San Francisco Giants(2)
USIFNO | 2013-08-04 18:02


1958-Present: History as the San Francisco Giants
Main article: History of the San Francisco Giants
As with the New York years, the Giants' fortunes in San Francisco have been mixed. Though recently the club has enjoyed relatively 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.

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Giants Hat/Helmet Logo
1958–82
 
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Giants Logo
1958–76
 
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Giants Logo
1977–82
 
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Giants Hat/Helmet Logo
1983–93
 
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Giants Logo
1983–93
 
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Giants Hat/Helmet Logo
1994–present
 
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Giants Logo
1994–99
 
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Giants Logo

2000–present
1958–61: Seals Stadium and Candlestick Park
When the Giants moved to San Francisco, they played in Seals Stadium for their first two seasons. The stadium, which was located at 16th & Bryant Streets across from Stempel's Bakery, had been the home of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) San Francisco Seals, in their last years the AAA minor league affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, from 1931 to 1957. In 1958, Latino hitter Orlando Cepeda won Rookie of the Year honors. In 1959, Willie McCovey won the same award.
In 1960, the Giants moved to Candlestick Park (sometimes known simply as "The 'Stick"), 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. Its built-in radiant heating system which worked. Candlestick's reputation was sealed in the ninth inning of the first 1961 All-Star Game when, after a day of calm conditions, the winds came back and a strong gust appeared to cause 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"), although the National League won anyway. (Two All-Star Games per season were played from 1959 to 1962.)
Candlestick Park was frequently beshrouded in fog, both inside and out, coming in from the Pacific Ocean seven miles to the west (through what is known as the "Alemany Gap", a wide gorge ocean winds come through in lieu of major topographical obstacles). A foghorn was eventually situated and sounded inside the stadium between innings, adding to Candlestick's already notorious meteorological reputation. Winds would whirl around in the parking lot at other times while it would be calm inside the stadium. Even with its cold, windy and foggy reputation, it stood its ground when the ground below it shook violently just before the scheduled start of Game 3 of the 1989 World Series. At 5:04 pm, theLoma Prieta Earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay Area during the pregame ceremonies. For 15 seconds the stadium rocked, and it was feared that one or more of the huge overhead light towers might fall on spectators in the stands; but only minor injuries were reported and the stadium's structure was deemed safe ten days later.

1962 World Series
Main article: 1962 World Series
In 1962, after another memorable pennant chase with the Dodgers which resulted in a second three-game playoff series with the Dodgers (after 1951) which the Giants again won by coming from behind with three runs in the ninth inning of Game 3, the Giants brought a World Series to San Francisco only to lose it four games to three to the New York Yankees. The seventh game went to the bottom of the ninth inning, with the Yankees ahead 1–0. With Matty Alou on first base and two outs, 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 the speedy Mays on second, any base hit by the next batter, Willie McCovey, would likely win the series for the Giants. McCovey hit a screaming line drive right at second baseman Bobby Richardson, who snared it after a step or two, bringing the Series to a sudden end. Earlier in the inning, a failed sacrifice bunt by Felipe Alou with nobody out had ultimately kept his brother Matty, who couldn't advance to second, from scoring on Mays' two-out double. Finally, Richardson was not originally positioned to catch the drive until he moved three steps to his left in reaction to a McCovey's foul smash on the preceding pitch.
Giant fan (and resident of nearby Santa Rosa) Charles Schulz made a reference to the real world in one of his Peanuts comic strips soon afterward. In the first three panels of his 12/22/62 strip, Charlie Brown and Linus are sitting on a porch step, looking glum. In the last panel, Charlie Brown cried to the heavens, "Why couldn't McCovey have hit the ball just three feet higher?" Some weeks later, the same scene reappeared in the strip with Charlie Brown exclaiming, "Or why couldn't McCovey have hit the ball just TWO feet higher?"
1963–84: Always a bridesmaid, never the bride
 

 

Giants pitcher Ron Herbelin a 1963 issue of Baseball Digest.

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, pitcherMike McCormick became the first Giant Cy Young Award winner.
The Giants' next appearance in the postseason came in 1971. After winning their division, they were easily defeated in the League Championship Series by the Pittsburgh Pirates and Roberto Clemente, who then went on to beat the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series four games to three.
In 1972, the field at Candlestick Park was converted from grass to Astroturf.
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 no-hit pitcher John Montefusco in 1975).
In 1976 Bob Lurie bought the team, saving it from being moved to Toronto.[9] Toronto was awarded an expansion team called the Blue Jays, but San Francisco baseball fans' worries about losing their beloved Giants had not completely gone away just yet. The rest of the 1970s was a generally disappointing time for the Giants, as they finished no higher than third place in any season. This was in 1978, thanks to young star slugger Jack Clark, veteran slugging first baseman Willie McCovey, star hitter second baseman Bill Madlock (acquired from the Chicago Cubs), shortstops Johnnie LeMaster and Roger Metzger, and slugging third baseman Darrell Evans. Veteran pitchers Vida Blue, John Montefusco, Ed Halicki and Bob Knepper rounded out the starting rotation with Vida Blue leading the way with eighteen victories. The most memorable moment of that 1978 season occurred on May 28, 1978, when pinch hitter Mike Ivie, acquired from the San Diego Padres during the offseason for Derrel Thomas, hit a towering grand slam off of Dodgers pitching ace Don Sutton before Candlestick Park's highest paid attendance of 58,545. They led the NL West for most of the season until slugger Dusty Baker, rookie pitcher Bob Welch and the rest of the Dodgersgot hot late, winning the West and (over the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS) the NL pennant.
The field at Candlestick was converted back to natural grass for the 1979 season.
In 1981, the Giants became the first National League team to hire a black manager, Frank Robinson, although he lasted less 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. They They 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.
In 1984, the Giants hosted the All-Star Game for the second and last time at Candlestick Park, which the NL won as it did at Candlestick in 1961 when Stu Miller was blown off the mound by a gust of wind.[10]

1985–89: Nadir and resurrection
The 1985 Giants lost 100 games (the most in franchise history) under unsuccessful rookie manager Jim Davenport, and owner Bob 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 (inspiring the promotional radio jingle "Yagotta watch these Giants! You gotta like these kids!!"), and followed up in 1987 with canny trades for stars like Kevin Mitchell, Dave Dravecky, Candy Maldonado, and Rick Reuschel.
Craig, renowned as the "Hum Baby" because he often said it, 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 National League Western Division title in 1987, losing the 1987 National League Championship Series to the injury-ridden, overachieving St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. The one bright spot in that defeat was their slugging outfielder Jeffrey Leonard, who was named the series MVP 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. He would have given anything to be going up north to play the Minnesota Twins, and his former teammate outfielder Dan Gladden, traded to the Twins at the start of the season, in the 1987 World Series, who beat the Cardinals in seven games.

1989: Will the "Thrill", World Series and the earthquake
Main article: 1989 San Francisco Giants season
Although the team used fifteen different starting pitchers in the regular season, the 1989 Giants won the National League pennant. They were led by pitchers Rick Reuschel (1989 National League All-Star Game Starter), closer Scott Garrelts(the 1989 National League ERA champion) and sluggers Kevin Mitchell (the 1989 National League MVP with his 47 home runs, many of them clutch) and Will Clark.
The Giants beat the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series, four games to one. In Game 5, eventual 1989 NLCS MVP Will Clark (who hit .650 and drove in eight runs, including a grand slam off Greg Maddux in the fourth inning of Game 1 after reading Maddux's lips talking to his catcher on the mound beforehand) 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, Giant closer Steve Bedrosian gave up three straight singles and a run before getting the dangerous Ryne Sandberg on a harmless first-pitch groundout straight to Robby Thompson at second, who threw easily to series hero Will Clark at first for the final out, stranding the tying run at third, as longtime Giants radio voice Hank Greenwald proclaimed, "27 years of waiting have come to an end the Giants have won the pennant!"
After dispatching the Cubs four games to one, the Giants faced the Oakland Athletics in the unforgettable "Bay Bridge Series," best remembered by the October 17, 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake which struck at 5:04 PM just before the scheduled Game 3 at Candlestick Park. After a ten-day delay, Oakland finished its sweep of the Giants, winning Games 3 & 4 at San Francisco. The Giants never led in any of the games, and never even managed to send the tying run to the plate against A's closer Dennis Eckersley in their last at-bat of Game 4.
The Giants and A's had played three World Series before in the distant past when John McGraw's Giants were in New York and Connie Mack's A's were in Philly, the Giants winning in 1905 on Christy Mathewson's record three complete-game shutouts and the A's in 1911 & 1913 behind Home Run Baker and Eddie Collins.

1992: Farewell San Francisco?
Will Clark preparing to bat for the Giants at Candlestick Park in 1992. That year, the Giants came close to relocation, with an empty stadium ready to be filled in Tampa.
In the wake of that 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. 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.[11] 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 to an ownership group including managing general partner Peter Magowan, former CEO of supermarket chain Safeway, Harmon Burns, and his wife Sue.
In addition to the anticipated move to downtown San Francisco, the Giants' ownership also made a major personnel move to solidify fan support. Before even hiring a new general manager or officially being approved as the new managing general partner, Magowan signed superstar slugger free agent Barry Bonds away from the Pittsburgh Pirates, (a move which MLB initially blocked until some terms were negotiated to protect Lurie and Bonds in case the sale failed).

1993: "The last pure pennant race"
The Barry Bonds era began auspiciously as Bonds put up the numbers for the third MVP of his career: 46 homers, 129 runs and 123 RBI, (.336 BA, .458 OBP, .677 SLG, for a total of 1.135 OPS), all career highs. Matt Williams excelled as well (38 HR, 110 RBI, .294 BA), with veterans Robby Thompson and Will Clark (in his last season with the Giants) providing offensive support. John Burkett and Bill Swiftwon more than twenty games apiece, and closer Rod Beck was dominant with 48 saves and a 2.16 ERA.[12] All this led the Giants to a 103–59 record in Dusty Baker's first year as manager, which earned him the Manager of the Year award. But despite the Giants' great record, the Atlanta Braves — fueled by solid seasons from David Justice, Ron Gant, Deion Sanders and their key midseason acquisition of Fred McGriff from the San Diego Padres — came back from a ten-game deficit to pass the Giants win the NL West by a single game.[13] The Braves also had two 20+-game winners, Tom Glavine and Cy Young Award-winning Greg Maddux.
Desperately needing a win against the Dodgers in the final game of the year to force a one-game playoff with the Braves in San Francisco, the controversial choice of rookie pitcher Salomón Torres proved disastrous for the Giants as he gave up three runs in the first four innings of a 12–1 rout. (The alternative choice, Scott Sanderson, the only other rested Giant starter, was decided against because he was considered a fly-ball pitcher and the Dodgers a fly-ball-hitting team.) After MLB's establishment of the three-division playoff format with a fourth wild card entry after the 1993 season, New York Times sports columnist Dave Anderson captured the feeling of many baseball purists regarding the thrilling (and for Giants fans, heartbreaking) winner-take-all outcome of the last two-division National League West when he characterized the 1993 National League regular season as "the last pure pennant race."

1994–96 seasons
The 1994 to 1996 seasons were not good for the Giants, punctuated by the strike that canceled the rest of the 1994 baseball season and the World Series. The strike denied Matt Williams a chance to beat Roger Maris's single season home run record: he had 43 HR in 115 team games, and was thus on pace for 60 when the strike hit with 47 games left to play (Bonds had 37, on pace for 52). But the rest of the team wasn't as good as their two sluggers, with no other player having even 10 home runs or even 40 RBI that late into the season although they were still in contention, not far from the division lead, when the strike ended play in mid-August.[14] (When Commissioner Bud Selig refused to budge in negotiations with the owners, a radio sports talk-show host quipped, "Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo couldn't cancel the World Series [in World War II], but Selig did!")
The Giants finished a dismal last in both 1995 & 1996, crippled by key injuries and slumps. 1995 had a strange feeling about it, with fans unsure if they would come back after the strike-shortened 1994 season (something that would keep attendances notably lower for a few more years, probably until the McGwire-Sosa record-breaking HR chase of 1998). Bonds continued as the Giants' driving force, posting fantastic numbers, with the highest WAR among position players in the National League (33 HR, 104 RBI, 109 R and 120 BB in 144 games). Matt Williams and Glenallen Hill (affectionately called "G. Hill" by manager Baker) were the only other Giants with 20+ HR, and the rest of the team had mediocre offensive numbers. The pitching staff was poor, with Mark Leiter leading the way with ten measly wins (10–12, 3.82 ERA). Closer Rod Beck had 33 saves but nine blown saves and a 4.45 ERA.[15]

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