Russ Hodges

First published in 1963, the year Russ Hodges started his fifteenth season as the voice of the Giants, MY GIANTS is the story of the man who has lived and died with the team through years that have been triumphant, sometimes disappointing, but never, never dull.

“I don’t believe it—I do not believe it” This was Hodges’ cry over the air as Bobby Thomson hit the home run that gave the Giants the 1951 pennant. He was there, too, when Willie Mays made his miracle catch in the 1954 World Series and all through the breathtaking days of the 1962 season when the San Francisco Giants came from far behind to win the play-offs with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the pennant. He has known intimately all the Giant greats of modern times and has opinions and anecdotes, both sad and funny, of Stoneham, Durocher, Rigney, Dark, Stanky, Sal Maglie, Dusty Rhodes, Pierce, Mays, Cepeda, and many more. He was one of the first to know that the Giants would make their historic move from New York to San Francisco, and his locker-room program after their last game at the Polo Grounds has become a broadcast classic.

Russ Hodges started his broadcasting career as a singer and disc jockey, but soon found that sportscasting was what he liked best and did best. His voice became known to sports fans all over America. In MY GIANTS he writes of all these sports, of his relations with sponsors, agencies, other announcers, of his great moments and his bloops, in more than thirty years of broadcasting. But first and last, this is the story of the Giants, for their story is very much the story of Russ Hodges.

Co-written by Al Hirshberg, a Boston-based sportswriter, co-author of several bestselling biographies, author of non-fiction, and stories and articles for a wide variety of magazines.