The Way Things Used To Be 31, The Polo Grounds

Just as the history of the United States has been tied to the geography of North America, so the history of  New York Giants baseball was tied to the asymmetrical bathtub shape of the Polo Grounds.
The playing area was 550 feet long from the backstop behind home plate to the clubhouse wall in deepest center, and about 380 feet wide from the left field stands to the right field stands. If you drew a line from home plate through second base to the clubhouse wall, the left field side of the playing area was a quarter acre larger than the right. That and the overhang of the upper deck of the left field stands, gave right-handed hitters the edge.

The distance from home plate to the fifteen-foot high concrete wall of the lower grandstands was 276 feet down the left field foul line and 257 feet down the right, but the upper grandstands in left field extended out over the field by twenty five feet. Beyond the foul lines the walls on both sides ran two hundred feet out to the bullpens in deep right and left fields. Thus the bullpen walls were 450 feet from home plate and they curved inward to the bleachers which were over 425 feet from home plate.

For a pull hitter like Mel Ott (R.I.P. 1958) the Polo Grounds was paradise. He hit 323 of his 511 home runs there and the upper deck just past the foul line was known as Ottville. I often saw Sid Gordon get under a pop-up down the left field line and just as he raised his glove the ball would scrape off the façade of the grandstands for a home run.

On the other hand, I remember Ernie Lombardi (R.I.P. 1977) hitting four hundred plus foot line drives and seeing them get caught in that graveyard of the long ball in left center field. With his wide apart stance and long beautiful swing, Lombardi was not only one of baseball’s great long ball hitters, but its slowest-ever base runner. He led the league in hitting into double plays and teams would regularly play him with four outfielders and move the infielders back to the edge of the outfield grass.
“Runs like he got a piano on his back,” I heard a man sitting in the row behind me say one day.
“Plus the two guys carrying it,” the man sitting next to him said.

Mel Ott was my favorite player, but from 1942 until 1948, while he was player-manager, the Giants ended the season in last place twice, fifth three times, fourth once and third his first year. All the same. I cheered for outfielders Johnny Rucker, Sid Gordon, Willard Marshall, Joe Medwick, Danny Gardella, Red Treadway, Steve Filopowicz, (he played for the football Giants too) and Garland Lawing, who could throw the ball farther than he could hit it. I cheered for infielders Johnny Mize, Buddy Kerr, Bill Rigney, George Hausmann, Nap Reyes, Phil Weintraub, Jack Lohrke, Connie Ryan, pitchers Bill Lohrman, Ace Adams, Harry Feldman, Bill Voiselle, Monte Kennedy, Ewald Pyle, Hooks Iott, and Clint Hartung, and for catchers Sal Yvars, Gus Mancuso, Walker Cooper, Wes Westrum and Lombardi.
In the first game of a doubleheader against the Dodgers in 1944 Weintraub hit two doubles, a triple, a home run and batted in eleven runs, Lombardi batted in seven, Ott walked five straight times and scored six runs and the Giants won 26-8. They finished in fifth place that season, but that one victory carried me through the season. In 1947 they finished fourth, but hit 221 home runs, the single-season record back then; Mize hit 51, Marshall 36, Cooper 35, Thomson 29. Bill Rigney, who later became a Giants manager always claimed that he and his roommate hit 68 of the 221. (His roommate was Johnny Mize.)
According to Rigney, Horace Stoneham, the Giants’ owner, “didn’t like the bunt and didn’t like pitching, but he loved the home run. We could beat you 9-8, but we couldn’t beat you 2-1. “

Then in July 1948, Nice Guy Mel Ott left the Giants and Nice-Guys-Finish-Last Leo Durocher, got fired by the Dodgers and became manager of the Giants. Immediately, the Giants turned into a faster, more aggressive team. On August 11 in the 1951 season, they were thirteen and a half games behind the Dodgers. Then with Stanky, Thomson, Irvin and the pitchers leading the charge, and with Willie Mays, Don Mueller and Irvin in the outfield, Whitey Lockman at first, Stanky at second, Alvin Dark at short, Thomson at third, Wes Westrum catching and Sal Maglie, Larry Jansen, Jim Hearn and George Spencer pitching, they won thirty-seven of their last forty-four games including the first sixteen straight and ended the season tied with the Dodgers for first place.  In the third of three playoff games, they beat the Dodgers on Thomson’s two-out, last of the ninth inning home run and won the championship in the most exciting pennant race in the history of baseball.

Meanwhile the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) had occupied Hills 983, 940 and 773 near the Hwachon reservoir, which supplied Seoul’s water and electricity. The three hills were connected by a razor-back ridge and the KPA fortified them with bombproof bunkers connected by underground tunnels. They used the hills as an observation post to direct artillery fire on UN forces while the peace talks continued. On August 18th General Van Fleet ordered an attack on Hill 983. The attack continued  from August 18th until September fifth when the KPA pulled out and moved to another razor-back ridge fortified with bomb-proof bunkers 1500 yards to the north. The UN forces took 2700 casualties, and they announced that the KPA lost 4000 killed and 7000 badly wounded, but they always told you that. It improves morale. Later, they called the first ridge Bloody Ridge. They called the second one Heartbreak Ridge.

HerbL.
oldtimewriter.com