Land of the Giants: New York's Polo Grounds

Rating:
Summary: A GOOD BOOK ABOUT A STADIUM WITH GREAT MEMORIES
Review: 1963 - my first look at the Polo Grounds as a child. All I remember is that the seats, the facade, and the grass was green. Little esle did I remember Stew Thornly brought it all back. Stew delves into how the stadium grew into that weird horseshoe shape and does a great job highlighting all the great events that took place there. Its an easy read but I wish he included more pictures and blueprints. Nonetheless, its the best work I've ever seen of the big green bathtub in Harlem.

Rating:
Summary: The Historic Horseshoe on the Harlem
Review: One ballpark that has fascinated me more than any other has been the Polo Grounds, home of the New York Giants. This is due to my interest in reading books about John McGraw and Christy Mathewson. My only two visits to the site came long after the stadium had been demolished. Author Stew Thornley provides the reader with a concise history of all four arenas called the Polo Grounds. Polo Grounds I was located at 110th Street and 5th Avenue and was the only location that polo was acutally played. Polo Grounds II was located on the site of Manhattan Field where the parking lot for the future arenas was to be located. Polo Grounds III had a short life as fire destroyed the park and the team moved into Hilltop Park after accepting an invitation from the Highlanders (Yankees) to play there while Polo Grounds IV was being rebuilt on the same location. I enjoyed the pictures that were in the book which included a couple views I hadn't seen before and also the history of the plaques in center field. I've often wondered what happened to the Eddie Grant memorial and I've found I'm not alone in this respect. Also of interest to me was the information provided on the Putnam Bridge near center field outside the park and the Macombs Dan Bridge that crosses the Harlem River. Of additional interest is the information provided on groundskeeper Matty Schwab and his family that lived in an apartment in the left field area and his son who had friends who would sleep over with him on the outfield grass. The area around Coogan's Bluff has history dating back to the days of George Washington and the Revolutionary War and two of baseball's most memorable moments in the 1950's took place there, Thompson's homer off Branca in '51 and Mays's catch off Wertz in '54. I remember writing to Tom Meany who worked for the New York Mets in the 1960's, asking him if he could provide me with a piece of concrete from the stadium when it was to be demolished. He sent back a picture with a note saying, "Sending you a piece of concrete would necessitate my using a chisel and I've never been a chiseler in all my life." The history of the Giants and Mets provided in this book can be found in any number of other baseball books, but some of the things I mentioned above I was not familiar with. Thanks, Stew Thornley, for an interesting book.

Rating:
Summary: The Historic Horseshoe on the Harlem
Review: One ballpark that has fascinated me more than any other has been the Polo Grounds, home of the New York Giants. This is due to my interest in reading books about John McGraw and Christy Mathewson. My only two visits to the site came long after the stadium had been demolished. Author Stew Thornley provides the reader with a concise history of all four arenas called the Polo Grounds. Polo Grounds I was located at 110th Street and 5th Avenue and was the only location that polo was acutally played. Polo Grounds II was located on the site of Manhattan Field where the parking lot for the future arenas was to be located. Polo Grounds III had a short life as fire destroyed the park and the team moved into Hilltop Park after accepting an invitation from the Highlanders (Yankees) to play there while Polo Grounds IV was being rebuilt on the same location. I enjoyed the pictures that were in the book which included a couple views I hadn't seen before and also the history of the plaques in center field. I've often wondered what happened to the Eddie Grant memorial and I've found I'm not alone in this respect. Also of interest to me was the information provided on the Putnam Bridge near center field outside the park and the Macombs Dan Bridge that crosses the Harlem River. Of additional interest is the information provided on groundskeeper Matty Schwab and his family that lived in an apartment in the left field area and his son who had friends who would sleep over with him on the outfield grass. The area around Coogan's Bluff has history dating back to the days of George Washington and the Revolutionary War and two of baseball's most memorable moments in the 1950's took place there, Thompson's homer off Branca in '51 and Mays's catch off Wertz in '54. I remember writing to Tom Meany who worked for the New York Mets in the 1960's, asking him if he could provide me with a piece of concrete from the stadium when it was to be demolished. He sent back a picture with a note saying, "Sending you a piece of concrete would necessitate my using a chisel and I've never been a chiseler in all my life." The history of the Giants and Mets provided in this book can be found in any number of other baseball books, but some of the things I mentioned above I was not familiar with. Thanks, Stew Thornley, for an interesting book.

Rating:
Summary: Back to the Polo Gronuds
Review: This book is an one special of its kind. It's like "Lost Ballparks" but enfocused only at the mythic Polo Grounds. The simply evocation of the name of the former field of the baseball's Giants wake up alots of events and personalities all very well descripted there in the book. Highly recommended.
One only thing I didn't like from the book: its binding.

Rating:
Summary: Back to the Polo Gronuds
Review: This book is an one special of its kind. It's like "Lost Ballparks" but enfocused only at the mythic Polo Grounds. The simply evocation of the name of the former field of the baseball's Giants wake up alots of events and personalities all very well descripted there in the book. Highly recommended.
One only thing I didn't like from the book: its binding.

Rating:
Summary: Once there were Giants
Review: This is a concise but thorough story of one of baseball's most fabled stadiums. As many of the old classic ballparks go the way of the wrecking ball, such accounts become more and more necessary.

The Polo Grounds met its demise as long ago as 1964, but it is likely to continue to have a hold on baseball fans long after some of the newer monstrosities which were built and/or abandoned afterwards (I.e., Riverfront Stadium, Houston Astrodome, Three Rivers Stadium) have been long forgotten.

Many of those who pick up this book will already know that the New York National League baseball team (which was known as the "Mutuals" before it became the "Giants") actually played in four different ballparks known as the Polo Grounds and that polo was never played in any but the first one (the succeeding ones simply kept the name for familiarity's sake).

But this book will add some breadth and scope to that knowledge. The author, Stew Thornley, has nothing new to add concerning the most famous events that took place there. At this late date, what more is there to be said about Merkle's Boner, Zimmerman's Boner, Snodgrass's Muff, Merkle's Second Boner, Hubbell's 1934 All Star Game performance, The Shot Heard Round the World, or Willie's Catch?

On the other hand, would you believe that Willie Mays's first Polo Grounds home run took place before his 1951 rookie season with the Giants? How and when? I didn't know before reading this book.

Thornley also seems to have swallowed the myth that a vengeful Brooklyn Dodgers team beat the Giants in 1934 to spoil their pennant chances and get even for the slight that Bill Terry inflicted when he asked, "Is Brooklyn still in the league?" The story is part of Giant-Dodger lore, and all of those events took place, except that it is likely that Terry's question was really an innocent response to a rumor circulating over that franchises's future.

Thornley's principal contribution concerns the political and business history of the four ballparks, as well as their dimensions and how they affected baseball as it was played there. But while there are some wonderful photographs in the centerpieces of the book, Thornley fails to integrate them with his technical descriptions of the ballparks' dimensions. Some maps of old New York and some diagrams of the four ballparks facing the pages containing the descriptions would have been helpful.

There were not only once baseball giants at Polo Grounds IV but football giants too. Boxing and other athletic events also took place, and, in a separate chapter, Thornley dutifully pays homage to the Grounds's non-baseball history.

Regarding Polo Grounds I, where the Giants played from 1883 to 1888, it is described as a "difficult place to hit home runs". As Thornley states, "Total Baseball lists the home run factor for the east diamond as 71, with 100 being average; this means that home runs were reduced by nearly 30 percent...because of the characteristics of the ballpark itself."

Thornley continues, "However, the Giants had a slugger capable of reaching not just the outfield fences but the property fences that provided the outside border to the stadium itself." The slugger was Hall of Famer Roger Connor, described by another historian as "the premier power hitter of the `Gaslight Era'", and Thornley recapitulates a contemporary description from 1886 of a Connor home run traveling majestically over the right field stands and into a field across 112th Street.

A Giants baseball team playing its home games in a pitcher's ballpark, stingy with home runs, but having in its lineup the premier home run hitter of the era, a left-handed slugger and future Hall of Famer capable of overcoming the park's dimensions by muscling baseballs entirely out of it.

Thornley deserves thanks for reminding his readers that after 116 years and a move to the West Coast, the more baseball changes, the more it remains the same.

Rating:
Summary: Once there were Giants
Review: This is a concise but thorough story of one of baseball's most fabled stadiums. As many of the old classic ballparks go the way of the wrecking ball, such accounts become more and more necessary.

The Polo Grounds met its demise as long ago as 1964, but it is likely to continue to have a hold on baseball fans long after some of the newer monstrosities which were built and/or abandoned afterwards (I.e., Riverfront Stadium, Houston Astrodome, Three Rivers Stadium) have been long forgotten.

Many of those who pick up this book will already know that the New York National League baseball team (which was known as the "Mutuals" before it became the "Giants") actually played in four different ballparks known as the Polo Grounds and that polo was never played in any but the first one (the succeeding ones simply kept the name for familiarity's sake).

But this book will add some breadth and scope to that knowledge. The author, Stew Thornley, has nothing new to add concerning the most famous events that took place there. At this late date, what more is there to be said about Merkle's Boner, Zimmerman's Boner, Snodgrass's Muff, Merkle's Second Boner, Hubbell's 1934 All Star Game performance, The Shot Heard Round the World, or Willie's Catch?

On the other hand, would you believe that Willie Mays's first Polo Grounds home run took place before his 1951 rookie season with the Giants? How and when? I didn't know before reading this book.

Thornley also seems to have swallowed the myth that a vengeful Brooklyn Dodgers team beat the Giants in 1934 to spoil their pennant chances and get even for the slight that Bill Terry inflicted when he asked, "Is Brooklyn still in the league?" The story is part of Giant-Dodger lore, and all of those events took place, except that it is likely that Terry's question was really an innocent response to a rumor circulating over that franchises's future.

Thornley's principal contribution concerns the political and business history of the four ballparks, as well as their dimensions and how they affected baseball as it was played there. But while there are some wonderful photographs in the centerpieces of the book, Thornley fails to integrate them with his technical descriptions of the ballparks' dimensions. Some maps of old New York and some diagrams of the four ballparks facing the pages containing the descriptions would have been helpful.

There were not only once baseball giants at Polo Grounds IV but football giants too. Boxing and other athletic events also took place, and, in a separate chapter, Thornley dutifully pays homage to the Grounds's non-baseball history.

Regarding Polo Grounds I, where the Giants played from 1883 to 1888, it is described as a "difficult place to hit home runs". As Thornley states, "Total Baseball lists the home run factor for the east diamond as 71, with 100 being average; this means that home runs were reduced by nearly 30 percent...because of the characteristics of the ballpark itself."

Thornley continues, "However, the Giants had a slugger capable of reaching not just the outfield fences but the property fences that provided the outside border to the stadium itself." The slugger was Hall of Famer Roger Connor, described by another historian as "the premier power hitter of the 'Gaslight Era'", and Thornley recapitulates a contemporary description from 1886 of a Connor home run traveling majestically over the right field stands and into a field across 112th Street.

A Giants baseball team playing its home games in a pitcher's ballpark, stingy with home runs, but having in its lineup the premier home run hitter of the era, a left-handed slugger and future Hall of Famer capable of overcoming the park's dimensions by muscling baseballs entirely out of it.

Thornley deserves thanks for reminding his readers that after 116 years and a move to the West Coast, the more baseball changes, the more it remains the same.