Friday, October 15, 2010

1971- The First Playoff


The Giants met the Pirates in 1971 in their first ever NLCS. It was just best 3 out of 5 then. The Giants took the first game 5-4 but the Pirates won the next three 9-4, 2-1 and 9-5, then went on to beat the Orioles in the World Series. The Pirates' stars were Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell. The Giants had a roster full of future hall of famers; Mays, McCovey, Marichal and Perry, as well as many other fine players such as Bobby Bonds, Dave Kingman, Chris Speier and Tito Fuentes.
I was there at Candlestick for game two, Sunday, October 3rd, and got to see fucking Bob Robertson hit three homers.

8 comments:

M.C. O'Connor said...

My dad got tickets for Game 1 and took the family to Candlestick. I was 11 years old, just shy of my 12th birthday. We saw Gaylord Perry pitch, Willie McCovey hit a home run, and the Giants win.

Ron said...

I remember listening to games on a transistor radio in my Algebra 2 Class at the now defunct Del Valle High School in Walnut Creek. The Teacher sort of politely, but knowingly, ignored me. After the final out of the last game, I quietly announced the bad news to the Class.

Ron said...

Right now, our good buddy, Zo (aka Dan), is in surgery - without going into the details on this public forum, we are all praying for his successful surgery & speedy recovery.

JC Parsons said...

I remember listening to the radio broadcast at elementary school. They actually piped the game through the school PA system. I can't recall any details though...
Chris Speier was my hero, I hated Kingman, and thought Bonds was the greatest RF ever.

JC Parsons said...

Go ZO!!! We will all be pulling for you.

Ron said...

A few details & stats jump out at me from the 1971 Giants:

- Willie Mays, in a down year at the age of 40, stole 23 bases in 26 attempts. Wow!

- Too bad the Giants traded George Foster before his prime.

- Jim Barr!

- Al Gallagher, one of my all-time last favorite Giants. Yuck!

- Jerry Johnson, so-called Closer, another unreliable Giant.

22gigantes said...

I was going on 7 years old when the Giants and Bucs squared off! This was the beginning of my love affair with the G-men!

Funny thing is, now I have a 6-year old son myself and he so into Giants baseball! (Worse than me at that age.)

Thanks for taking me down memory lane!

JC Parsons said...

Hi, it's BroBob, using Jon's sign-in.
Zo, you be well soon. Sucks to be you. Enjoy this preview of old age.
I like to flaunt my geerzerdom by random jogs down memory lane. Although 1971 sounds like long, long ago I was already technically an adult, in my first semester at San Francisco State College. I'm pretty sure I just said to myself "I think I'll just get in my car and go to the game on Sunday," and I did and walked up and bought a ticket. It wasn't a sellout. I remember the Pirates scored early and often, and this one honky would not stop hitting homers.