The New York Giants

Purchased in 1925 for $500 by bookmaker and businessman Tim Mara, the New York Giants were New York City’s introduction to professional football. The National Football League was a mere five years old---and for the near-century since, the history of football, the city, and the Giants has been inextricably linked. This thorough and thoroughly entertaining illustrated chronicle of the New York Giants football team tells the full story of the seasons, players, coaches, teams, and moments that have made history decade after decade. From the early years as an upstart sport in a big city heading into financial chaos, to the team’s triumph in the 1930s (including 1934’s famous “Sneakers Game” against the Chicago Bears); its return to glory in the 1950s behind the talents of Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, and Roosevelt Brown; and its pair of championship seasons in 1986 and 1990---these are the New York Giants, moment by colorful moment, right up to their upset victory over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. Crammed with player statistics and team records, and brilliantly illustrated with vintage and up-to-the-minute photographs, the book is a fitting celebration of a team whose name is synonymous with football in America.

The early days of the New York Giants helped the NFL become what it is today: AmericaÕs most popular sport. Representing New York City, the Giants boast a huge fan base. In 2008, Eli Manning led the Giants to victory in a huge Super Bowl upset against the New England Patriots. Explore the history behind one of the NFLÕs most recognized teams in this title for young audiences.

Few sports franchises can match the long, storied history of the New York Giants. Schwartz collects anecdotes and stories made famous--and infamous--in the teams history, bringing back cheers and a few tears as he recounts the teams highs and lows.

How would you like to get Gatorade dumped on your head after a big win? Did you know this tradition was started in 1985 by the Giants? The revised "The New York Giants" by Mark Stewart offers young fans a look into one of the craziest teams in the NFL while including fun facts, team spotlights such as Eli Manning and Lawrence Taylor, and pictures of Giants memorabilia.

From Week 1 to Super Bowl XLII, this book covers the entirety of the New York Giants Super Bowl championship season. With more than 150 color photographs, many never before published, this commemoration highlights the superbly engineered scoring drive in the final minutes of the game that mattered most, one that will be remembered as one of the greatest in the history of the NFL. This is the story of a team committed to winning and its loyal fans who believed until the very end.

The final chapter of Frank Graham’s dynamic history of the New York Giants is entitled “With One Swipe of His Bat.” For sheer drama and a colossal slice of baseball legend, the core of that chapter cannot be topped—Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard ’round the world,” the three-run homer in the 1951 playoff series that determined that the Giants—not the Dodgers—would win the pennant. Graham, of course, starts at the beginning, 1883, the year the Giants were born. With characteristic panache, Graham tells us how it was: “This was New York in the elegant eighties and these were the Giants, fashioned in elegance, playing on the Polo Grounds. . . . It was the New York of the brownstone house and the gaslit streets, of the top hat and the hansom cab, of oysters and champagne and perfecto cigars, of [actress] Ada Rehan and Oscar Wilde and the young John L. Sullivan. It also was the New York of the Tenderloin and the Bowery.” One of fifteen team histories commissioned by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in the 1940s and 1950s, The New York Giants was first published in 1952. Some of the most colorful characters in the game pass through these pages as well as some of baseball’s brightest legends, many of whom appear in the book’s twenty-three photographs. Hall of Famers Christy Mathewson, Mel Ott, Frankie Frisch, Carl Hubbell, and Bill Terry star among the headliners in the illustrious history of the Giants. Other Hall of Famers include John McGraw, “Beauty” Dave Bancroft, “Iron Man” Joe McGinnity, Leo Durocher, Buck Ewing, Amos Rusie, John Montgomery Ward, and Ross Youngs. In his foreword, Ray Robinson gives his impression of Frank Graham: “I had been reading Graham’s warm ‘conversation pieces’ for some years, first in the New York Sun, then in the Journal-American, but I had no idea how kind and modest he was. The columnist Red Smith, Graham’s good friend, once referred to him as ‘a digger for truth, a reporter of facts . . . with an incredibly accurate ear and an implausibly retentive memory.’ To Smith, Graham was the finest sports columnist of his time.”

The New York Giants are one of the NFL’s longest competing teams. They have an endearing, proud history that extends more than seventy-five years. Fans of Big Blue will love this book, which is full of great moments, such as the Giant’s inspiring win in Super Bowl XLII. Exciting photographs and valuable information will let football fans walk with the Giants.

An introduction to the New York Giants professional football team. Includes information about the team's history, stadium, star players, uniforms and more. Features a true or false quiz, photos, vintage trading cards reproductions, maps, and records. Includes access to the Team Spirit Overtime website which provides regularly updated information and photos. Aligns to Common Core State Standards requirements for Reading Informational Text. Table of Contents, glossary, additional resources and index.