The Giants come to Minnesota… and almost came to Minnesota in the 1950’s too!
First pitch: 7:10 Central
Weather: National Weather Service still gutted, VERY slight chance T-storms, 82°
Opponent’s SB site: McCovey Chronicles
TV: Steve Jobs (really, Wozniak) TV. Radio: Proven to exist by a guy named Hertz, whose son invented ultrasound devices, and presumably neither rented airport cars to you
Giants starter Jordan Hicks began life (well, began his MLB career) as a fireballing reliever, one of three who’ve ever been clocked at 105 MPH. Hicks converted to a starter last season, and it went reasonably well for the first 15 games (2.82 ERA, 3.0 FIP). Then, not-so-well (8.18 ERA, 6.44 FIP) the next five starts, after which he went back to the bullpen. He’s starting again now; it hasn’t clicked yet for him. Hicks relies mostly on his high-90s sinker and low-80s sweeper/slider; he’ll thrown in a four-seamer or split/change on occasion. 2024 digits:
Today In Baseball History stuff; well, on May 7, 2003, former Giant/Saints coach Wayne Terwilliger became the oldest manager in minor-league history, at 79; only Connie Mack did it an an older age, with the Philadelphia A’s.
Not Minnesota or Giants related, but on May 9, 1947, Phillies manager Ben Chapman was made to publicly apologize to Jackie Robinson for hurling racist slurs during the teams’ earlier matchups. (A scene that’s dramatized in the 1950 movie The Jackie Robinson Story with the real Robinson; it’s made MUCH more explicit in the 2013 Chadwick Boseman version, 42.) The two men posed for newspaper photos, which Robinson later said was awfully hard to do. Chapman does NOT look real thrilled in this picture:
Dodgers outfielder Dixie Walker said, “I never thought I’d see old Ben eat s**t like that.”
Current goings-on around baseball? The Saints have been rained out 11 times already, which is pretty funny. Former Twin and formerly-great reliever Ryan Pressly allowed nine runs in one inning the other day, which is sad for him. A Diamondbacks team representative said that unless Arizona’s taxpayers give the team a gazillion dollars for a new stadium, MLB will pull all their Spring Training games from Arizona forever. This is probably bullhonky; but keep in mind, Manfred authorized the sh***y John Fisher plan to play in a sh***y minor-league stadium, while there’s still a massive funding shortfall on building the Las Vegas one.
So with the Manfred Mann, you never know what stupid thing might happen next.
Incidentally and unsurprisingly, the A’s attendance in that sh***y stadium is lowest in MLB, with the minor-league-stadium Rays (hurricane killed Tropicana Field roof) next-lowest. Then comes the Marlins, the ChiSox… and the Twins.
Our main story today, though, will be about when the New York Giants were looking for a new place to play, back in the 1950s. And they were giving serious thought to moving here.
It’s all in this SABR article by Vince Guerrieri. Basically there were several teams at the time shopping for a new home. Including the Boston Braves (moved to Milwaukee in 1953), St. Louis Browns (became the Baltimore Orioles in 1954), the Giants (who moved four years after winning a World Series), and the Dodgers (three years after winning one).
What was the reason for all this relocatin’? Well, Ebbets Field was much smaller than Yankee Stadium, and the Polo Grounds was kinda old, and a lot of these cities were newly on the rise, and…
White flight. Basically, white flight. A lot of that goin’ on in the 1950s, if you hadn’t heard. And the Polo Grounds was basically in Harlem.
What made this interesting from a Minnesota baseball fan’s point of view was how many teams were rumored to be interested in moving here at the time. The two main rumored ones were the Indians, largely at the urging of 20% owner Hank Greenberg (yes, the former slugging great).
And the other was the Giants. The Minneapolis Millers were the Giants’ AAA team (and Willie Mays had played at Nicollet Park for a very brief stretch before getting called up); By MLB rules of the time, that gave the Giants first dibs on putting a team in Minneapolis.
What eventually happened is that the Indians couldn’t get out of their lease (sound familiar?), and Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley convinced Giants owner to pick San Francisco instead. Whether just to have some company in California, or because O’Malley also owned the St. Paul Saints and didn’t want them to fold just yet. (Both the Millers and Saints were folded when the Twins moved here in 1962.)
The eagle-eyed among you will notice that the second of those articles said there would be a stadium in St. Paul. What’s that? Well Midway opened in 1957, so I’m guessing that’s what’s that.
An interesting footnote in Guerrieri’s article is this 2016 Patrick Reusse post (yes, I know, Reusse’s opinion columns were trash, but his local sports history stuff was solid). Apparently another proposed site for a stadium (before Bloomington was picked) was the St. Louis Park area — about where there’s a Costco today. So, that coulda been razed for the MOA instead, later.
Anyways, that’s what almost happened — Minnesota almost got the Giants. (Who lost a World Series in the 1960s, 4 games to 3, just like the Twins would — and won their first World Series two years after the Twins did.)
Although, if the Giants had come here in the 1950s, and the stadium built was in St. Louis Park, and if it wasn’t big enough for football, would the Vikings have come here? I don’t know. I do know the Vikings want $300 million in taxpayer upgrades to their ugly new stadium, though! As Neil deMause puts it, “What else is an NFL franchise worth $5 billion that turns an annual $111 million profit to do?”
