The love affair with the Giants in the '60s is unmatched in Bay Area sports history.
Baseball was king, and no city was considered "major league" unless it had a major league baseball team. That's why San Francisco Mayor George Christopher worked so hard to convince New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham that he should move his team to San Francisco.
Baseball was also in its prime; National League baseball in the '50s and '60s was probably the best of any period in the game's history.
San Franciscans were wild about the Giants. If you walked down Market Street on a game day, the radio voices of Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons would be blaring out from every store. At the opera, men had transistor plugs in their ears to follow the games, still a better option than listening to Wagner.
And when the Giants won the 1962 pennant in a playoff against the Dodgers, the celebration rivaled that of V-J Day in the eyes of those who had seen both events. I was there in '62, and it was an unforgettable experience. Subsequent celebrations for 49ers' championships pale in comparison.
A mob greeted the Giants -- returning from L.A. -- at the airport. Streets in downtown San Francisco were overrun; it was impossible for vehicles to pass. Even street cars and cable cars were halted as pedestrians swarmed through the intersection at Market and Powell, fanning out in all directions.
The timing of the Giants' arrival in San Francisco couldn't have been better. In New York, the championship team of 1954 gradually had faded, but by the time the Giants arrived here, the team had gotten an infusion of youth from the farm system run by Carl Hubbell and Jack Schwarz.
The Giants almost had too many good players. They traded Bill White before the 1959 season and dealt Orlando Cepeda during the '66 season because they had too many good first basemen. They kept the right one, Willie McCovey, but White and Cepeda were All-Stars after leaving San Francisco, and Cepeda was the league's Most Valuable Player in '67.
Their outfield was just as crowded. At various times, they had the Alou brothers -- Felipe, Jesus and Matty -- Willie Kirkland, Jackie Brandt, Ollie Brown, Leon Wagner -- and I'm probably forgetting some. Most had to be traded. "We supplied the whole damn league with outfielders," says onetime Giants manager Bill Rigney.
In the '60s, the Giants had five future Hall of Famers, but two stood out, Juan Marichal and Willie Mays.
Marichal was the most complete pitcher I ever saw. Though he had an outstanding fastball, he tried for strikeouts only when he needed them most, such as with a runner on third and fewer than two outs. In a minor-league game, Marichal faced a bases-loaded, no-out situation. His manager sarcastically suggested that it would be a good idea if Marichal struck out the next three hitters. So he did.
Usually, Marichal let hitters get themselves out. He had great control, so a hitter couldn't wait him out, and he threw a bewildering assortment of pitches at different speeds and in different locations. Most times, the off-balance hitter would hit one of those pitches right to a Giants fielder.
Mays was the best player I ever saw, excelling at every phase of the game. Those of us who watched him regularly most appreciated his base running, and all of us had a favorite story.
Mine was a game against the New York Mets when Mays scored from third on a wild pitch that went only about 6 feet from the plate. Giants manager Herman Franks said he wouldn't have sent a runner from first on that play.
When I interviewed Mays for a Giants history book, he remembered that play, and even the catcher, Choo Choo Coleman. He said he could see from the angle of the pitch that it would be in the dirt, so he started running before it got to the plate. Coleman had no chance; Mays scored standing up. "Sometimes, the things I did amazed even me," Mays said. Indeed.
It seemed a shame that these great players had to play in Candlestick Park, but there was no choice. Stoneham had insisted that he would not move his club unless he got a new park with 10,000 parking spaces. That ruled out double-decking Seals Stadium, where the Giants played for their first two years in San Francisco, or any spot other than Candlestick Point.
Candlestick has been dreadful, but we never would have had the great Giants' decade of the '60s, or any of the roller-coaster rides since, if it hadn't been built. It was worth it.