The history of the San Francisco Giants begins in 1883 with the New York Gothams and has involved some of baseball's greatest players, including Willie Mays, Juan Marichal, Barry Bonds, and Gaylord Perry. The team has won three World Series titles and six National League (NL) pennants since moving to San Francisco.
New York Giants history
From 1883 to 1957, the Giants franchise played games for New York City. During that time, the Giants won five of the franchise's eight World Series wins and 17 of its 23 National League pennants while playing most of its home games in the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan.
The Giants franchise was added by the National League in response to the 1882 formation of the American Association. Originally named the Gothams, they won consecutive National League pennants in 1888 and 1889 behind future Hall of Famers Tim Keefe, Mickey Welch, Roger Connor and Buck Ewing. From 1902 to 1931, the team was managed by John McGraw, who led them to 10 National League pennants and three World Series championships with many great players including Christy Mathewson, Joe McGinnity, Bill Terry, Jim Thorpe, Mel Ott, Casey Stengel, and Red Ames.
The post-McGraw Giants were punctuated by two famous moments, the Shot Heard 'Round the World (1951) by Bobby Thomson and The Catch by young superstar Willie Mays (1954). In the mid-1950s, the Polo Grounds was in disrepair, and the Giants began to contemplate a move from New York. The Brooklyn Dodgers were considering a move to Los Angeles but were told it would not be allowed unless a second team moved to California as well. As a result, the Giants agreed to move to San Francisco, and New York was left without a National League team until the New York Mets in 1962.
1958–present: San Francisco Giants
As with the New York years, the Giants' fortune in San Francisco has been mixed. Though recently the club has enjoyed sustained success, there have also been prolonged stretches of mediocrity along with two instances when the club's ownership threatened to move the team away from San Francisco.
1958–1961: Seals Stadium and Candlestick Park
When the Giants moved to San Francisco, they played in Seals Stadium for their first two seasons. From 1931 to 1957, the stadium was the home of the Pacific Coast League San Francisco Seals, the AAA minor league affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. In 1958, first baseman Orlando Cepeda won Rookie of the Year honors. In 1959, Willie McCovey won the same award.
In 1960, the Giants moved to Candlestick Park, a stadium built on Candlestick Point in San Francisco's southeast corner overlooking San Francisco Bay. The new stadium quickly became known for its strong, swirling winds, cold temperatures, and thick evening fog that made for a formidable experience for brave fans and players, as well as its built-in radiant heating system which did not work. Candlestick's reputation was sealed in the ninth inning of the first 1961 All-Star Game when the winds picked up and a strong gust caused Giants relief pitcher Stu Miller to slip off the pitching rubber during his delivery, resulting in a balk, and a baseball legend that Miller was "blown off the mound".
1962 World Series
In 1962, another memorable pennant chase with the Dodgers resulted in a second three-game tiebreaker between the two teams. The Giants again won by coming from behind with four runs in the ninth inning of Game 3. The Giants brought a World Series to San Francisco but lost 4–3 to the New York Yankees. Game 7 went to the bottom of the ninth inning, with the Yankees ahead 1–0. With Matty Alou on first base and two out, Willie Mays sliced a double down the right field line. Right fielder Roger Maris quickly got to the ball and rifled a throw to the infield preventing Alou from scoring the tying run and keeping him at third base. With Mays on second, well known for his speed, any base hit by the next batter, Willie McCovey would likely have won the series for the Giants. McCovey hit a line drive right at second baseman Bobby Richardson, who caught it after taking one step, ending the game and Series.
1963–1984
Although the Giants did not play in another World Series until 1989, the teams of the 1960s continued to be pennant contenders thanks to several future Hall-of-Famers. These included Gaylord Perry, who pitched a no-hitter with the Giants in 1968; Juan Marichal, a pitcher with a memorable high-kicking delivery; McCovey, who won the National League MVP award in 1969, and Mays, who hit his 600th career home run in 1969. A Giants highlight came in 1963 when Jesús Alou joined the team, and along with Felipe and Matty, for one late inning of one game, formed the first all-brother outfield in major league history. In 1967, pitcher Mike McCormick became the first Giants Cy Young Award winner.
The Giants' next appearance in the postseason came in 1971. On the last day of the regular season, the Giants were nearing a historic collapse, having seen their lead in the National League West fall from games to one game over the Los Angeles Dodgers. However, in their 162nd game, the Giants defeated the San Diego Padres to clinch the division. The Giants were defeated in the League Championship Series by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
During this decade, the Giants gave up many players who became successful elsewhere, including Garry Maddox, George Foster, Dave Kingman and Gaylord Perry. Two Giants became Rookies of the Year—outfielder Gary Matthews Sr. in 1973 and pitcher John Montefusco in 1975.
In 1976, in an 11th-hour deal, Bob Lurie bought the team, saving it from being moved to Toronto. Toronto was awarded an expansion team, the Blue Jays which began play the next year, but San Francisco baseball fans' worries about losing their beloved Giants had not completely gone away.
The rest of the 1970s was generally disappointing for the Giants, as they finished no higher than third place in any season. In 1978, thanks to young star slugger Jack Clark, veteran first baseman Willie McCovey, second baseman Bill Madlock, who was acquired from the Chicago Cubs, shortstops Johnnie LeMaster and Roger Metzger, and third baseman Darrell Evans, the Giants managed to finish the season above .500 with an 89–73 record. Veteran pitchers Vida Blue, John Montefusco, Ed Halicki, and Bob Knepper rounded out the starting rotation with Blue leading the way with 18 wins. The most memorable moment of that season occurred on May 28, 1978. With the Giants trailing 3–1 in the sixth inning, pinch hitter Mike Ivie hit a grand slam off of Dodgers ace Don Sutton before Candlestick Park's highest paid attendance of 58,545. They led the National League West for most of the season until the Los Angeles Dodgers got hot late to win the division.
In 1981, the Giants became the first National League team to hire a black manager, Frank Robinson, although he lasted fewer than four years and was generally unsuccessful. The Giants finished a game over .500 in the strike-shortened 1981 season. The next season, the Giants acquired veterans Joe Morgan and Reggie Smith, got hot late, and ended up in a three-team pennant race with the Dodgers and Braves. The day after the Dodgers eliminated them, Morgan hit a homer against the Dodgers on the last day of the season, giving the NL West to Atlanta.
1985–1989: Humm-Baby
In 1985, owner Bob Lurie threatened to move the team out of the city of San Francisco to another location in the San Francisco Bay Area. Locations under consideration were Redwood City, San José, and Milpitas.
The 1985 Giants lost 100 games, the most in franchise history, under unsuccessful rookie manager Jim Davenport, and Lurie responded by hiring Al Rosen as general manager and Roger Craig as field manager. Rosen began in 1986 by bringing up promising rookies such as Will Clark and Robby Thompson and followed up in 1987 with trades for stars like Kevin Mitchell, Dave Dravecky, Candy Maldonado, and Rick Reuschel.
Craig managed the Giants from late 1985 to 1992. In his first five full seasons with the Giants, the team had winning records. The Giants won 83 games in 1986 and won the NL West Division title in 1987, losing the NLCS to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. The one bright spot in that defeat was their slugging outfielder Jeffrey Leonard, who was named the Most Valuable Player for the series in a losing effort. In Leonard's own faltering words, the prize money ($50,000) meant nothing to him, but only the win that eluded him and his team.
1989: Will the "Thrill", World Series and the earthquake Although the team used 15 different starting pitchers in the regular season, the 1989 Giants won the National League pennant. They were led by NL All-Star Game starting pitcher Rick Reuschel, NL ERA leader Scott Garrelts, NL Most Valuable Player Kevin Mitchell, and Will Clark.
The Giants beat the Chicago Cubs in the NLCS, 4–1. In Game 1, first baseman Will Clark hit a grand slam off Greg Maddux in the fourth inning after reading Maddux's lips telling his catcher which pitch he was going to throw. In Game 5, Clark, who was the series MVP for batting .650 with eight RBI, came through in the clutch with a bases-loaded, two-out single off hard-throwing lefty closer Mitch Williams to break a 1–1 tie in the bottom of the eighth inning. With two outs in the top of the 9th inning, Giants closer Steve Bedrosian gave up three straight singles and a run before getting Ryne Sandberg to hit a first-pitch groundout straight to Robby Thompson at second, who threw easily to Clark for the final out, stranding the tying run at second, as longtime Giants radio voice Hank Greenwald proclaimed, "27 years of waiting have come to an end. The Giants have won the pennant!"
The Giants faced their cross-Bay rivals, the Oakland Athletics in the unforgettable "Bay Bridge Series", best remembered by the October 17, 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake which struck at 5:04 p.m., just before the scheduled Game 3 at Candlestick Park. After a ten-day delay, Oakland finished its sweep of the Giants, winning Games 3 and 4 at San Francisco. The Giants never led in any of the games.
1992: Farewell San Francisco?
In the wake of the disappointing 1989 World Series sweep, a local ballot initiative to fund a new stadium in San Francisco failed, threatening the franchise's future in the city. After the 1992 season, owner Bob Lurie, who had previously saved the franchise from moving to Toronto in 1976, put the team up for sale. Robert E. Rich Jr. proposed buying the team and moving them to Pilot Field as the New York Giants of Buffalo, but adding seats to the park would have forced the club to miss the 1993 season, which Lurie found unacceptable. A group of investors from St. Petersburg led by Vince Naimoli reached an agreement to purchase the team and move them to the Tampa Bay area, but the National League owners voted against the acquisition. San Francisco mayor Frank Jordan made it a top priority to retain the team, and recruited local real estate billionaire Walter Shorenstein to help organize a local team of investors. Wally Haas, the owner of the Oakland Athletics at the time, agreed to grant the Giants exclusive rights to the South Bay so the Giants could explore all potential local sites for a new stadium and at least help to keep the team in the Bay Area. The team was instead sold in another last-minute deal to an ownership group including managing general partner Peter Magowan, former CEO of supermarket chain Safeway, and Harmon and Sue Burns. Six years later, St. Petersburg would get an MLB team via expansion when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays began play.