This is a continuing series of Giants' Fans Memories. For details, please see my website (History Section). If you would like to participate, please email me.
Martin Hoerchner is a self-employed computer consultant who lives in England. A member of SABR, his areas of interests include the New York Giants, Pictorial History and the Origins of Baseball.
HOW I CAME TO BASEBALL
Being a baseball fan is not a given thing for an American child, even one born in the 50’s.
I moved to Northern California the same year as the Giants – 1958. The Giants moved to San Francisco from New York, while my family and I moved to Sacramento from Lindsay, a tiny farming community in Central California. So you’d think I would have spent my youth going down to San Francisco and watching the team during the glory days of Mays, McCovey, Marichal, and Cepeda. I could have watched in person McCovey lining out to Bobby Richardson in 1962. But it was not to be. This was for three reasons: San Francisco was 100 miles away, my father was a college football fan, and I didn’t like baseball. Shocking as this may sound, I think I have traced this source of this attitude: the kids who were beating me up in school liked baseball. I was a bit of an intellectual snob – I’d rather read than follow sports. I always wore creased trousers and never jeans, because all the rough kids wore jeans. Then again, maybe they beat me up because I was a snob and I deserved to get savaged on a daily basis.
Fast forward to the mid-70’s, and I was all grown up and had a job where I did a lot of driving. In order to stave off boredom, I listened to the radio when I drove. And for those of you who don’t remember, the mid-70’s were a desert for rock music. I mean, how many times could you listen to “Billy, don’t be a hero” without being physically ill? When disco came in a few years later, it was almost a relief. So my radio started to drift down to 680 on the AM dial, which was KNBR, which was and still is the flagship station of the San Francisco Giants. So I started listening to Giants baseball, and the more I listened, the more I understood, and the more I wanted to listen. I finally found out that baseball was intelligent and interesting and I didn’t need to have been a geek all these years. (However that trait served me well years later when I got into computer programming.)
Those years were turbulent for the Giants. They won the division in 1971, but the 60’s powerhouse was long gone. Attendance dwindled and the team floundered financially. In 1976 Horace Stoneham made arrangements to sell the team. The man responsible for the move to San Francisco, he inherited the team in 1936 when his father Charles died, who had owned the team since 1919. There were no local takers, and the team was on the verge of becoming the second National League team in Canada when Labatt’s Brewery made arrangements to buy the team on move it to Toronto. It was a hairsbreadth away from happening, when the mayor of San Francisco, George Moscone, stepped in and found a local investor group willing to buy the Giants and keep them in San Francisco, headed by Bob Lurie. Of course, 17 years later Bob Lurie became the instigator of an arrangement to sell the team to a group of investors who would move it to St. Petersburg, Florida. And they say Americans don’t get irony!
But the early Lurie years were full of promise and rebuilding. In 1977, Willie McCovey re-joined the Giants towards the end of an illustrious career. He had a great year, being voted the Comeback Player of the Year while leading the team in RBIs and hitting 28 home runs, all of which seemed to be in the clutch. Lon Simmons’ shouting “You can tell it goodbye” filled my ears all season. That was also the year I finally made it to a Giants game, 19 years too late. The first hit I saw was a towering home run by Willie McCovey. That was also my first taste of Candlestick weather. It was June, but it felt like November. You don’t wear parkas in Sacramento.
The next year, 1978, the Giants really put it together. This was the first time a team that I rooted for made a serious pennant run. They were in first place in the National League West most of the season. Just like the acquisition of Willie McCovey energized the team the previous year, this year’s signing of Vida Blue brought life to the team. I remember the game in May where they took the division lead; Vida was pitching and the team ran together in celebration after the game was won. I remember Vida playing cheerleader from the dugout all season; you could see him turn toward the crowd and raise his palms up to get the crowd cheering. I saw at least 10 games that year; at 200 miles per round trip, I wore out the road.
McCovey played first base, and Bill Madlock played second. He hit a very high average. They Giants traded Bobby Murcer for him; earlier they had traded Bobby Bonds for Bobby Murcer. Johnny LeMaster was the shortstop – he was a good-field no-hit player that was popular with the fans, because they felt for him. Third base was Darrell Evans, a power-hitter recently traded from the Braves. The catcher was Marc Hill; the outfield was Terry Whitfield, Larry Herndon, and Jack Clark. I remember at one point in the season the entire outfield hit above .300. Terry Whitfield in particular was a high average hitter and ended up playing in Japan; Jack Clark was the team slugger for many years, and I remember Larry Herndon for a number of incredible plays were he threw out a baserunner at home plate from center field. The pitching rotation consisted of Vida, the Count (John Montefusco, the last Giant to pitch a no-hitter), Bob Knepper, and big Ed Halicki. And the firemen were Randy Moffit (Billy Jo King’s brother) from the right and Gary Lavelle (who’s sister wasn’t famous) from the left. Or was it the other way ‘round.
The Dodgers came into town in September and swept the Giants and knocked them out of first. I think I had the pain of seeing most of those games. I think the Giants then went to L.A. and got swept, effectively ending their pennant run. These were the hated Dodgers of lore – Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell, Ron Cey, Dusty… what was his name? That year the Penguin said he would quit baseball if the Giants won – I wanted to help give him that sending-off party. That was back when Steve Garvey was “Mr. Clean”, while San Francisco is, was, and always will be viewed as a bohemian town. Later revelations on his personal life were a source of much bemusement among Giant fans. But it didn’t give as much fulfilment as when Jack Clark broke Tommy Lasorda’s heart in the 1985 NLCS.
1978 was the first time that the Giants really let me down. It was not to be the last.
I did end up with some souvenirs of the 1978 season. The last home game was Camera Day and the Reds were in town. This was still the Big Red Machine of lore with Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, George Foster, Ken Griffey, Davey Concepcion, etc. etc. They were still hot, and in fact overtook the Giants for 2nd place in the NL West. I think by this game all the places were decided and there was no tension. I was able to take my camera onto that horrible Astroturf and photograph some of my favorite Giants. They had given me a lot of thrills that year, and I was grateful.
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