40 Fun Facts About Polo Grounds

Which Giants center fielder made the running grab known as The Catch at the Polo Grounds in 1954?

Willie Mays ran down Vic Wertz's drive about 420 feet from home plate with the score tied 2–2 in the eighth inning. His throw back to the infield stopped a runner advancing, and the Giants won in extra innings.

Which footwear did the football Giants switch to at halftime to win the 1934 NFL title game on a frozen Polo Grounds?

Sneakers borrowed from a nearby college's basketball team gave the Giants footing on the ice, and they scored 27 points in the fourth quarter. They beat the previously undefeated Chicago Bears 30–13.

Whose 1951 pennant-winning home run at the Polo Grounds is known as the Shot Heard 'Round the World?

Bobby Thomson's three-run homer in the ninth inning turned a 4–2 deficit into a 5–4 win over the Brooklyn Dodgers. It decided the third and final game of a playoff for the National League pennant.

Which slugger was the only batter to reach the Polo Grounds' distant center-field stands before the 1923 rebuild?

Babe Ruth hit his first home run for his New York club at the Polo Grounds on May 1, 1920, clearing the right-field grandstand. His longest drive there, in 1921, was estimated at over 550 feet.

The baseball-painted wrecking ball that razed the Polo Grounds in 1964 had earlier demolished which ballpark?

Ebbets Field, home of the Giants' great rivals the Brooklyn Dodgers, fell to the same ball in 1960. The Polo Grounds crew wore Giants jerseys and needed four and a half months to level the stadium.

Which nickname did the Polo Grounds earn from the long, narrow shape of its double-decked stands after 1923?

The Bathtub had foul lines of only 279 and 258 feet, yet its center-field clubhouse stood 483 feet from home plate. The bullpens sat in play in the outfield gaps.

Which team did the Giants beat in a 1921 World Series played entirely at the Polo Grounds?

The New York Yankees were the Giants' tenants, subletting the Polo Grounds from 1913 to 1922, so the clubs simply took turns as the home team. It was the first World Series held at a single site and the first broadcast on radio.

The Polo Grounds hosted the 1947 All-Ireland final, the only one ever played outside Ireland, in which sport?

Gaelic football's 1947 final went to New York to mark the centenary of the worst year of the Great Famine. Cavan beat Kerry in a city chosen for its many Irish Americans descended from Famine exiles.

Which future Super Bowl-winning coach played at the Polo Grounds as one of Fordham's Seven Blocks of Granite?

Vince Lombardi was the right guard on Fordham's famed 1936 line, a 5-foot-8, 180-pound senior thought undersized for the job. He went on to coach the Green Bay Packers to wins in the first two Super Bowls.

Which heavyweight champion rallied to knock out Billy Conn in the thirteenth round at the Polo Grounds in 1941?

Joe Louis was behind on two of the three scorecards when Conn, a former light heavyweight champion, went looking for a knockout of his own. Louis dropped him late in the round and Conn could not beat the count.

In which New York City borough did all four stadiums that carried the Polo Grounds name stand?

Manhattan held every version: the first stood beside 110th Street, and the later ones sat 45 blocks north at 155th Street, where the Giants took the name with them.

Which ballpark, opened in 1964 beside the World's Fair, replaced the Polo Grounds as home of the Mets and Jets?

Shea Stadium was named for William Shea, the lawyer most responsible for bringing National League baseball back to New York. It opened five days before the fair across the street.

What destroyed the Polo Grounds' grandstand in April 1911, forcing the Giants to rebuild it?

A fire of uncertain origin swept the horseshoe grandstand in the early hours of April 14, 1911, leaving only steel uprights. The park reopened just two and a half months later.

The original Polo Grounds of the 1870s stood directly across 110th Street from which New York City landmark?

Central Park's northeast corner faced the original grounds, which were built for polo and ran from 110th to 112th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. A baseball club first leased them in 1880.

Which manager, nicknamed the Ol' Perfessor, led the Polo Grounds-based 1962 Mets through 120 losses?

Casey Stengel's Mets went 40–120, the most losses by any major league team in the 20th century, and finished last in all four seasons he managed them.

Which college's backfield was christened the Four Horsemen after it beat Army at the Polo Grounds in 1924?

Notre Dame won 13–7, and sportswriter Grantland Rice's report likened its four backs to the riders of the Apocalypse. A student publicist then posed the players in uniform on four horses for a photograph.

What was built on the site of the Polo Grounds after the stadium was torn down in 1964?

A public housing complex called Polo Grounds Towers opened there in 1968, after the city claimed the land by eminent domain. The family that owned the ground fought the seizure until 1967.

From which high ground above the Polo Grounds could fans watch Giants games without buying a ticket?

Coogan's Bluff was named for James J. Coogan, a real estate developer whose family owned the land under the stadium throughout the Giants' stay. The ballpark itself sat below in Coogan's Hollow.

Which shortstop was fatally struck by a pitch at the Polo Grounds in 1920, the only MLB player killed in a game?

Ray Chapman died 12 hours after the pitch struck his head, at a time when batters wore no helmets. His death was later cited as a reason to adopt batting helmets, though they were not required for over 30 years.

Which champion was knocked out of the ring by Luis Firpo at the Polo Grounds in 1923 yet won a round later?

Jack Dempsey was helped back into the ring by ringside writers and knocked Firpo out in the second round. George Bellows turned the moment into a celebrated painting.

Which Giants rookie failed to touch second base at the Polo Grounds in 1908, wiping out a winning run?

Fred Merkle, at 19 the youngest player in the National League, turned for the dugout as fans ran onto the field. The game was ruled a 1–1 tie, and the Cubs won the makeup game and the pennant by one game.

Which Giants slugger hit 323 of his 511 home runs at the Polo Grounds, helped by its short right-field fence?

Mel Ott stood only 5 feet 9 yet led the National League in home runs six times and was its first player to pass 500. Teased about the short fence, he replied that every other hitter was free to aim for it too.

Who became the first man to regain the heavyweight title, beating Ingemar Johansson at the Polo Grounds in 1960?

Floyd Patterson knocked out the Swede in the fifth round, almost a year to the day after losing the crown to him. It proved to be the last major boxing match held at the stadium.

Which Giants pitcher struck out five future Hall of Famers in a row at the Polo Grounds in the 1934 All-Star Game?

Carl Hubbell used his screwball to fan Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin among the five. He later set a major league record by winning 24 consecutive decisions across 1936 and 1937.

Which manager ran the Giants at the Polo Grounds for almost thirty years, winning ten pennants?

John McGraw had been the third baseman of the aggressive, pennant-winning Baltimore Orioles of the 1890s, and he went on to win 2,763 games as a manager.

Which Milwaukee Braves slugger reached the Polo Grounds' center-field bleachers in 1962, a day after Lou Brock did?

Hank Aaron and Brock were two of only five players to reach those seats after the 1923 remodeling. One of the five, pitcher Schoolboy Rowe, did it in batting practice before an exhibition game.

Which 111-win team did the Giants sweep in the 1954 World Series, which opened at the Polo Grounds?

The Cleveland Indians had won a then American League record 111 games and were heavy favorites. Pinch hitter Dusty Rhodes won Game 1 with a home run that barely cleared the 258-foot right-field fence.

Which Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher gave up the pennant-deciding home run at the Polo Grounds in the 1951 playoff?

Ralph Branca got the call because fellow reliever Erskine, warming up beside him, was bouncing curveballs in the dirt. The batter he faced had already homered off him in the first game of the playoff.

Which surviving piece of the Polo Grounds, restored and reopened in 2014, is named for Giants owner John T. Brush?

A stairway opened in 1913 carried fans down the hillside from Edgecombe Avenue to a ticket booth overlooking the field. Its $950,000 restoration was paid for by teams that once played at the ballpark.

Under which name did the New York Jets play their first three seasons at the Polo Grounds, from 1960 to 1962?

The Titans were named by founding owner Harry Wismer, who reasoned that titans are bigger and stronger than giants. New owners renamed the team in 1963, its last season in the old ballpark.

Which Chicago Bears halfback, the Galloping Ghost, drew more than 65,000 fans to the Polo Grounds in December 1925?

Red Grange's visit helped save the first-year football Giants from financial ruin, and he returned an interception 35 yards for a touchdown in the Bears' 19–7 win.

Which Giants owner moved the franchise from the Polo Grounds to San Francisco after the 1957 season?

Horace Stoneham had inherited the Giants at 32 on his father's death in 1936, then the youngest club owner in National League history. He ran the team for forty years before selling it in 1976.

The third Polo Grounds opened in 1890 as Brotherhood Park, home of a Giants club in which one-season rival circuit?

The Players' League was created by baseball's first union, the Brotherhood of Professional Base-Ball Players. Its Giants played beside the National League Giants, and fans in the upper decks could watch both games.

At which nearby ballpark did the Giants play home games in 1911 while the Polo Grounds was being rebuilt?

Hilltop Park, a few blocks away on a ridge, belonged to the American League's Highlanders, who took in the Giants for about two months. Two years later that club moved into the Polo Grounds as the Giants' tenants.

Which Giants slugger, whose career home run record stood until 1921, hit a ball out of the original Polo Grounds?

Roger Connor's 1886 drive sailed over the right-field fence and onto 112th Street, a rare feat in a park where home runs were hard to hit. He retired with 138 of them.

Which former Giants infielder, killed in France in 1918, was honored by a center-field monument at the Polo Grounds?

Eddie Grant, a Harvard-trained lawyer, was killed by a shell while leading a search for the Lost Battalion in the Argonne. He was the first major league player killed in action in World War I.

The Polo Grounds' light poles were shipped to a spring-training ballpark built in 1964 in which Arizona city?

Phoenix Municipal Stadium received the poles, first installed in New York in 1940, because the Giants trained in the city each spring. The ballpark later became Arizona State University's baseball home.

Who won back his world title by stopping Britain's Randolph Turpin before 60,000 fans at the Polo Grounds in 1951?

Sugar Ray Robinson had lost the middleweight crown to Turpin in London two months earlier. Cut and at risk of a stoppage, he let loose in the tenth round until the referee ended the fight.

Which bookmaker founded the football Giants in 1925 and made the Polo Grounds their first home?

Tim Mara, a successful New York bookmaker, paid just $500 for the city's NFL franchise. One big crowd late in that first season wiped out all his losses for the year.

Which motorsport ran on a quarter-mile paved oval inside the Polo Grounds in 1958 and 1959, after the Giants left?

Stock car racing filled the empty ballpark between the baseball Giants' departure and the arrival of new tenants in 1960. Midget cars had run there on a dirt oval in 1940 and 1941.