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While the move of the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles has been turned into a weepy saga, the move of the Giants from New York (specifically Manhattan) to San Francisco has never captured the imagination of writers in the same way.
Richard Sandomir of the New York Times visited a meeting of the New York Baseball Giants Nostalgia Society, or Ottophiles as they call themselves.
The New York Giants, who were a far more successful franchise than the Brooklyn Dodgers, have lost the nostalgia war. There is a cottage industry in weepy books about the Brooklyn Dodgers: The Boys of Summer, Praying for Gil Hodges, The Greatest Ballpark Ever are examples. There are even books with parts that were made up out of whole cloth in parts, such as Wait 'Til Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin.Some still resent Horace Stoneham, the Giants’ owner, for following the Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley to California. Others have accepted his motives.
“Stoneham was O’Malley’s willing lackey,” said Rappaport, who is firmly in the anti-Stoneham camp.
“He was a lackey, but he was forced,” Liebowitz said.
“He saw a good business opportunity,” said George Sommerfeld, who grew up in Manhattan. “The Giants and Dodgers took over the West Coast.”
“Everything fell into Stoneham’s lap,” said Gary Brown, who was too young to remember the old Giants but has immersed himself in their history and is writing a book about the 1954 World Series-winning Giants.
And now an organization devoted to the history of one of baseball's premier franchise has to put "Baseball" in its title so people don't think it's devoted to nostalgia for Ken Strong, Mel Hein, and Y.A. Tittle.
Also, the Dodgers were never replaced by another team as the Giants were by the Mets.
http://faithandfear.blogharbor.com/
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