The Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan was the home of the New York Giants from 1891 through 1957 and of the New York Mets in 1962 and 1963. I only saw one game there, on June 3, 1962, the day Willie Mays returned with the San Francisco Giants to play the Mets, three days before I met Willie at Wrigley Field during batting practice.
Baseball History Nut recently featured a day devoted to the Polo Grounds from which the depictions below are taken. Here's a piece I did on Mel Ott, the great Giant slugger in the 30s and 40s.
This colorized photo is from before 1920 and shows Coogan's Bluff looming above the park. There was an elevated subway station atop the bluff, at which you would disembark and walk down to the stadium.
This shows the unusual configuration and dimensions of the playing field.
What that configuration looked like:
Stan Musial at the Polo Grounds, his favorite park for hitting home runs: 49 in 171 games while also batting .343. Because of its unusual configuration, the Polo Grounds was the only one of the ten parks in which Stan had at least 100 at bats where he had fewer doubles than home runs - 24 v 49. It's also the place where he had the second highest on base (.438) and slugging percentage (.633) of the ten. Ebbetts Field was his favorite - Stan the Man had 100 extra base hits in 161 games at the home field of the Dodgers, batting .359 with a .660 slugging percentage.
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