Yesterday.
What is this all about?
Here are the top 5 May 31 moments in San Francisco Giants history.
Walk off 1961 home vs. Cardinals, the Giants are 25-15, tied for first, only 6000 paid on a Wednesday afternoon at the Stick, 2-2 in the 9th, bases loaded, 2 out - Joey Amalfitano singles home the winning run off of Mickey McDermott. It's the 24th walk off hit in San Francisco history. Amalfitano got a cup of coffee back in New York in '54 and '55 then didn't see the big leagues again until 1960. He'd be taken by Houston in the expansion draft after this season but then we got him back in a deal for Manny Mota.
1964 at Mets, in the second game of a doubleheader on a Sunday afternoon at Shea (we won the first game, there were 57,000 paid, it was the biggest MLB crowd of the season) the Giants played the second longest game (by time) in big league history, a 7 and a half hour, 23 inning affair. 2 Mets pitchers pitched multiple innings in both games, Gaylord Perry threw 10 innings in relief in this one (in his book he said it was where he debuted the spitball) Mays played 3 innings at short. We had a 6-1 lead after our turn in thr third and then didn't score for another 20 innings (we hit into a triple play in the 14th) 6-6 in the 23rd, Del Crandall, hitting for Gaylord doubles home Jimmy Davenport (he had tripled) off of Galen Cisco to the thanks of a grateful nation.
1965 home vs Cardinals, we walked them off the day before, this is a snappy sub two hour Monday afternoon game, Gaylord throws a 2 hitter but we still trailed 1-0 with 2 out in the 6th when Willie McCovey hit a 2 run homer off Curt Simmons. We'd go on to win 4-1. It's McCovey's 137th homer and one of 189 go ahead homers he hit in his career.
1967 home vs. Pirates, down 3-2 in the 4th, Jesus Alou hit a 3 run homer off Bob Veale, we'd take this one 15-4. We signed Jesus at 16, he came up in '63, was replacement level in six Giants seasons and was (thankfully) taken by the Expos in the '68 expansion draft.
1985 home vs. Phillies, the 16-28 Giants were tied 1-1 in the 7th when Ricky Adams, in his Giants debut, right off the plane from AAA, hit a 3 run homer off Charles Hudson, we'd win the game 4-3. This was Adams' only year in San Francisco, he hit .190 as a utility guy in 54 games and never saw the big leagues again.
See you tomorrow. Go Giants!
