10 Facts About Baseball's Greatest Rivalry

As Major League Baseball's regular season dwindles down into its post season. As Aaron "Dave Kingman" Judge feasts or famines, each at nigh record clips. As Rafael Devers and Andrew Benintendi continue to enter stage right in less dramatic but just as impressive fashion. As the Boston Red Sox fight to stave off their arch-nemesis New York Damn Yankees -- I figured it'd be interesting to take a brief look back at baseball's greatest rivalry.

The Dodgers vs The Giants.

[one] April 18, 1884: in an exhibition game won 8-0 by the Giants, the two squads square-off for the very first time.

[two] October 18, 1889: the "World Series" between American Association Champion Brooklyn and National League Champion New York representatives marked the first official go twixt teams. The Dodger were 12-10 victors at the Polo Grounds then, but the Giants won the series later, six games to three.

[three] At that initial official meeting, mayhaps the Seventh Inning Stretch was threaded into the fabric of baseball. All it took, according to the Sporting News, was someone crying out "Stretch for luck!" Those tuchus'd in the grandstand then did-so, re-tuchus'd.

[four] May 3, 1890: The first game with Brooklyn in the National League. They won at home in Washington Park, 7-3.  As a time-frame, this is still 8 years before Brooklyn surrendered its Independence to become a borough of NYC.

[five] June 12, 1890: animosity was sparked. Brooklyn defeated the Giants 12-6, whenst Darby O'Brien, Brooklyn's third-base coach, pretended to be a base runner. Breaking for home, he drew a throw which allowed the legal runner to safely make third. Yes, I don't fully grasp that either.

[six] July 12, 1938: animosity spilt into the collective fan-bases as Robert Joyce, a post office clerk bickered with the frequenters of Pat Diamond's Bar and Grill. The flash-point being one swiller stating that the Dodgers may never be good again. This enraged Giants mega-fan Joyce, whom left the bar to go get his guns. Upon his return, he shot and killed the bartender one William Diamond and a patron named Frank Harvey Krug. This is the very first homicidal instance which can be blamed on the rivalry.

[seven] 1946: "Nice guys finish last," is added to the American lexicon courtesy of Dodger manager Leo Durocher. This snip was snipped toward Giants manager Mel Ott. When a reporter told Durocher to "be nice," he was met with the response of: "Nice guy? Who wants to be a nice guy? Look over there at the Giant bench. Where would you find a nicer guy than Mel Ott? And where are they? In eighth place." Ouchy wah-wah.

[eight] October 3, 1951: Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World" wins the pennant for New York 5-4. This after the Giants forced a three-game playoff, having come from 13 1/2 games down on August 11th. More than half a century later in 2011, a Wall Street Journal article exposed and exacted the sign stealing methods employed by the New York Giants during their miraculous 1951 comeback. As well as the three-game playoff.

[nine] 1957: Both franchises relocate to California. The Giants announced their San Francisco plans on August 19, 1957. The Dodgers then announced their Los Angeles shift on October 8th. This on the heels of Giants owner Horace Stoneham being convinced by Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley that the two clubs should transplant their rivalry to the west coast, instead of his planned Minneapolis. Their first California meeting ended in a San Francisco home-game shut-out, 8-0 on Tax Day 1958. Their first squaring off at the Dodgers new LA Memorial Coliseum digs saw the home-team exact revenge via a 6-5 tally.

[ten] 2016: Vin Scully's 67th and final year calling Dodgers game, a career begun in Brooklyn, ended upon him calling the season's last three games in San Francisco. He typically no longer travelled for several years, but wanted a Giants show-down to be his swan-song.

[bonus] A calling card selling point 'a the rivalry is balance. As of 2015, the Giants are winners of 1,239 to the Dodgers 1,208. Too, 17 ties exist twixt.

And there ya have it. The years '57 to '16 are far from without arch-rivalry additions. I simply wanted to heavily begin at the beginning, then lightly-er come to the present. I'll perchance place in the works another list to cover that span. Sounds fun.

You like fun? Me niether.
Listen to: "Peeing in the Fridge" Kaplowitz Radio: September 17, 2017