June 25, 200323 yr LA: 1 Gnats: 0 Pitchers' duel...3 hits to 2 hits. Its 6th inning. We want SF to win.
June 25, 200323 yr yea the Dodgers are playing well and we need SF to win. I Hope we can catch up but we still got 2 months to go...
June 25, 200323 yr this is the most underrated rivalry in baseball. its right up there with NYY-BOS and doesnt get anything near the attention the other rivalry gets, its a shame.
June 25, 200323 yr this is the most underrated rivalry in baseball. its right up there with NYY-BOS and doesnt get anything near the attention the other rivalry gets, its a shame Funny you should mention that. Read this article (which was front page at msnbc.com at the time) a couple of days ago. Right on the point. Dodgers-Giants is simply best rivalry L.A., S.F. have never been on top for long in historic feud COMMENTARY - Mike Celizic - NBCsports.com This is going to tick off Yankees and Red Sox fans, and many would say that?s a good thing. But is there a better rivalry in baseball than Dodgers-Giants? THAT?S A RHETORICAL QUESTION, so don?t bother with the e-mails telling me that there is. The evidence of the years and yet another Dodgers-Giants pennant race going on as you read this is proof enough that the battle of California, North and South, is still the best the game has to offer. Yankees fans will disagree, of course, but they are like that. The biggest, the best, the most expensive ? if it?s an adjective that ends in ?-est? or is preceded by ?most,? then they consider it their personal property. If someone did a story on laundering jock straps, Yankees fans would swear that there are no better laundered straps than those in their Bronx basement. And the Yankees rivalry with the Red Sox is, indeed, a great one that has been renewed in pretty sprightly fashion this season. But how much of a rivalry can it be when the Yankees almost always win? A true rivalry should involve give-and-take, the rise and fall of fortunes, a true exchange between near-equals. On that basis, the Yankees-Red Sox is like Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson, and if you have to ask which team is represented by Mickelson, I can?t help you. The Dodgers-Giants are more like Nicklaus-Palmer, with the Dodgers playing the role of the Golden Bear. They?ve won more World Series titles, at least since both teams moved to California, but the two have taken turn beating each other and trading the NL West crown. They?re at it again this season, scrapping for first in a race that may not be decided until the two teams meet for six games over the final two weeks of the season. Some will say it?s not like it was in the good old days, whose apotheosis came in 1965 when Giants pitcher Juan Marichal whacked Dodgers catcher John Roseboro over the head with a bat. Or the three-game playoff in 1962, won by the Giants, at least in part because they turned the area around first base into a New Jersey swamp to stop Maury Wills from stealing second. That was in rancid, windy, cold and foggy old Candlestick Park, since replaced by the much niftier and far more civilized Pac Bell Park, which isn?t nearly the same. In Candlestick, partly because there were usually a lot of tickets available for Dodgers fans to buy, it wasn?t a good Giants-Dodgers game unless there were a dozen fights in the stands ? by the third inning. Those old days are what prompted John Crowley of The San Francisco Examiner to once call the Dodgers-Giants rivalry ?hatred in its purest form.? It?s what inspired Joe Cronin to write in ?Sport? back in 1964, ?There are no two cities in America where the people want to beat each other?s brains out more than in San Francisco and Los Angeles.? So maybe it?s not what it used to be, but the two cities still hate each other. That?s only natural, since hating Los Angeles is a no-brainer. Everybody hates L.A., including many of the people who live there. It?s only natural that L.A. residents would hate everybody else, especially the snooty folks up in the Bay Area, which thinks it has a far better quality of life ? and even better earthquakes ? than L.A. Anyway, nothing?s like it used to be any more, from cars to milk to draft beer. What can?t be denied is that, by today?s standards, it?s still the best rivalry going because neither team holds the advantage year after year. Last season, the Giants knocked the Dodgers out of the race late in the season and went to the World Series for the 18th time in their history, the same number of times the Dodgers have been there. The Dodgers have won six times, five since they moved west for the 1958 season, while the Giants have won five world championships, none since 1954. Two years ago, the Dodgers knocked the Giants out of the race at the end of the season, allowing the Diamondbacks to get into the playoffs, which they would win. In 1997, the Giants beat the Dodgers twice in September and won the division by two over their rivals. In 1993, the Giants won 103 games but finished second to Atlanta and missed the playoffs because the hated Dodgers beat them in the season?s final game. In 1982, 1971, 1966, 1965, 1962 and 1959, they engaged in similar battles. What makes the rivalry so great, though, is not just the cultural divide between the two cities but the sheer age of the series. The two teams first played on Oct. 18, 1889 when the Giants were in the National League and Brooklyn, then called, appropriately enough, the Bridegrooms, were in the American Association. They met in that era?s equivalent of the World Series, with the Giants winning. Back then, Giants fans were both hoity and toity and Dodgers fans were working stiffs who rode the streetcars to work. The team eventually would pick up its name from those cars, it being an abbreviation of ?Trolley Dodgers.? The Giants dominated early in the century and the Dodgers late, not winning their first title until the 1950s, the same decade the Giants won their last. And no playoff game, not even the one remembered in New York and Boston for Bucky Dent?s home run, has ever been as dramatic and as celebrated as the 1951 Dodgers-Giants game in which Bobby Thomson hit his home run off Ralph Branca and Russ Hodges hoarsely screamed, ?The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!? Dodgers fans have never forgotten that. Come to think of it, neither have Giants fans. They never will, either. It?s part of the lore of the best rivalry in baseball.
June 25, 200323 yr that was a good article. showed the history both teams have with each other real well. can you imagine hating someone so much you hit him over the head with a baseball bat? that normally only happens on "Cops" or in Tonya Harding's trailer. also, Giants-Dodgers from October 3rd (I believe), 1951 was probably the most famous game in baseball history, moreso than when Bucky Dent took out the BoSox, everybody knows that call. i remember HBO did a special on it a few years ago to commemorate the 50 years since it happened.
June 25, 200323 yr They talked about this on SC and I was shocked I did not know there was a rivalry between these two team, and they really hate each other is surprising. Then they said Jackie Robinson was traded to the Giants and he refused to play for them so he retired instead that's amazing.
June 25, 200323 yr this is the most underrated rivalry in baseball. its right up there with NYY-BOS and doesnt get anything near the attention the other rivalry gets, its a shame. man we live in the DIRTY SOUTH aka East coast..... DOwn in the west coast thats all they talk about is La vs SF... its just the way the 2 coasts are... i think it was college football this year where the talk was Carson Palmer cant win the Hiesmen cuz he plays in the west coast... and east coast writers cant see em... Belive me EVerybody in the west coast seen Carson, East coast not so much..... there is a DIFFRENCE here..... if we lived in the WEst coast thats what they would show on TV 1st La vs SF not NYY vs BOS... and that Bay Area showdown got alot PUB to... Oak vs SF
June 25, 200323 yr They talked about this on SC and I was shocked I did not know there was a rivalry between these two team, and they really hate each other is surprising. Then they said Jackie Robinson was traded to the Giants and he refused to play for them so he retired instead that's amazing. its a part of this games history that is really being ignored. to Odom: i know the fact they play out west has alot to do with it. but dont forget man, they both were from New York, thats part of what makes it so great, the fact theyve kept this thing going for over a 100 years and two coasts. hell have you noticed the colors of the Mets uniforms? orange and blue, where do you think they came from. so obviously it is a great and memorable part of the games history and it should get the national exposure that the Sox-Yankees rivalry gets regardless of the coast its on.
June 25, 200323 yr hell have you noticed the colors of the Mets uniforms? Excellent point, Marlins. What he's saying is that it's not just "orange" and "blue" that the Mets are wearing, it's GIANTS orange and DODGER blue... That is where the Mets got their colors from. I don't think anyone with an appreciation for baseball would knock the Giants-Dodgers rivalry. HOWEVER - Celezic conveniently glosses over a few "minor" points... Yankees rivalry with the Red Sox is, indeed, a great one that has been renewed in pretty sprightly fashion this season. But how much of a rivalry can it be when the Yankees almost always win? A true rivalry should involve give-and-take, the rise and fall of fortunes, a true exchange between near-equals. On that basis, the Yankees-Red Sox is like Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson, and if you have to ask which team is represented by Mickelson, I can?t help you. The Dodgers-Giants are more like Nicklaus-Palmer, with the Dodgers playing the role of the Golden Bear. They?ve won more World Series titles, at least since both teams moved to California, but the two have taken turn beating each other and trading the NL West crown. Since 1958: Yanks - 17 Division Titles - 9 WS Bosox - 6 Division Titles - 3 pennants - 0 WS Dodgers - 13 Division Titles - 5 WS Giants - 6 Division Titles - 3 pennants - 0 WS Earily similar numbers, in reality. Some will say it?s not like it was in the good old days, whose apotheosis came in 1965 when Giants pitcher Juan Marichal whacked Dodgers catcher John Roseboro over the head with a bat. Or the three-game playoff in 1962, won by the Giants... Hmmm... What about this: http://www.thebaseballpage.com/present/fp/al/bos.htm In 1975 Boston rode rookie sensations Rice and Fred Lynn to the pennant only to lose to Cincinnati in a thrilling seven-game World Series. The ultimate slap in the face came in 1978 when that same Red Sox team built around Rice, Lynn, Yaz, Carlton Fisk, and Luis Tiant, squandered a huge lead and allowed the hated Yankees to catch them in the division race. In a one-game playoff, Bucky Dent did more than dent the Sox season -- he ended it with an unlikely three-run homer. Or... What about this: The 1999 team did accomplish a first. They were the first Boston Red Sox team to face the New York Yankees in post-season play. This historical fact was made painful after the Yankees dispatched Boston in five games. And I haven't even mentioned the greatest blunder the Red Sox made that ended up working in the Yankees favor yet... :thumbup Also, as Celezic points out himself, their BEST moments are from back when both teams were in NY. I think moving cities takes some of the romanticism away from those by-gone days... Nice try, Mike, but Yanks-Red Sox is still tops!
June 25, 200323 yr They're both great rivaries, im just pointing out the the Giants-Dodgers rivalry doesnt get the credit it deserves. although its true leaving NY took out the romantic aspect of the rivalry, you could also say its incredible that theyve kept it going even after moving even if they havent had another Bobby Thompson like moment.
June 25, 200323 yr I think the renewed rivalry has as much to do with their locations now as it did back then. They are natural geographical rivals...
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