[1] He returned at his father's insistence to the Giants' spring training camp in Sarasota, Florida ahead of the 1924 season to begin his apprenticeship as a baseball executive and future owner.

Although the Giants won only one pennant (1962) and one division title (1971) in their first 15 years after moving to the Bay Area, they were a consistent contender that featured some of the era's biggest stars.

[3][5] In 1936, player-manager Bill Terry's last season as a player, the Giants defeated the St. Louis Cardinals by five games to win the National League pennant.

The Giants would again win the National League pennant in 1937 but fall four games to one to the Yankees featuring Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey and Lefty Gomez in the World Series.

Stoneham fired the popular but easy-going Ott mid-way through the 1948 season and hired Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher as a replacement.

Stoneham negotiated a deal with Dodgers' general manager Branch Rickey to release Durocher from his contract and join their cross-town rivals.

Giant fans initially reviled Durocher as the pilot of the arch-rival Brooklyn Dodgers,[5] but he quickly produced an exciting team that just two years later was in the World Series.

The Giants won the 1951 National League in a thrilling play-off against the Dodgers, on the back off Bobby Thomson's home run in the deciding game in what was to be known as the 'Shot Heard 'Round the World'.

In Game One, center fielder Mays caught a long drive by Vic Wertz near the outfield wall with his back to the infield in a play remembered as "the catch".

But the 1951 pennant winners and 1954 world champions struggled to hit seven figures in home attendance, and mediocre 1956–57 Giants' teams had drawn fewer than 700,000 customers each season.

Meanwhile, the park's surrounding neighbourhoods (in Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan) had entered a steep economic and social decline, with rising rates of crime.

With the loss of their football tenant, the baseball Giants' shrinking bottom line made it difficult for Stoneham to find the money needed for renovations even after laying off his maintenance staff.

[7] However, impressed by the success of the Braves after their 1953 shift from Boston to Milwaukee, Stoneham decided to move his Giants to the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

Under baseball rules of the time, the Giants shared the MLB rights to the Twin Cities with the Dodgers, who operated the Millers' main rival, the St. Paul Saints, as one of their three Triple-A affiliates.

During the August 19, 1957 press conference officially announcing the franchise's move to San Francisco, he explained, "Kids are still interested, but you don't see many of their parents at games.

Writer Roger Kahn said years later, during promotional tours for his book The Era 1947–57, that the deteriorating condition of the Polo Grounds, as well as the Giants' shrinking fan base, made it necessary for Stoneham to abandon New York.

He noted, however, that the Dodgers—a year removed from the 1956 pennant and two from Brooklyn's first world championship—were still profitable and O'Malley's move West was motivated by a desire for even greater riches.

Stoneham was partially to blame for the Giants' lack of sustained dominance, as he squandered the resources of his productive farm system through a series of poorly advised trades, usually for starting pitchers who could complement Marichal and Perry.

Dark was fired after the 1964 Giants fell just short in a wild, end-of-season pennant race; almost as notably, his dismissal came after he had made well-publicized and derogatory remarks to the press about Latin ballplayers during the season.

In the 1971 National League Championship Series, however, the eventual world champion Pittsburgh Pirates handled Stoneham's club in four games.

Instead, Stoneham sold it to San Francisco real estate magnate Bob Lurie and Phoenix, Arizona-based meat-packer Bud Herseth for $8 million, with the transaction unanimously approved by the other National League club owners on March 2, 1976.