Numerous inductees of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum played for the New York Giants, including Christy Mathewson (a member of the Hall of Fame's inaugural class), John McGraw, Mel Ott, Bill Terry, Willie Mays, Monte Irvin, Frankie Frisch, Ross Youngs and Travis Jackson.

The Gothams, as the Giants were originally known, entered the National League seven years after its 1876 formation, in 1883, while their other club, the Metropolitans played in the rival American Association (1882–1891).

It is said that after one particularly satisfying victory over the Philadelphia Phillies, Mutrie (who was also the team's manager) stormed into the dressing room and exclaimed, "My big fellows!

However, more recent research has suggested that the New York World was already widely using the Giants nickname throughout the 1885 season, before the legendary game was played.

[7] The team won its first National League pennant in 1888, as well as a victory over the St. Louis Browns in an early incarnation of the pre-modern-era World Series.

It had been built in 1876 as a pitch for playing polo, and was located north of Central Park adjacent to Fifth and Sixth Avenues and 110th and 112th Streets, in Harlem in upper Manhattan.

After their eviction from that first incarnation of the Polo Grounds after the 1888 season, they moved further uptown to various fields which they also named the "Polo Grounds" located between 155th and 159th Streets in Harlem and Washington Heights, playing at the famous Washington Heights location at the foot of Coogan's Bluff until the end of the 1957 season, when they moved to San Francisco.

Four years later, Talcott sold the Giants to Andrew Freedman, a real estate developer with ties to the Tammany Hall, the political machine of the Democratic Party that ran New York City.

[8][9] In 1902, after a series of disastrous moves that left the Giants 53+1⁄2 games behind the front-runner, Freedman signed John McGraw as player-manager, convincing him to jump in mid-season from the Baltimore Orioles (1901–1902) of the fledgling American League and bring with him several of his teammates.

Hiring "Mr. McGraw", as his players referred to him, was one of Freedman's last significant moves as owner of the Giants, since after that 1902 season he was forced to sell his interest in the club to John T. Brush.

McGraw, a veteran of the infamous 1890s Baltimore Orioles, in his three decades managing the Giants, McGraw managed star players including Christy Mathewson, "Iron Man" Joe McGinnity, Jim Thorpe, Red Ames, Casey Stengel, Art Nehf, Edd Roush, Rogers Hornsby, Bill Terry and Mel Ott.

The Giants under McGraw famously snubbed their first modern World Series chance in 1904 by refusing the invitation to play the reigning world champion Boston Americans (Red Sox) because McGraw considered the newly established American League of 1901, as little more than a minor league and disliked its firebrand president, Ban Johnson.

This could have been a disastrous scandal for baseball, but because Klem was honest and the Giants lost the duel between Christy Mathewson and Mordecai "Three-Fingered" Brown 4–2, it faded over time.

They also lost in 1924, when the Washington Senators won their only World Series while in D.C. From 1923 to 1927, the team held their spring training at Payne Park in Sarasota, Florida.

Under Terry, the Giants won three pennants, defeating the Senators in the 1933 World Series but swept by the Yankees in consecutive fall classics, 1936 and 1937.

Not only was such a midseason managerial switch unprecedented, but Durocher had been accused of gambling in 1947 and subsequently suspended for that whole season by Baseball Commissioner Albert "Happy" Chandler.

And with runners on first and second with one out, pinch hitter Dusty Rhodes hit a walk off home run that just squeaked over the right field wall at an estimated 260 feet (79 m).

In addition to Bobby Thomson and Willie Mays, other memorable New York Giants of the 1950s include Hall of Fame manager Leo Durocher, coach Herman Franks, Hall of Fame outfielder Monte Irvin, outfielder and runner-up for the 1954 NL batting championship (won by Willie Mays) Don Mueller, Hall of Fame knuckleball relief pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm, starting pitchers Larry Jansen, Sal Maglie, Jim Hearn, Marv Grissom, Dave Koslo, Don Liddle, Max Lanier, Rubén Gómez, Al Worthington, and Johnny Antonelli, catcher Wes Westrum, catchers Ray Katt and Sal Yvars, shortstop Alvin Dark, third baseman Hank Thompson, first baseman Whitey Lockman, second basemen Davey Williams and Eddie Stanky, outfielder-pitcher Clint Hartung and utility men Johnny Mize, Bill Rigney, Daryl Spencer, Bobby Hofman, Joey Amalfitano, Tookie Gilbert, and 1954 Series hero Dusty Rhodes, among others.

In the late 1950s and after the move to San Francisco two Hall of Fame first basemen, Orlando Cepeda and Willie McCovey, joined the team.

Under the rules of the time, the Giants' ownership of the Millers gave them priority rights to a major league team in the area (the Senators wound up there as the Minnesota Twins in 1961).

Willie Mays (#24) began his career in New York, moving with the Giants to San Francisco in 1958; he did not play in most of 1952 and all of 1953 due to his service in the Korean War.