The final chapter of Frank Graham’s dynamic history of the New York Giants is entitled “With One Swipe of His Bat.” For sheer drama and a colossal slice of baseball legend, the core of that chapter cannot be topped—Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard ’round the world,” the three-run homer in the 1951 playoff series that determined that the Giants—not the Dodgers—would win the pennant. Graham, of course, starts at the beginning, 1883, the year the Giants were born. With characteristic panache, Graham tells us how it was: “This was New York in the elegant eighties and these were the Giants, fashioned in elegance, playing on the Polo Grounds. . . . It was the New York of the brownstone house and the gaslit streets, of the top hat and the hansom cab, of oysters and champagne and perfecto cigars, of [actress] Ada Rehan and Oscar Wilde and the young John L. Sullivan. It also was the New York of the Tenderloin and the Bowery.” One of fifteen team histories commissioned by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in the 1940s and 1950s, The New York Giants was first published in 1952. Some of the most colorful characters in the game pass through these pages as well as some of baseball’s brightest legends, many of whom appear in the book’s twenty-three photographs. Hall of Famers Christy Mathewson, Mel Ott, Frankie Frisch, Carl Hubbell, and Bill Terry star among the headliners in the illustrious history of the Giants. Other Hall of Famers include John McGraw, “Beauty” Dave Bancroft, “Iron Man” Joe McGinnity, Leo Durocher, Buck Ewing, Amos Rusie, John Montgomery Ward, and Ross Youngs. In his foreword, Ray Robinson gives his impression of Frank Graham: “I had been reading Graham’s warm ‘conversation pieces’ for some years, first in the New York Sun, then in the Journal-American, but I had no idea how kind and modest he was. The columnist Red Smith, Graham’s good friend, once referred to him as ‘a digger for truth, a reporter of facts . . . with an incredibly accurate ear and an implausibly retentive memory.’ To Smith, Graham was the finest sports columnist of his time.”

The story of New York's Polo Grounds. From Merkle's Boner which cost the New York Giants a pennant, to Bobby Thomson's homer, which won them one, Stew Thornley retells the events of the park and its legendary personalities.

"By the mid-1950s, New York had been the unrivaled capital of America's national pastime for a century, a place where baseball was followed with a truly fanatical fevor. The city's threee teams--the New York Yankees, the New York Giants, and the Brooklyn Dodgers--had over the previous decade rewarded their fans'devotion with stellar performances: From 1947-1957, one or more of these teems had played in the World series every year but one. Yet on opening day 1958, the Giants and Dogers were gone. Their owners, Walter O'Malley and Horance Stoneham, had ripped them away from their longtime home and from the hearts of millions of devoted and passionate fans and taken them to California" -- inside cover.

The Giants of The Polo Grounds is the definitive work on baseball's New York Giants and their tenure in New York City. An "Editor's Choice" of The New York Times when it was first published more than 20 years ago, the book was also a Spitball Magazine nominee for the Best Baseball Book of the year. Author Noel Hynd, a former contributor to Sports Illustrated, has now created a new edition that maintains all the previous text, but expands the work to more than 600 pages from the original 375. Included this time are more stories about McGraw, Ott, Durocher and Mays and their opponents, plus more on the men and women from other sports and various fields of entertainment who also were 'giants' of the Polo Grounds: from boxers Jack Dempsey and Sugar Ray Robinson to entertainers Annie Oakley and Tallulah Bankhead to football's Red Grange and soccer's Béla Guttmann. The Giants of The Polo Grounds is the story of a famous team, a renowned ball park, an invincible spirit and America's most vibrant city from the 1880's to the 1950's. The new edition also features more than 100 photos and illustrations, most of them new, some rarely seen. "A grandly digressive history of the national pastime, whose focal point is the Giants, late of NYC... Fans of all ages will treasure the literate crazy-quilt text for its stylist recall of the summer game's roots. - Kirkus "A compelling and comprehensive history of an extraordinary ball club." - New York Times "The owners, stars like Mathewson and Mays, various eccentric players are all here in this vivid history by Sports Illustrated contributor Hynd." Publishers' Weekly "Just plain enjoyable as baseball is supposed to be." - The Pennsylvania Gazette

2022 SABR Seymour Medal Finalist for the 2021 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year When New York Giants owner Charles A. Stoneham came home one night in 1918 and told his teenage son, Horace, "Horrie, I bought you a ballclub," he set in motion a family legacy. Horace Stoneham would become one of baseball's greatest figures, an owner who played an essential role in integrating the game, and who was a major force in making our pastime truly national by bringing Major League Baseball to the West Coast. Horace Stoneham began his tenure with the Giants in 1924, learning all sides of the operation until he moved into the front office. In 1936, when his father died of kidney disease, Horace assumed control of the Giants at age thirty-two, becoming one of the youngest owners in baseball history. Stoneham played a pivotal role in not just his team's history but the game itself. In the mid-1940s when the Pacific Coast League sought to gain Major League status, few but Stoneham and Branch Rickey took it seriously, and twelve years later the Giants and Dodgers were the first two teams to relocate west. Stoneham signed former Negro Leaguers Monte Irvin and Hank Thompson, making the Giants the second National League franchise to racially integrate. In the late 1940s, the Giants hired their first Spanish-speaking scout and soon became the leading team in developing Latin American players. Stoneham was shy and self-effacing and avoided the spotlight. His relationships with players were almost always strong, yet for all his leadership skills and baseball acumen, sustained success eluded most of his teams. In forty seasons his Giants won just five National League pennants and only one World Series. The Stoneham family business struggled, and the team was forced to sell off its beloved stars, first Willie Mays, then Willie McCovey, and finally Juan Marichal. Then Stoneham had no choice but to sell the club in 1975. While his tenure came to an unfortunate end, he is heralded as a pioneer and leader whose story tells much of baseball history from the 1930s through the 1970s.

The dawn of the 20th century through the 1920s is a rarely seen chapter in Polo Grounds history, and it is presented here for the first time in all of its photographic glory. One of baseball's most sacred ballparks, it later played host to iconic baseball moments, including Willie Mays' famous catch in the 1954 World Series, and Bobby Thompson's shot heard round the world.

The definitive biography of one of the longest-serving, most highly accomplished, and well-respected owners in professional sports--Wellington Mara--this book details the life of the pioneer for the NFL who understood what it took to make the league great.