Highlights of great moments and the last games played in the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field before the New York Giants moved to San Francisco and the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.
My dad took me to my first MLB game at Ebbets Field, also in 1956. I was only 4. Don't recall who the Dodgers played that day, but I remember being in the ballpark. We both became Mets fans in 1962.
@@dominicano1911 I'm 56, and I wasn't thought of, either. But if there were such a thing as a time machine, you can bet I'd set the dial for 1950's New York City, then mosey on over to the Polo Grounds to take in a ballgame, followed by a game at Ebbets Field. Maybe I'd be lucky enough to meet Vin Scully and Tex Rickards.
It was 9 years before I was born (born in 1966) ,but its reminds me of when the Art Modell and the old Browns left Cleveland for Baltimore after the 1995 season. That will NEVER be forgotten.
@@aaronwilliams6989 That's true. There were a lot of New York Giants (now San Francisco Giants) & New York Yankees fans growing up and living in Brooklyn in those days just like there are a lot New York Knicks fans living in Brooklyn today despite the Brooklyn Nets being there, so you might be right.
@@aaronwilliams6989 The same thing can be said for the Colts sneaking out of Baltimore in the middle of the night for Indianapolis in 1984. That was WAY worse than the original Browns moving to Baltimore, or the Dodgers and Giants moving to California in 1958.
@@kevinmiller6380 The State of Maryland was going to take the Colts from Irsay through eminent domain. He had no choice, but to sneak the team out in the middle of the night.
As a lifelong Mets fan and lover of baseball history I always felt a connection to the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants (more so the Giants because my dad was a Giants fan and he was the reason I became a Mets fan so based on that logic I figured I would have been a Giants fan (which I am in football)
@@MikeS29 That is cool also can you imagine two fan bases who were heated rivals arguing over their respective teams who probably the only thing that they agreed on is their mutual hatred of that team from the Bronx coming together as fans after the traumatic event of losing their teams?
The Polo Ground stood for several more years being the original home of the New York Mets in 1962 to 1963 before the Mets moved to Shea stadium in 1964.
That was so sad to see all of those fans at the Polo Grounds pleading for the team to stay. I have never understood why MLB could not have just expanded baseball to California instead of taking two beloved teams out of their city.
It was a business move by the Dodgers' and Giants' owners. Sure, MLB could've blocked it, but that would mean blocking the owners from seeking what's best for business, which could've resulted in a turnover in the MLB leadership.
keybo mevbo-One reason for the Giants move to California is that the Polo Grounds was not well maintained, and was falling apart, not to mention that the fans were moving to the suburbs. After the 1954 season, when the Giants swept the World Series from the Cleveland Indians, performance on the field, and attendance began to fall apart. The Giants finished the 1955 season in third place, and finished their last two seasons in New York in sixth place. Horace Stoneham wanted a new ballpark to replace the crumbling Polo Grounds, but like his Brooklyn counterpart, Walter O'Malley, was rebuffed by Robert Moses in a vain attempt to get a new ballpark built. The Giants DID return to the Polo Grounds, just not as the home team.
@@kevinmiller6380 To make things worse, the Baseball Giants were also Horace Stoneham's only source of income - by any measure, he wasn't overly wealthy compared to his fellow MLB franchise owners. And if being finanically devastated by both the Baseball Giants' declining ticket sales and the Football Giants moving to Yankee Stadium at the end of 1955 wasn't enough, in 1956, the Baseball Giants finished dead last in attendance in Major League Baseball (behind even the Washington Senators, who were a laughingstock for years - it was truly that bad). I will note that at the end of the 1956 season, Stoneham was left with no money for stadium upkeep, which forced him to lay off the stadium's maintenance staff.
That's right, Kevin! The older Brooklyn Dodger fans don't realize that Walter O'Malley was on the city's back to get the Antlatic Ave. site since 1952! Robert Moses blocked it.He said it was the Flushing site or nothing. He could have offered that site to Horace Stoneham, but if he did,he would have to give the Atlantic Ave. site to The Dodgers, and N.Y City could have kept the both teams from leaving.
@@georgecapria8285 On more than one occasion I've watched a 20 minute video on RU-vid hosted by Brian Kenny titled Top Five Reasons You Can't Blame, and one of them has to do with Walter O'Malley, and how you can't fully blame him for the Dodgers moving west. The number one reason, of course, is Robert Moses. Watch it sometime and see for yourself
I grew up in Brooklyn in the late 80s early 90s. I grew up a Yankees fan cuz Don Mattingly was my favorite player. I often wondered if I woulda grown up a Dodger fan or a Giants fan if O’Malley and Stoneham weren’t tempted by moving to California. I kinda wish they started expansion teams in CA and left the Dodgers and Giants in NY. But then again, they Mets woulda never existed if that were the case! Haha
Only a little bit (from 1.49 million to 1.42 million), but by 1961, they drew 1.74 million, then it dipped again when the Mets came to be (1.49 million)
Glad the game expanded. I love my SF Giants and would not want it any other way. Growing up watching Bonds, Aurilia, Snow, Kent and later Lincecum, Cain, Buster, Pablo, and Bum is something I will cherish forever. Many great memories and hoping for many more. Go Giants!
I can understand the way people felt about evansfield and the Polo Grounds I felt the same way when they tore down Memorial Stadium here in Baltimore well I really missed the most was going to the games with my father before I was born my grandfather seen Babe Ruth play and the 1945 my grandfather and my father when they had a minor league team true Baseball fans were never forget to stadiums a seen ball games in
Imagine if Robert Moses had worked with the teams to stay. One solution may have been to put the Dodgers where O'Malley envisioned them, on what is now the Barclay Sports Center, and put the Giants where Moses wanted a stadium, in Flushing. How crazy New York sports would have been!
Yeah, I do not know the story to why The Giants did not take what became Shea Stadium in Flushing, Queens, but Moses definitely should have gave The Dodgers that site that The Barclay Center stands on today in Downtown Brooklyn.
At least the Giants fans allowed the final game at the Polo Grounds to be completed before they rushed out onto the field and tore it up. In 1971, when the Senators played their last game at RFK stadium against the Yankees before they left for Texas, fans rushed onto the field before the final out was made and the game could not be completed. The Yankees were awarded a 9-0 win by forfeit even though they were trailing before the last out could be made.
Thomas Wolf-Because Senators fans were angry over the fact that team owner, Bob Short, was pulling up stakes and moving the team to Arlington to become the Texas Rangers for the 1972 season. Brooklyn fans reacted the same way when owner Walter O'Malley pulled the Dodgers out Brooklyn for Los Angeles for the '58 season.
Well, it led to my favorite team's creation, the Texas Rangers. And greats like pudge, Michael Young, Buddy Bell wouldn't have been greats. And Beltre and Nolan would've had completely different careers, Beltre probably not even being a HOF ballot level guy.
Although the game was played at Yankee Stadium the Dodgers were on the wrong end of history when Don Larsen threw his World Series perfect game against them in 1956.
I am likely wrong, not the first time, but 1:45 into this video the camera has a shot of the crowd and who might be the fan standing at the fence, with white hair and wearing a white suit? It looks like JEFF CHANDLER, Hollywood movie star. He was a die hard baseball fan.
The Manhattan Borough President at the time tried to use the west side rail yards to build a new Polo Grounds. If The NY Jets and Giants can play in New Jersey than the Dodgers could have played in Queens.
@@kevinmiller6380 He was willing to negotiate with Moses on the Flushing Meadows site but wanted a huge cut of the parking fees which Moses wouldn't agree to.
They could have made it work. But , thanks to that bastard ,Robert Moses,who blocked any construction of new ballparks, the both teams moved to California. Instead of offering the Queens site to O'Malley, why didn't Moses offer that site to Stoneham? And he could have offered the Atlantic Ave.site to O'Malley. The both teams would have stayed.But Moses had to be a prick about it. And, that is why both teams moved to the West Coast!
Agreed George. I place most of the blame on Moses and not so much on O'Malley. With that said, LA and SF did deserve MLB teams but it should been with "expansion" never with the historic NYC based Dodgers and Giants clubs.
I guess both teams had to go. With both leaving the new NL team would draw both teams fans. Truth was white flight had torn flatbush and the old Irish communities of North North Manhattan even the Yankees had trouble drawing in the 50s.
Yankees had trouble drawing from 1958-61 despite the fact they were the only game in town during that period. Not only that, they won the pennant each year except for 1959. Yankees won the World Series in 1958 and 1961. Despite all that, they didn't get a windfall at the box office. MLB big shots finally got the message that abandoned Dodgers and Giants fans weren't going to simply gravitate to the Yankees.
What should have happened with the Giants/Dodgers situation in 1957 was this. O' Malley should have been given the new LA team with a new team nickname. While Stoneham would have gotten the SF Bay Area team for 1958. Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds was both at the end of their useful life. Then in say 1961 "new" Brooklyn Dodgers and NY Giants teams would been recreated. With the Dodgers playing at an AstroDome type new ballpark at Atlantic and Flatbush at the current Barclays Center. And the MLB Giants at the now Shea Stadium/Citifield site in Flushing. Both NYC teams with "new" Owners. Thus this would have followed what the NFL did 40 years later when the Cleveland Browns left for Baltimore. And then a 'new" Browns team was formed in 1999.
@@americangiant1003 That would have been great, but in the late 1950's MLB (just like the NFL) were not thinking about expansion. The only reason why MLB expanded in the early 1960's is because a new league were being formed (The Continental League) in which one of the teams was going to be a New York team (which became the New York Metropolitans). If it was not for this, New York would have never got back a National League team in The Mets. Nice idea, but in that era, sports leagues had to be forced to expand i.e. the NFL-AFL merger
@@amazing50000 Off topic but related. I heard from a sports documentary around 2010, at that same time in the late 50s with the drama with the Giants and Dodgers, that a then young man and Multi Millionaire named Lamar Hunt a heir from a rich Texas Oil family tried to get a MLB team. Hunt tried both to either buy the original Washington Senators and move them to that state. Or get an expansion franchise. The MLB Owners laughed at him so instead Hunt tried get to get a NFL team for Texas as well. They also said “no.” Thus Mr Hunt then created the American Football League. So the greedy short sightedness of the old school NFL and MLB Owners forced expansion anyway. Hunt’s Son confirmed that story on the 50th Anniversary Documentary special of the AFL called “Full Color Football.”
@@americangiant1003 Right. That is what I meant. The NFL & MLB owners in those days did not want to share revenue with new owners though expansion, and with the MLB it was even worse, as they did not have to deal with antitrust laws like the NFL. But I think MLB were afraid of William Shea (The man who founded The Continental League and who was reasonable for the creating of the New York Mets and the New York Islanders of the NHL in the 1970's). So MLB made a deal with the Continental League to take 4 of their teams (including the New York team that became the Mets) if they ceased operations, which they did, as the National League took the New York team (Mets) and the Houston team (Colts 45/Astros), while the American League took the Los Angeles team (Angles) and a new Washington Senators team (now the Texas Rangers) to replace to old Washington Senators team that moved to Minnesota to become The Twins, and you are right about what happened to Lamar Hunt. Once he were rejected by the NFL for a new franchise ether by buying or though expansion and started the AFL, The NFL turned around and expanded with the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings (who supposed to have been an AFL team).
Ford Frick should have expanded the league then instead of stealing two teams from NY. The AL expanded in 60' & the NL in 62' - they hated anything NY and the dominance of champions, mostly the Yankees. So they lifted the Dodgers & Giants?
@@joedimaggio3687 What are you talking about? NYC is 5 boroughs deep, which is why one New York team was named after one of them (Brooklyn Dodgers). Over 8 million people in the 5 boroughs, plus another 5 million in the surrounding suburbs (Long Island, Westchester, Northern New Jersey & Southern Connecticut). You can not tell me that the New York Metropolitan area can not support 3 baseball teams.
Brooklyn and upper Manhattan in 1957 was a sewer. It didn’t deserve a baseball team It was best for baseball that they left those decrepit stadiums. Last date at old Ebbets field attendance was 6600 people. Brooklyn never supported that team. Case closed
@@kevinmiller6380 Should have left, and, should leave are two different statements, yet you couldn't figure it out. Couldn't resist being negative. Dolt.
