October 7, 1933: Mel Ott Homers the Giants to the Title

October 7, 1933, 90 years ago: Prior to Game 5 of the World Series‚ at Griffith Stadium in Washington, flags are lowered to half-staff to honor William L. Veeck‚ president of the Chicago Cubs, who died suddenly. He is not well remembered with the passage of more than 80 years, but his son, Bill Veeck, already working in the Cubs' front office by 1933, will become one of baseball’s most remarkable men.

In the meantime, the Series comes to a close when Mel Ott homers in the top of the 10th inning, for a 4-3 New York Giants victory over the Washington Senators. Adolfo "Dolf" Luque, Cuban but light-skinned enough to play in the majors of the time, gets the win in relief. The Giants are World Champions for the 4th time, tying the Yankees and the Philadelphia Athletics for the most all-time.

However, it was the 1st title for the Giants with a manager other than John McGraw. The previous year, he had handed the job over to his 1st baseman, Bill Terry. Terry, Ott, shortstop Travis Jackson and pitcher Carl Hubbell would all be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Terry retired as a player after the 1936 season, having led the Giants to another Pennant. He led them to another in 1937. However, on both of those occasions, the Giants lost the World Series to the New York Yankees. They would win one more World Series in New York, in 1954, before moving to San Francisco for the 1958 season. And then, they wouldn't win another until 2010.

Because the Giants didn't have a Roger Kahn to write a book about them, the way the Brooklyn Dodgers did in The Boys of Summer, their achievements tend to get forgotten. Few people are alive today who remember the 3 Pennants and the World Series that the Giants won in the 1930s. Fans not old enough to remember them in New York at all tend to overlook Ott, Terry, Hubbell, and earlier stars like Frankie Frisch, Ross Youngs and Christy Mathewson. Because of the clips we've seen on TV, time and time again, we tend to limit our thinking of the New York baseball Giants to only the Bobby Thomson home run of 1951 and the Willie Mays catch of 1954.

And that's not fair: The Giants achieved a great deal in New York, and should be remembered.

For 86 years, this was the last World Series game played by a Washington team, and the last one played in the District of Columbia. The Washington Nationals finally put an end to that in 2019.

The last surviving member of the 1933 Giants was left fielder Joseph "Jo-Jo" Moore, who lived until 2001.