets Field and being a GIANTS FAN.
Mark Silber said,
July 16, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Does anyone remember the game played when the Giants were down, runners were on, and word came from the opposing dugout to walk Don Mueller? The count was perhaps 2 and 0 to Mueller when, on the 3rd pitch or so, Mueller reached well out over the plate and singled off the outside pitch. the Giants won the game. I’m trying to locate a more accurate account of that game. Does anyone know if Mueller is alive and around?
Joe Pellino said,
June 18, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Yes, I remember Don Mueller’s hit on the intentional walk. I saw it on Channel 11. There must be a way to search it out on the internet.
Do you remember that Mueller broke his leg on a slide into third when Whitey Lockman doubled driving in a run with 2 out and making the score Dodgers 4..Giants 2 just before Bobby Thompson’s ‘Shot Heard Round The World’?
Judy said,
October 10, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Don Mueller is living in St. Louis. I by chance met him when my 80 year old father was recovering from bypass surgery. I have sat several times with Don and enjoy listening to his stories of his playing days. He talks of hitting corn kernels with a stick growing up and how he held the bat different than most that allowed him to place the ball so accurately. He turned 81 this past April.
Ralph Zig Tyko said,
December 5, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Judy,
Our seats were in the right field grandstand. Grandfather and grandson with the same view of things [Whitey Lockman's grace, Willie's heroics...] as #22. About 20 years ago, feeling nostalgic, I called Don and asked him if he’d take a moment and chat about those days. “You betcha,” and talk he did. What a mench, would have said my grandmother.
Jeff Stuart said,
April 11, 2009 at 9:37 am
THE END From Twilight Teams, by me, Jeff Stuart.
On Sunday September twenty-ninth, Russ Hodges, voice of the Giants, hosted the pre-game ceremonies before the Giants last game at the Polo Grounds. Virtually every generation of stars in Giant history was represented, including eighty-six-year-old Jack Doyle, who ¬ man¬ aged the club in the pre-McGraw era. Stars from previous Giant teams introduced at home plate on a warm sunny afternoon were Red Murray, George Burns, George “Hooks” Wiltse, Moose McCormick, Frank Frisch, Rosie Ryan, John “Hans” Lobert, Larry Doyle, Rube Marquard, Carl Hubbell, Mel Ott, Hal Schumacher, Billy Jurges, Monte Irwin, Sal Maglie, Buddy Kerr, and George “Kiddo” Davis. Recently retired players included Sid Gordon, and Willard Marshall, who also played for the Braves in their last season in Boston. Eighty-one-year-old George Levy, former stadium announcer who once used a megaphone to announce, “the ‘batreez’ for today’s game,” was also introduced. Each former Giant received a noisy ovation.
With a sense of occasion, Rigney started as many of the 1951 and 1954 pennant winners as he had available. Antonelli was on the mound with Wes Westrum behind the plate. Thomson and Lockman occupied opposite infield corners. Rhodes and Mueller flanked Mays in the ¬ outfield. Between innings Rosemary Clooney’s hit song, This Old House, played over the Public Address System.
If it mattered, the Pirates won, nine to one, behind Bob Friend. The Giants finished in sixth place, twenty-six games back of the League-Champion Milwaukee Braves. Rhodes sacrifice fly in the first inning scored Mueller with the final New York Giant run ever. The loss went to Antonelli. His eighteen losses were the most in his eight year career. The final out was recorded at four thirty-five Sunday, when Dusty Rhodes grounded a three two pitch to Dick Groat at short. Before the infielder’s throw reached first base, fans were leaping barriers, and surging toward the Giant clubhouse in center field.
The players fled for the safety of the center field clubhouses with Mueller, and a puzzled Rigney, puffing, and bringing up the rear. The fans chanted, “Hang Horace, Hang Horace.” The Giants’ owner, who maintained an apartment on the fourth floor of the blockhouse in ¬ center field. The chants soon turned to “We want Willie, we want Willie.” The usually accessible Mays, who still sometimes played stick ball with the kids in the streets outside his Harlem apartment, did not make a farewell appearance either.
The post game demonstration was motivated by a curious blend of anger, affection, annoyance, nostalgia, excitement, and curiosity. Most fans remained in the stands. Those on the field were mainly souvenir hunters. They ripped up home plate, the pitcher’s rubber, the bases, and even gouged out sections of outfield grass. Will Anderson, now a publisher in Portland, Maine, was at the game. Then a high school senior from Ardsley, New York, he claimed a heavy orange and black sign reading “To Upper Stands” as a souvenir. “What do those people in California know about baseball,” he mused. There was no heavy ¬ vandalism, or violence. The New York Police mostly monitored the activities, without intervention. They did, however, retrieve the bronze plaque that was removed from the Eddie Grant Memorial in center field from three teenage boys. The memorial, placed in 1921, honored the late Giant infielder who died in World War I. He was the only Major League baseball player ever killed in military service prior to the War in Viet Nam.
New York Times’ columnist Milton Bracker reported:
Officially, the last fan to leave the Polo Grounds was a woman: Mrs. Blanche S. McGraw. She had attended games at least three times a week when her husband, perhaps the greatest single figure in Giant history, managed the team. Her right eye moistened a little as she was asked what she remembered with greatest joy at the Polo Grounds. ‘Why Mr. McGraw winning pennants,’ she smiled. And which pennants? “All of them.”
Jeff Stuart said,
April 11, 2009 at 9:39 am
More from Twilight Teams. Availiable from me $7 includes shipping and handling.
DEMOLITION OF THE POLO GROUNDS
Demolition of the Polo Grounds began on April ninth, 1964, making way for a public housing project, known at the Polo Grounds Apartments. The Wrecking Corporation of America, tasked with destroying the grand old park had gotten so much publicity that it had changed its logo to a baseball, and its slogan to “On the Ball.” Harry Avirom, Vice President of the company, wielded a sledgehammer himself for the occasion. “One thing I’ll say for this place,” he said. “No collapse action here, very well built. It could have lasted forever.” But it didn’t. A two ton steel ball, painted like a baseball for the occasion, smashed into the concrete walls.
“Those chairs over there are for sale, three bucks each,” Avirom said, pointing to piles of green seats on the infield. The Birmingham Blue Dukes minor league team took five hundred seats. Yonkers Raceway purchased six hundred seats. The city of St. Augustine, Florida, took two thousand. Some went to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Others went to local schools.
The thirty foot flag poles sold for fifty dollars each. A couple of hundred spectators at the park looked for their own free souvenirs. A man from Yonkers took just an envelope of dirt.
Workers, wearing Giants’ baseball shirts, pounded the roof of the visitor’s dugout with sledgehammers. A black cat who had taken up residence there scrambled out of the dugout, paused for a last look, and ran off to search for a new home. “Cats and dogs who live here will be able to care for themselves,” said Avirom. “We slug harder than the Giants ever did in this park. Slug, bang, slam! Gotta make the right moves. Gotta take calculated risks. Yeah, yeah, something like baseball you could say. Getting at the Polo Grounds was something I’ve always wanted to do. This makes up for the sad day we went after Ebbets Field in 1960.” Avirom, a die hard Dodger fan, reveled in the destruction.
Crew member Stephen McNair, also a Dodger fan, pointed to the section of the left field fence below the “Section thirty-three” sign. “I’m going to take that down myself. History was made there.” Bobby Thomson hit the “Shot heard round the world” over that fence in 1951, keeping the Dodgers out of the World Series.
The scoreboard clock, one of the last items of historical importance to be removed, was frozen at ten twenty-four. It wasn’t clear whether it was morning or evening.
The demolition was completed on May thirtieth. On that same Saturday afternoon before a crowd of 38,472 at Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows, the New York Mets defeated the San Francisco Giants, six to two. Willie Mays, in center field for San Francisco, tripled and singled.
Ralph Zig Tyko said,
May 4, 2009 at 12:48 pm
The response to this post has awesome!! Thank you, one and all.
Zig
Richard Chilton said,
May 28, 2009 at 7:00 pm
What a great piece. I would like the book if availbale. I was at that last game with my wife, and I have to admit I went out to center field where Willie stood and took a piece of turf about 4″ X 4″ and have it to this day. The dirt, the grass long since died. It is a hallowed piece for me. I have the opening day ticket, April 18, 1957,Section 24, Box 2E, Seat 7 framed with the last game on September 29, 1957, Section 13, Box 2B, Seat 5. along with the front page of the Daily News They have hung proudly in my den for all these years.
dolores ferris lintz said,
July 2, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Are you Dick Chilton who lived in Leonia in the 50’s?? If so we had some great badminton games and a good Yankees/Giants battle going!!
Losing Less, The 1962 New York Mets Way « Pushing on the Doors of Life Marked “Pull” said,
July 7, 2009 at 7:10 pm
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