The Giants were the original Yankees

The Giants were the original Yankees The Mets are in the midst of a series with the Dodgers right now, and dconger last weekend they were in San Francisco to play the Giants. Those two opponents are, of course, the two old New York teams. While everyone from Roger Kahn to Fred Wilpon has rhapsodized, written books, made movies, penned poems, built stadiums and sung songs in tribute to the old Brooklyn Dodgers, what about the New York Baseball Giants? They've always gotten the short end of the stick in the nostalgia department. Sure, there was the Shot Heard Round the World and five or so seasons of Willie Mays, but where are the odes to Monte Irvin? The poems about Whitey Lockman? The sitcoms about Alvin Dark? Where's the statue of Mel Ott? Why isn't a highway named after Bill Terry? And shouldn't a whole borough be renamed in tribute of John McGraw?

The Giants were the original Yankees, owning New York City, and winning five World Series in their years before moving to California. The Yankees even had to stoop to renting out the Polo Grounds and being the Giants' tenant. It was a National League city, and the Giants were the kings. The Dodgers were lovable losers, while the Yanks played in that "other league." The Brooklyn Dodgers get all the love - maybe that's because they had a borough to themselves and the Giants were just too successful.

There's no Boys of Summer about the Giants. There are no modern stadiums built in homage to the Polo Grounds. There are no old men sitting next to me at a bar crying because the Giants left town 40 years earlier and because his mother was a saint and no one can say a bad word about her (yes, that happened to me once back in the '90s while drinking next to an old Brooklyn fan). While any 10-year-old New York sports fan can rattle off the star players of the 1950s Dodgers - Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, Duke Snider, Carl Furillo, Billy Cox, Don Newcombe, Preacher Roe - how about the Giants? Why aren't they engraved in our minds? Irvin, Lockman, Dark, Mays, Eddie Stanky, Hank Thompson, Wes Westrum, Don Mueller, Davey Williams, Bobby Thomson (though he is, of course), Larry Jansen, Sal Maglie, Jim Hearn, Johnny Antonelli, Hoyt Wilhelm, Ruben Gomez. There were more Hall of Famers on the Dodgers but those Giants won the same amount of World Series - one. Ok, I'll stop. Now I'm about to cry and I wasn't even alive when the Giants left town. And, yes, my mother was a saint.