Polo Grounds in Harlem, and Its Former Tenants, Emerge From the Shadows
When a ballpark dies, and its concrete and steel are smashed to bits, it survives in memories: attending a first game there; smelling the mix of grass, hot dogs and beer; rising with thousands of others to watch a home run take flight; and catching a foul ball (finally!).
Recollections of Ebbets Field’s intimate, idiosyncratic ambience help keep the flame of nostalgia lighted for the Brooklyn Dodgers almost as brightly as do their long struggles to beat the hated Yankees in the World Series.
The Polo Grounds, the horseshoe-shaped home of the New York Giants in Harlem, had anomalies of its own, as well as a rich sporting legacy that culminated in Bobby Thomson’s Shot Heard Round the World, perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history. Yet in recollections of classic 20th-century stadiums, it is often an afterthought.
“Everything about the Giants gets short shrift,” said Peter Magowan, the former managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants, who grew up in New York and attended his first Giants game at the Polo Grounds in 1950. “It was unique and very quirky. It was a great old ballpark.”
Remembrances of the Polo Grounds, as a ballpark and a football stadium, move into the forefront this weekend. Its most famous tenant will make a triumphant return, and a lesser-known one will be playing for a spot in a league championship game.
On Friday and Saturday, the San Francisco Giants bring their World Series trophy — and Willie Mays — to New York on an ancestral tour that includes a visit to Public School 46, near the Polo Grounds site. And the Jets, who played there from 1960 to 1963 starting as the Titans of the American Football League, face the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday for the A.F.C. title.
There were four Polo Grounds, dating to the 1880s. The first, north of Central Park, was the only one where polo was played. The fourth version, beneath Coogan’s Bluff at West 155th Street and Eighth Avenue, emerged in mid-1911 out of the ashes of the third one, whose wooden stands were destroyed in a fire. Over the next dozen or so years, it was enclosed and expanded in time to compete with the Yankees, a former tenant, across the Harlem River.
“It wasn’t like Yankee Stadium,” said Steve Rothschild, who grew up in Inwood as a Giants fan. “There wasn’t as much obstruction, although there were poles. And everything was a little cheaper.”
In its time, the Polo Grounds would be home to the Giants, the Yankees and the football Giants, before the Titans and the Mets bided their time there until 1964, when Shea Stadium opened.
Casey Stengel batted .339 as a Giants outfielder in 1923 and managed the Mets to a 40-120 record at the Polo Grounds 39 years later. Babe Ruth’s first three years as a Yankee were spent there, and the Indians’ Ray Chapman was killed there by a pitch thrown by the Yankees’ Carl Mays in 1920. John McGraw managed the Giants for 31 seasons at Polo Grounds III and IV.
Mel Ott, Bill Terry and Carl Hubbell starred there for the baseball Giants; New Yorkers fell in love with the joyous Mays there. Tuffy Leemans, Mel Hein and Frank Gifford played football there.
The Giants won the decisive games of the 1905, 1921 and 1922 World Series at the Polo Grounds, while the football Giants won the 1934 and 1938 N.F.L. title games there. Mays made his spectacular catch of Vic Wertz’s fly ball in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series in its absurdly spacious center field, and Notre Dame’s win over Army inspired Grantland Rice to call the Irish backfield “the Four Horsemen.” Jack Dempsey beat Luis Firpo in its boxing ring; Billy Conn nearly beat Joe Louis there.
And, of course, Thomson hit that homer on Oct. 3, 1951, off Dodgers reliever Ralph Branca.
What stands out to fans and historians nearly 47 years since its demolition are its outfield dimensions, some of which changed with regularity. It was short down the lines (no more than 280 feet to left and 259 to right, and still shorter to the second decks); distant in the alleys (as much as 449 to one bullpen and 455 to the other); and as long as 505 to center field.
“That made it a strange ballpark,” said Jerry Liebowitz, a fan who began attending games there in 1943. “Someone like Johnny Mize hits it 450 to center field and it’s nothing but an out, but guys who couldn’t hit a damn were hitting pop-fly home runs to left and right.”
Philip J. Lowry, author of “Green Cathedrals,” a 1992 book about ballparks, said a groundskeeper told him that the distance written on the center-field clubhouse wall changed often, whether because home plate was moved, the shorter distance to the bleacher wall was used, or simply because management ordained it.
That, he said, is one reason to “celebrate” the uniqueness of the Polo Grounds, as is photographic evidence he said of a time when two foul poles were used in left field. Also, for a time, the groundskeeper Matty Schwab and his family lived in an apartment under the left-field stands.
The stadium’s clubhouses — and the Giants’ office — were located in a three-story structure built into a wide notch between the bleachers, all in fair territory. To get there, players had to climb one of two staircases. Inside, part of the Giants’ plot to steal opponents’ signs during the 1951 season took place. Above it rose a giant Chesterfield sign and faux cigarette (“Always Buy Chesterfield”). When the Mets moved in, a smaller Rheingold sign with a scoreboard above it took over the spot.
“If I had a time machine, it’s the first place I’m going,” said Stew Thornley, author of “Land of the Giants: New York’s Polo Grounds.” A Minnesotan, Thornley said he was smitten from his youth by images of the ballpark’s shape, setting and unique features.
“There’s a good deal of nostalgia for it among Giants fans,” he said, “but I do think it gets overshadowed by Ebbets Field.”
When the Giants followed the Dodgers’ aggressive lead to the West Coast after the 1957 season, the Polo Grounds kept its turnstiles moving for auto racing (along a quarter-mile asphalt track), rodeos, soccer, religious gatherings, a 10th-anniversary salute to Israel and the 50th annual N.A.A.C.P. convention.
In June 1960, Floyd Patterson knocked out Ingemar Johansson at 1 minute 51 seconds of the fifth round to regain the heavyweight championship. Soon after, the Titans moved in.
“Everything had deteriorated,” said Don Maynard, the Titans receiver whose autobiography, “You Can’t Catch Sunshine,” was recently published. “The place was full of weeds.”
He lamented the faulty groundskeeping that effectively created a dangerous ravine with low and high spots that spanned the 40-yard lines and was dubbed Wismer’s Gully, for the owner Harry Wismer.
Laughing, he said, “It’s nice to look back, but I’m not sure I’d do it again.”
Although the Titans/Jets and Mets stayed in Harlem through their 1963 seasons, the Polo Grounds’ fate as a four-tower housing complex was sealed by New York City in 1961. On April 10, 1964, a two-ton steel ball inaugurated the old ballpark’s demolition, a week before Shea Stadium opened for business.
When the Mets moved into another new stadium, Citi Field, in 2009, the Polo Grounds’ influence was barely noticeable. Fred Wilpon, the principal owner and a Brooklyn Dodgers enthusiast, had used the Ebbets Field rotunda as the inspiration for his grand entranceway, and named it for Jackie Robinson. His homage to the Polo Grounds rests in the dark green of its seats.