Sports have never seen a rivalry as fierce and intense as that of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. Yankees and Red Sox? Sorry, no. Michigan and Ohio State? Nope. Celtics and Lakers? Not even close. Army and Navy? Close, but no cigar. Too much mutual respect.<\/p>\n
Of course, an intense rivalry requires two components: familiarity and equivalency. In the pre-expansion, 154-game season days, the Dodgers and Giants faced off 22 times a year. Their fans worked side-by-side in offices and factories and frequented the same bars, engaging in what we call trash-talking today. To many, the Giants represented the privileged upper crust of Manhattan. The Dodgers were thought of as more blue-collar and working class.<\/p>\n
But It\u2019s not much of a rivalry when one team (the Giants) dominates the other (the Dodgers). From 1904-37, the Giants had runs of success under managers John McGraw<\/a> and Bill Terry<\/a>. By 1937, the Giants had won 13 pennants and four World Series championships. During that same period, the Brooklyn team, alternatively known as the Bridegrooms, the Superbas, and the Robins before becoming the Dodgers, had won just two pennants and none since 1920. In 1934, Terry famously asked a reporter of the Dodgers, \u201cAre they still in the league?\u201d<\/p>\n It was July 12, 1938, and Dodgers fan and postal clerk Robert Joyce, 33, felt good. After losing ten straight to the Giants, Joyce\u2019s Dodgers beat them 13-5 that afternoon. The Dodgers scored eight runs in the first inning. The first two in the Dodgers\u2019 batting order, Goody Rosen<\/a> and Packy Rogers,<\/a> were a combined 5-for-8 with two walks, three triples, five RBI, and six runs scored. Luke Hamlin<\/a> squelched a Giants comeback with four innings of sparkling relief.<\/p>\n Joyce walked into the Acme Hall, a Brooklyn tavern, to gloat over the Giants fans who frequented the establishment. By 11:00 in the evening, he\u2019d downed 18 beers but failed to convince the Giants fans of the Dodgers\u2019 superiority. They continued to razz Joyce about the Dodgers. Joyce stormed out, vowing that he was \u201cgoing out to get two guns and shoot up this place.\u201d<\/p>\n Joyce returned two hours later with two revolvers he had obtained at the post office, of all places when there were still a dozen patrons at the bar. He shot and wounded the bartender, William J. Diamond. Several men wrestled Joyce to the floor as a waiter grabbed the gun and ran out into the street. Joyce got free, drew the second revolver, and forced two men, Robert Eagan and Frank Harvey Krug, into a back room. As Eagan hid in a phone booth (kids, ask your parents), Joyce shot and killed Krug. Joyce then ran out of the bar and into the arms of three police officers. \u201cI must have gone haywire,\u201d Joyce told them.<\/p>\n By the 1940s, the Dodgers had developed into the heralded Boys of Summer. In 1947, they broke the color barrier<\/a> by signing Jackie Robinson<\/a>. The Dodgers won the pennant that year but succumbed to the Yankees in seven games. Leo Durocher<\/a> began 1947 as Dodgers manager but didn\u2019t survive spring training, suspended for an alleged association with gamblers. \u00a0Burt Shotton<\/a>, who wore a suit and tie in the dugout, took over as manager. Durocher returned in 1948. Meanwhile, in 1948, the Giants and Dodgers got mediocre starts. The Giants wanted to fire their manager, Mel Ott<\/a>. They asked Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey<\/a> for permission to hire Shotton. Instead, Rickey convinced them to take Durocher and returned Shotton to the Dodgers\u2019 dugout.<\/p>\n Durocher\u2019s desire to prove the Dodgers wrong fueled an already-burning fire. Meanwhile, the Dodgers were on the verge of becoming the dynasty that won five pennants (and were eliminated from two others on the last day of the season) and a World Series<\/a> from 1949-56. All the Dodgers needed was a solution to their third base problem and another starting pitcher. They obtained those pieces after the 1948 season in the worst trade in the history of the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a>. In exchange for two years of Dixie Walker<\/a>, who didn’t like to play with Robinson, the Pirates sent Billy Cox<\/a> and Preacher Roe<\/a> to Brooklyn. For the Dodgers, problem solved.<\/p>\n One of those final-day eliminations, and the most famous day of the Dodgers and Giants rivalry, occurred on October 3, 1951. Entering the 1951 stretch drive, the Dodgers appeared coasting to the pennant. On August 11, they were 13 games in front of the second-place Giants. Since the Giants were revealed to have been using an elaborate sign-stealing scheme, they stormed back to go 37-7 in their final 44 games. The Dodgers and Giants finished the regular season tied for first place in the National League, forcing a three-game playoff. The Giants won the first game at Ebbets Field, 3-1. The Dodgers took the second game, 10-0, at the Polo Grounds, setting the stage for a dramatic elimination game there.<\/p>\n The Dodgers took a 4-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning with a tired Don Newcombe<\/a> on the mound. Al Dark<\/a> led off for the Giants with an infield single. With first baseman Gil Hodges<\/a> holding Dark at the bag, Don Mueller<\/a> grounded a single through the spot where Hodges would ordinarily have been stationed. One out later, Whitey Lockman<\/a> doubled to score Dark and move Mueller to third, where he was injured sliding. As a pinch runner entered for Mueller, Dodgers manager Chuck Dressen<\/a> called bullpen coach Clyde Sukeforth<\/a>. Carl Erskine<\/a> and Ralph Branca<\/a> were warming up. Dressen asked Sukeforth who was throwing better. Sukeforth reported it was Branca.<\/p>\nA Guy Walks Into a Bar<\/h3>\n
“I Must Have Gone Haywire”<\/h3>\n
The Dodgers-Giants Rivalry Intensifies<\/h3>\n
The Shot Heard ‘Round the World<\/h3>\n