How did the San Francisco Giants get their name?
1883
John B. Day and Jim Mutrie, owners of the American Association's New York Metropolitans, form a National League team called the New York Gothams.
1885
Jim Mutrie becomes the manager of the Gothams, and he and John Day move some of the star players from the pennant-winning Metropolitans over to the National League franchise. The Gothams become known as the Giants during the season.
On May 1, they play their first game at a field once used for polo matches at 110th Street and Sixth Avenue. With six future Hall of Famers on the roster, the Gothams recorded the highest winning percentage in franchise history (.759, 85-27). Pitchers Tim Keefe and "Smiling Mickey" Welch combined for an astounding 76 victories, while slugging third baseman Roger Connor (who would hold the career home runs record until Babe Ruth came along) batted .371 as one of four players to hit over .300 for the team that season.
On June 3, after a rousing extra-innings victory over Philadelphia, manager Jim Mutrie was so overcome with emotion that he supposedly blurted out a description of his team that immediately became the franchise's new nickname. He called them his Giants.
Despite that spectacular season, the Giants still finished two games behind Chicago, losing two late-season games to the pennant-winning White Stockings.
White stockings --- are you kidding me? ROFL.
The Mets? We know that one. Yankees? Yep. Nets? Yep. Jets? (I'm guessing they used this one just to rhyme with the rest.)
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4 comments:
I have lived in NYC for 20 some odd years and have never wondered about this. I stopped caring about baseball after the dirty dodgers snuck out of Brooklyn in the middle of the night to wind up in awful California.
Mets is short for Metropolitans, Jets for jetsetters and the Nets are a basketball team (pretty straight forward there.) The Yankees were the Highlanders before the current name. Since Yankee is slang for someone from New England (originally) you may have to look up the origins thre.
Wombat once again has NOTHING to add but decides to comment anyway.
Remove this moron already.
"Wombat once again has NOTHING to add but decides to comment anyway.
Remove this moron already."
Consider yourself corrected.
Also, just like any slang, your definition of "Yankee" isn't worth the paper it's printed on. And just like any slang describing a group of people, its meaning has spread and expanded to include anyone North of the slang-slinger.
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