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    The New York (baseball) Giants

    Why is it that the NY Giants seem to inspire none of the reverent nostalgia that the Brooklyn Dodgers do? It's as if they are a forgotten team, despite Willie Mays, the Shot Heard Round the World, and their location in New York's most important borough.

    Is it to do with the vagaries of New York's neighborhoods and the resulting differences in the two teams' fanbases? It seems like much of the Dodger nostalgia comes from Brooklyn Jews, who as a group have occupied a very prominent place in American culture. But surely Manhattan's team had a similar following?

    #2
    The New York (baseball) Giants

    Maybe it worked out that all of the kids that grew up to be writers, public figures, etc. just happened to be Dodger fans when they were kids.

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      #3
      The New York (baseball) Giants

      Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at with my second paragraph. But assuming that's the reason, why would that be?

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        #4
        The New York (baseball) Giants

        I almost certainly would have grown up a Giants fan if they hadn't moved. Instead I ended up marrying one.

        There is something to both of your musings, but I think the reasons run deeper. The Dodgers had long been the standard bearers of a borough that had never really come to grips with the fact that it was no longer one of the largest cities in the US, but rather part of a larger entity after the amalgamation of the late 19th c. Brooklyn still had a major newspaper of its own (the Eagle) into the 50s and kept a major department store of its own (Abraham & Straus) later than that, and the Dodgers (almost all of whom lived in Brooklyn) both identified with and were identified with the borough in a way that the Giants never were.

        Manhattan was always at least half (and often more) Yankees territory, and (without being condescending) much more cosmopolitan in its outlook and approach to sport than Brooklyn was.

        The Giants had also been very poorly managed for a very long period, having alienated many of their long time fans before they left. That tends to explain there wasn't the same degree of rending of garments over their departure (either then or since) as there was for the Bums.

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          #5
          The New York (baseball) Giants

          Interesting. Thanks ursus. Your answer reminds me of the opening of Welcome Back Kotter. There's a montage of street scenes in New York, including a shot of a sign that says, "Welcome to Brooklyn, 5th Largest City in the US" (or something like that) So that attitude was still alive in the 1970s. I suspect it's gone now, though.

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            #6
            The New York (baseball) Giants

            It isn't as strong as it was in 1958, but it is by no means gone.

            A major factor in Bruce Ratner's getting public and (especially) political support for the Atlantic Yards arena/development* was that he committed to calling the Nets "Brooklyn" rather than "New York" once they moved.

            See also a good portion of Spike Lee's oeuvre.

            * which still may not happen, at least in anything like its original conception.

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              #7
              The New York (baseball) Giants

              I thought only hipsters from Michigan or Pennsylvania lived in Brooklyn these days?

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                #8
                The New York (baseball) Giants

                BTW, Roger Angell of the New Yorker (E.B. White's stepson and to my mind the best ever writer on baseball) grew up as a Giants fan.

                He then made the one tragic error without which no hero's story is complete.

                He chose to root for the Mets.

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                  #9
                  The New York (baseball) Giants

                  Bkly'n has well over 2 million people.

                  The hipsters and Park Slope yuppies barely make a dent in the overall ethos.

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                    #10
                    The New York (baseball) Giants

                    Manhattan was always at least half (and often more) Yankees territory, and (without being condescending) much more cosmopolitan in its outlook and approach to sport than Brooklyn was.
                    have the yankees always played in the bronx?

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                      #11
                      The New York (baseball) Giants

                      ursus arctos wrote:
                      BTW, Roger Angell of the New Yorker (E.B. White's stepson and to my mind the best ever writer on baseball) grew up as a Giants fan.

                      He then made the one tragic error without which no hero's story is complete.

                      He chose to root for the Mets.
                      Really? From reading him only after I started reading the New Yorker, I though he was a Yankees fan.

                      Too bad he only writes about two pieces a year--at the start of the season, and after the WS.

                      There was a good New Yorker podcast about Jill Lepore's piece on Stuart Little and Anne Carrol Moore, with Angell talking about what EB White was like. His mom, Katherine Angell, had a children's lit column in the New Yorker, and was also the fiction editor.

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                        #12
                        The New York (baseball) Giants

                        Yes, really. That was an excellent podcast, and you are right about the columns, too. We still will always have the books.

                        Rick, the Yankees have played in the Bronx since the first Yankee Stadium was built in the 1920s. Before that they shared the Polo Grounds (at 8th Avenue and 155th Street) with the Giants, and before that they played at Hilltop Park in upper Manhattan (thus their then nickname of the Highlanders).

                        It's important to remember that the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium were very close as the crow flies:

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                          #13
                          The New York (baseball) Giants

                          Wow, I didn't realize they were so close.

                          Has any stadium in baseball history had crazier dimensions than the Polo Grounds?

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                            #14
                            The New York (baseball) Giants

                            Add me as one not knowing that the stadiums were so close.

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                              #15
                              The New York (baseball) Giants

                              I knew it, I just never saw an aerial photo like that.

                              Tha sign in Brooklyn was still there as of 1985, I'm sure. I recall seeing it on the way to the airport. That is, actually and sadly, the only time I've ever actually been to Brookyln.

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                                #16
                                The New York (baseball) Giants

                                The Polo Grounds had wacky dimensions, but they weren't as unique as they now seem.

                                Forbes Field (long time home of the Pittsburgh Pirates) also had extremely deep fences and one very short foul line (as well as a hill):



                                Shibe Park/Connie Mack (Philadelpia Athletics and Phillies) had a similar vibe within the context of a diamond:



                                and League Park (where the Cleveland Indians played before moving to Municipal Stadium) did something similar with a rectangle:



                                But of course the all time champion of these at the major league level was Inca's own LA Coliseum, where the Dodgers played while Chavez Ravine was being built:

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                                  #17
                                  The New York (baseball) Giants

                                  And just because you've got me started.

                                  The greatest player I've ever seen, in my all time favourite baseball uniform:

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                                    #18
                                    The New York (baseball) Giants

                                    Ursus is correct, Angell was a huge Giants fan and has written some beautifully evocative stuff about watching them at the Polo Grounds as a kid. (You should be able to find most of it in the complete New Yorker Inca.)

                                    The proximity of the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium plays a small but crucial role in Don DeLillo's Underworld.

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                                      #19
                                      The New York (baseball) Giants

                                      I have a replica Minneapolis Millers 1951 Mays jersey, but it doesn't say Mays on it because they didn't have names on their jerseys. It looks a lot like those old Giants jerseys, except of course it says MILLERS. It works for me on multiple levels. Great design, one of my favorite players from the "pre-me" era, one of my favorite cities and my last name!

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