Giants Win the World Series

So the San Francisco Giants have won the World Series, downing the Texas Rangers four games to one. It is the first championship since the team moved to San Francisco in 1958.

Yeah, I don’t care much, either. The Rangers or the Giants, the Giants or the Rangers — not much of a rooting interest either way. Both are good stories — this would have been the Rangers first-ever championship. The Giants last won the Series 1954, when they were still toiling in the Polo Grounds.

It’s funny, but all I heard my entire childhood was about the dearly departed Dodgers — everyone lamented the loss of the team and Ebbets Field. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Brooklyn, but I never heard anyone talk about the Giants. They were just as important a part of the city as the Dodgers, but no one is writing books or songs about the old New York Giants. No one cries because a housing project now sites on the site of the Polo Grounds.

The Giants were arguably a better team than the Dodgers — they won five World Series to Brooklyn’s one. And they had some pretty incredible players over the years — Willie Mays, Mel Ott, Christy Mathewson to name a few legends.

But still, the memories and the tears are reserved for the Dodgers. Perhaps tonight a few tears of joy were shed in New York by the few old-time Giants fans still left.