Dodgers–Giants rivalry


The Dodgers–Giants rivalry is a rivalry between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants baseball teams of Major League Baseball. It is regarded as one of the most competitive and longest-standing rivalries in American baseball, with some observers considering it the greatest sports rivalry of all time.
The rivalry between the Dodgers and Giants began in the late 19th century when both clubs were based in New York City. The Dodgers played in the borough of Brooklyn and the Giants played at the Polo Grounds in the borough of Manhattan.
After the season, Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley decided to move the team to Los Angeles for financial and other reasons. Along the way, he convinced Giants owner Horace Stoneham to preserve the rivalry by bringing his team to California as well. New York baseball fans were stunned and heartbroken by the move, which left New York with only one baseball team, the Yankees. However, to supplant the Giants' absence, New York was granted a second baseball team, the Mets, who inherited the colors of the rivalry—orange from the Giants and blue from the Dodgers.
Given that the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco have long been competitors in the economic, cultural, and political arenas, the teams' new homes in California were fertile ground for the rivalry's transplantation. Each team's ability to endure for over a century while moving across the country, as well as the rivalry's growth from a cross-city to a cross-state engagement, have led to the rivalry being considered one of the greatest in sports history.
The Dodgers and Giants are tied for most National League Pennants, each with 23. While the Dodgers have won the National League West 17 times compared to the Giants' 8 since the beginning of the Divisional Era in 1969, the Giants have more total wins, head-to-head wins, and World Series titles in franchise history. Since moving to California, the Dodgers hold the edge in pennants and World Series titles. The Giants' most recent World Series appearance and championship occurred in 2014. The Dodgers last appeared in the World Series in 2018, with their most recent title coming in 1988.
The Giants currently lead the regular season series 1,258–1,235–17. The two teams have never met in the postseason.

Origins and early years

In the 1880s, New York City played host to a number of professional baseball clubs in the National League and the American Association. By 1889, each league had only one representative in New York—the Giants in the NL and Dodgers in the AA. The teams met in the 1889 World Series, in which the Giants defeated the Bridegrooms 6 games to 3. In 1890, the Dodgers entered the NL and the rivalry was officially underway.
Although the two teams were geographically proximate rivals anyway, the animus between the two teams ran deeper than mere competitiveness. Giants fans were seen as well to do elitists of Manhattan while Dodgers fans tended to be more blue collar and had more Latino fans due to what was then the working class atmosphere of Brooklyn. In 1900, a year in which the Dodgers won the pennant and the Giants finished last, Giants owner Andrew Freedman attempted to have the NL split all profits equally, irrespective of the teams’ individual success or failure.
In the early 1900s, the rivalry was heightened by a long-standing personal feud between Charles Ebbets, owner of the Dodgers, and John McGraw, manager of the Giants. The two used their teams as fighting surrogates, which caused incidents between players both on and off the field, and inflamed local fans' passions sometimes to deadly levels.
In 1940, umpire George Magerkurth was brutally beaten during a game by an enraged Dodgers fan ostensibly for making a pro-Giants call. The rivalry is said to have been the motive for multiple fan-on-fan homicides, in 1938 and 2003. Future Dodgers manager Joe Torre recalled how he felt threatened being a Giants fan growing up in Brooklyn in the series.
During the latter years for both teams in New York, players often engaged in purposeful, aggressive, physical altercations. In 1965, Giants pitcher Juan Marichal knocked Dodgers catcher John Roseboro in the head with a bat.

A long and balanced history

In, the Dodgers and Giants played their 2,500th game against each other, becoming only the third set of teams in the four major North American sports leagues to do so, joining the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs and the Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals.
One notable characteristic of the rivalry is how both have often played meaningful games late in the year. Since 1951, the Giants and Dodgers have finished first and second 11 times. Just as important is the role one team has played as spoiler to the other in the years when they were not directly competing in a pennant race.
The New York Giants won the 68-year series against the Brooklyn Dodgers, 722–671–17. But since relocating to the West Coast in 1958, the Dodgers are ahead in the games played between the two teams, 558–532.
On July 14, 2005, the Giants became the first professional sports team to win 10,000 games with a 4-3 win over the Dodgers.
Two Dodgers benefited from controversial calls against the Giants to keep streaks alive that continue to be Major League Records. In 1968, Don Drysdale set the current record for consecutive complete game shutouts with a call against Dick Dietz for not attempting to avoid a bases loaded hit by pitch. In 1988, Orel Hershiser established the current record for consecutive scoreless innings pitched with the benefit of an interference call against Brett Butler for breaking up a double play.
The Dodgers' 2014 and 2016 National League West championships were both won by overcoming leads by the Giants. Los Angeles overcame a 9½ game lead by the Giants in 2014, and in 2016, despite the Dodgers missing star pitcher Clayton Kershaw for an extended amount of time, the Giants were unable to hold an eight-game lead over their rivals. In both seasons, though, the Giants won one of the Wild Card spots. During the 2010s, the Giants won three World Series titles, while the Dodgers are waiting for their first since 1988.

Pennant races

When not tied for first during the last few days of the season, both teams have a long and storied history of eliminating their rival from playoff contention.
All of these events and their associated quirks and symbols are relished by the fans of these two teams.

Pennants and championships

The Dodgers won the National League pennant 12 times in Brooklyn and 11 times in Los Angeles. The Giants won the National League pennant 17 times in New York and 6 times in San Francisco.
When the teams were based in New York, the Giants won five world championships, whereas the Dodgers won one. After the move to California, the Dodgers have won five, the Giants three. In both New York and in California, all of one team's world championships preceded the other's first one in that region to date. The Giants' five world championships won in New York preceded the Dodgers' only one in Brooklyn, in. The Dodgers' five world championships won in Los Angeles preceded the Giants' first one in San Francisco, in. All six of the Dodgers' world championships are sandwiched by the Giants' final world championship in New York and their first in San Francisco.
Since 2000, the Giants have advanced to the postseason seven times while the Dodgers have advanced eight times. In that time, the Giants appeared in four World Series, winning in 2010, 2012, 2014, and losing in 2002. The Dodgers made two World Series appearances, losing the Series in 2017 and 2018.

Season-by-season results

Fan reaction

Ardent fans of each club would be likely to consider the other as their "most hated" rival, enjoying the other team's misfortune almost as much as their own team's success. A typical Giants fan may just as soon ask "Did the Dodgers lose?" as they would "Did the Giants win?" and vice versa. This view is supported by the consistently solid attendance figures for Giants-Dodgers games at both home fields, and increased media coverage as well. A good example of this is that during the final 3 game Dodgers-Giants series in, the Giants drew over 150,000 fans. The attendance for these 3 games represented almost of their total fans for the entire 81 game home schedule, and prompted at least one reporter on ESPN to wonder if the euphoria in the Bay Area following the games reflected a delusion that the Giants had won the World Series rather than simply knocking the Dodgers out. In 2009, Forbes rated the Giants-Dodgers rivalry the most intense rivalry in baseball due to its lasting competitiveness through the 20th century and both fanbases' willingness to be overcharged for Dodgers-Giants game tickets with a ticket markup of 44% for the 2008 season.
During games in Los Angeles, Dodgers fans will chant "Giants Suck", "Frisco Sucks" when the Giants are in town and also used to chant "Barry Sucks", referring to former Giants outfielder Barry Bonds, often even when Bonds was not at bat or involved in a defensive play. In San Francisco, Giants fans will chant "Beat L.A." and "Dodgers Suck". A recent expression of these feelings was the 2007 All-Star Game in San Francisco, where the three Dodgers All-Stars were roundly booed by partisan fans throughout the festivities. During the final rounds of the 2013 World Baseball Classic, held at San Francisco's AT&T Park, Dodgers infielder Hanley Ramírez, competing for his home country, the Dominican Republic, was consistently booed at every appearance and whenever his name was mentioned on the public-address system.

Player reaction

The rivalry extends to players as well. Jackie Robinson retired rather than report to the Giants after being traded to them by the Dodgers in December of. According to legend and his teammate Tommy Lasorda, he did so because he had come to hate the Giants after ten years in Dodger Blue. This notion has been challenged on the grounds that Robinson would have been 38 years old when the new season began, and simply decided to retire. Nevertheless, in a gesture that transcends this heated rivalry, Robinson's retired blue Dodgers numeral '42' hangs in the Giants' home ballpark, Oracle Park, just as it does at all other MLB ballparks in remembrance of Robinson's breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Like Robinson, Willie Mays refused to sign with the Dodgers after the season, and was traded to the New York Mets, the National League successor to both the Giants and Dodgers in New York. Cy Young Award winners Tim Lincecum of the Giants and Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers have helped keep the rivalry alive in recent years, as both have been the anchors of their respective teams' postseason rotations since 2010.
Both teams play in the National League West division, and due to the unbalanced schedule, play 19 head-to-head games each year. This is comparable to the 22 games each year that they faced each other in New York and Brooklyn.
In 2014, the rivalry intensified when Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig flipped his bat when hitting a home run off of Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner. Since then, the two players have sparked some bench clearing incidents.

Notorious incidents

Marichal–Roseboro incident

At Candlestick Park on August 22,, Juan Marichal was involved in a major altercation with John Roseboro. The Dodgers were involved in a tight pennant race late in the season, entering the game leading the Milwaukee Braves by a game and the Giants by games.
Maury Wills led off the game with a bunt single off Marichal and, eventually scored a run when Ron Fairly hit a double. Marichal, a fierce competitor, viewed the bunt as a cheap way to get on base and took umbrage with Wills. When Wills came up to bat in the second inning, Marichal threw a pitch directly at Wills sending him sprawling to the ground. Willie Mays then led off the bottom of the second inning for the Giants and Dodgers' pitcher Sandy Koufax threw a pitch over Mays' head as a token form of retaliation. In the top of the third inning, Marichal threw a fastball that came close to hitting Fairly, prompting him to dive to the ground. Marichal's act angered the Dodgers sitting in the dugout and home plate umpire Shag Crawford then warned both teams that any further retaliations would not be tolerated.
Marichal came to bat in the third inning expecting Koufax to take further retaliation against him but instead, he was startled when Roseboro's return throw to Koufax after the second pitch either brushed his ear or came close enough for him to feel the breeze off the ball. When Marichal confronted Roseboro about the proximity of his throw, Roseboro came out of his crouch with his fists clenched. Marichal afterwards stated that he thought Roseboro was about to attack him and raised his bat, striking Roseboro at least twice over the head with his bat, opening a two-inch gash that sent blood flowing down the catcher's face that required 14 stitches. Koufax raced in from the mound to attempt to separate them and was joined by the umpires, players and coaches from both teams. A 14-minute brawl ensued on the field before Koufax, Mays, and others restored order. Marichal was ejected from the game and afterwards, National League president Warren Giles suspended him for eight games, fined him a then-NL record US$1,750, and also forbade him from traveling to Dodger Stadium for the final, crucial two-game series of the season. Roseboro filed a $110,000 damage suit against Marichal one week after the incident but, eventually settled out of court for $7,500.
Marichal did not face the Dodgers again until spring training on April 3,. In his first at bat against Marichal since the incident, Roseboro hit a three-run home run. Giants General Manager Chub Feeney approached Dodgers General Manager Buzzy Bavasi to attempt to arrange a handshake between Marichal and Roseboro however, Roseboro declined the offer. Years later, Roseboro stated that he was retaliating for Marichal having thrown at Wills. He explained that Koufax would not throw at batters for fear of hurting them due to the velocity of his pitches so, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He further stated that his throwing close to Marichal's ear was, "standard operating procedure", as a form of retribution.
Dodgers fans were angry at Marichal for several years after the violent incident, and reacted unfavorably when he was signed by the Dodgers in 1975. However, by this time Roseboro had forgiven Marichal, and personally appealed to the fans to calm down. After years of bitterness, Roseboro and Marichal became close friends in the 1980s, getting together occasionally at Old-Timers games, golf tournaments, and charity events. Roseboro also personally appealed to the Baseball Writers' Association of America not to hold the incident against Marichal after it passed him over for election to the Hall of Fame two years in a row. Marichal was elected in 1983, and thanked Roseboro in his induction speech. When Roseboro died in 2002, Marichal served as an honorary pallbearer and told the gathered, "Johnny's forgiving me was one of the best things that happened in my life. I wish I could have had John Roseboro as my catcher."

Reggie Smith incident

In the season as a member of the Dodgers, Reggie Smith was taunted by Giants fan Michael Dooley, who then threw a batting helmet at him. Smith then jumped into the stands at Candlestick Park and started punching him. He was ejected from the game, and Dooley was arrested. Five months later, Smith joined the Giants as a free agent.

Fan violence

Giants fan Marc Antenorcruz was shot and killed by Dodgers fan Pete Marron on September 19, 2003, in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium, following a late-season Dodgers-Giants game. Marron was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison. A second defendant, Manuel Hernandez, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and had his 15-year sentence suspended.
There has also been Opening Day violence between the two teams' fans at Dodger Stadium. In 2009, Arthur Alverez, a reputed gang member, went to the Dodgers’ home opener with a couple and another man. After the game, Alverez and the other man, a Dodgers fan, began quarreling in the stadium parking lot. Alvarez stabbed the 30-year-old victim several times in the arm, back, and torso. He was arrested in May for suspicion of attempted murder. The trial by jury, held in August 2009, acquitted Alvarez on the charge of attempted murder.

Bryan Stow beating

On March 31, 2011, a 42-year-old Giants fan, Bryan Stow of Santa Cruz, California, was critically injured when he was fighting with two Dodgers fans in the Dodger Stadium parking lot after the Dodgers and Giants opened the 2011 season. The suspects subsequently fled the scene in a vehicle driven by a woman. Stow sustained severe injuries to his skull and brain and was placed into a medically induced coma after the incident. An early suspect, a 31-year-old man was arrested in his East Hollywood home in May 2011 in connection with the crime. The man was never formally charged and was declared innocent in July 2011 when Louie Sanchez and Marvin Norwood, of Rialto, were arrested and charged in the crime. Lawyers for Stow say his medical care is expected to cost more than $50 million. On May 24, 2011, Stow's family filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Dodgers for $37.5 million for his lifetime care and compensation of lost earnings.
On September 27, 2011, relatives reported that Stow showed signs of improvement. Stow began an intensive therapy program in the Rehabilitation Trauma Center at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center on October 11. Doctors have told his family that he will never fully recover. On December 19, 2011, NBC aired the interview with Stow on the program Rock Center with Brian Williams. On October 25, 2012, he attended Game 2 of the 2012 World Series in San Francsico.
In April 2013, Stow's insurance company stopped paying for his full-time care in a residential rehabilitation facility and he moved into his parents' home in Capitola, California. Stow returned home on June 13, 2013 for the first time since the attack two years earlier.
On February 20, 2014, Sanchez and Norwood pleaded guilty. Under the plea bargain, Sanchez was sentenced to eight years in prison for felony mayhem and Norwood received four years for felony assault. On July 9, 2014, a jury found the Dodgers organization negligent in Stow's beating. The jury awarded $18 million in damages to Stow; the Dodgers are responsible for one quarter of this total. The remaining amount is to be split between Sanchez and Norwood.

Death of Jonathan Denver

On September 25, 2013, after a Dodgers-Giants night game in San Francisco, a Dodgers fan was stabbed to death in front of his father and brother six blocks from AT&T Park. The San Francisco medical examiner's office identified the deceased man as Jonathan Denver, 24, of Fort Bragg, California.
Two people were arrested in connection with Denver's death. San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr told the San Francisco Chronicle earlier that the victim of the attack was a Dodgers fan and was wearing Dodgers gear. Michael Montgomery, 21, of Lodi was arrested on suspicion of murder. Montgomery was later released, prosecutors citing insufficient evidence to charge him. His father claimed the stabbing was done in self-defense.
On March 12, 2014, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón said that his office could not prove that Michael Montgomery did not act in self-defense when he stabbed Denver. According to Gascón, both Denver and his brother collectively weighed about 150 pounds more than Montgomery. According to witnesses, Montgomery had a bottle in his hand for self-defense while Denver was punching him. After Denver's brother grabbed an aluminum chair and hit Montgomery on the head with it, Montgomery dropped the bottle, took out a knife, and stabbed Denver. San Francisco prosecutors ultimately declined to file charges in connection with the case.