It’s hard to believe, but the San Francisco Giants last won the World Series in 1954 — back when they were the New York “Baseball” Giants and their move west to “Frisco” was still a dream. 1954? Hmmm. Let’s see: that was six decades and two generations ago, long enough for San Francisco fans to give up hope that they would fly an orange-and-black championship flag from the wind-blown ramparts of A.T.&T Park. It’s a sign of the franchise’s futility (perhaps), that its greatest moment came on October 3, 1951, when Bobby Thomson’s ninth inning “shot heard round the world” put them into the World Series against the Yankees — which they then promptly lost. Put more simply: the New York Giants have five world championships, the San Francisco Giants have none.

The drought is a surprise, considering the team’s storied history and legendary players. Juan Marichal and Orlando Cepeda never won a championship in San Francisco, nor did Willie Mays or Willie McCovey, or the Alou brothers (Jesus, Matty or Felipe) — or Barry Bonds or Gaylord Perry. The “storied franchise” is not so storied after all: for while San Francisco has had a gaggle of great teams and great players, the brass ring always seemed to elude them. They came within an out of a championship in 1962, were crushed by the A’s in 1989 and lost it by a whisker in 2002. But back in New York, in 1954, the Giants fielded a team that was the best in baseball — and one that destroyed the Cleveland Indians in four memorable championship games. And while barrels of ink have been spilled on Willie’s miraculous catch off the bat of Vic Wertz in Game 1 of that series in the Polo Grounds, the real hero of the Gothams that year was lefty Johnny Antonelli — a kid with a hemi for a heater and a chip on his shoulder.

That we remember Mays, and not Antonelli, is not a surprise. The kid from Rochester, New York was then one of the most disliked players in the game. A “bonus baby” signee of the Boston Braves and a malcontent who never thought he got enough credit, Antonelli was resented by his teammates for the reported $50,000 he was given by Braves owner Lou Perini for signing with the club in 1948 — some $20,000 more than Braves’ ace Johnny Sain was earning. Sain was so upset that he threatened to walk out on the club, until Perini gave him a raise. Never mind: in their 1948 race to the pennant, Antonelli sat the bench and was given the silent treatment from his teammates. When it came time to split up their World Series’ shares, the Braves voted the batboys $380 — while Antonelli got nothing. The next year was only marginally better for the southpaw, who saw little action, and in 1951 Antonelli left the team to spend two years in the army. It was a relief.

Antonelli returned to the Braves in 1953 and pitched solidly (he was 12-12 with a 3.18 ERA), but the team was in Milwaukee and the owners were tired of the bonus baby controversy, so they shipped him to New York — for the iconic Thomson. It was another piece of bad news for Antonelli, who had to fill the shoes of a saint, but the Giants’ front office knew what they were doing: Antonelli completed a front-line rotation that included Sal “The Barber” Maglie and Ruben Gomez — and was the last piece of the Giants pitching puzzle. And Antonelli, castigated for never living up to his bonus baby potential, turned into the Giants’ ace, going 21-7 and compiling an impressive 2.30 ERA. He won the Sporting News Pitcher of the Year Award and, to cap it all off, pitched the Giants to a win in game two of the series — and registered an improbable save in game four.

The Giants’ victory in ’54 was the highlight of Antonelli’s career. He was good in ’55, but not great, and solid in ’56 and ’57 and ’58. But in 1959 (and as if he intended to show up his detractors), Antonelli returned to form, winning 19 games for a Giants’ team that lacked the defense of its 1954 predecessor. Still . . . San Francisco fans had never warmed to Antonelli and he fought with them in the pages of the city’s papers. He hated playing in Seals Stadium, where the wind played havoc with southpaw pitchers and he said so. One morning, Giants fans awoke to read the headline in The Chronicle: “Antonelli Criticizes Wind.” From that moment on, Antonelli and the team’s sportwriters fought a series of skirmishes that left Antonelli embittered against the city and its fans. By September he was being regularly booed by Giants’ rooters and he imploded. He was demoted to the bullpen (which he resented) and by the end of the season the Giants were shopping Antonelli in the American League. Before the 1960 season he was shipped to Cleveland.

Johnny Antonelli never regained the form that had made him a great pitcher in 1954, never salvaged a career with so much promise, never seemed to fit in in San Francisco. He was “a New Yorker on the wrong coast.” Cleveland’s owners thought a change of scene could help Antonelli — and provide the Indians with the southpaw they desperately needed. But Antonelli was so embittered by his San Francisco experience that he seemed indifferent to any help: by mid-season he was 0-4 with the Indians and, at the age of 31, he was dealt back to the Braves and then shipped to the expansion New York Mets. He never reported. “I quit baseball because I didn’t like traveling,” he told a reporter in 2007. “Not for any other reason. I had no injuries or anything. I’d had my fill of traveling. I had a business to fall back on or else I would have played longer, I’m sure.” Sure, but he once told a fellow player that his experience with San Francisco sportswriters so alienated him from baseball that he simply lost his desire to play the game.

We’re left with this. The San Francisco Giants, self-exiled from the Polo Grounds — remembered in history as the rivals of the legendary crosstown “bums” — have yet to reward their fans with a championship, have yet to bring a World Series flag streaming into The Bay. The team of Mays and Maglie and McCovey, of the “Baby Bull” and now “The Freak,” remain searchers in their return to greatness. San Francisco fans are left with a distant, fading and ultimately unsatisfactory memory — that in 1954, two generations and a coast away, southpaw Johnny Antonelli led his team into the World Series against the Indians and won it all. It was the last time the Giants ruled the world.

(above: Giants’ ace Sal Maglie is hugged by Johnny Antonelli after the youthful southpaw shut down the Indians in the final game of the 1954 World Series)

Bob Costas had Bob Feller on his baseball show last week and “the Heater from Van Meter” was as outspoken and irascible as always. And fascinating. Feller, the former Cleveland great is now 90, knows how to turn a phrase, loves baseball — and has little modesty when it comes to dropping names of the great and near-great. He spent time with the Babe (“he was the best to ever play the game,” he said) and Gehrig. The three of them would head out to the bars in New York and Ruth “would bend an elbow” and Gehrig would be drinking water and not saying very much. “We never talked about baseball,” Feller told Costas. Feller thought Ruth was a fascinating man and much beloved and never had a bad word to say about anyone.

Feller was proud that in that last great picture of Ruth (the one where he’s leaning on a bat with his head down and the crowd is around him), the bat he used was Feller’s. The Indians were playing the Yankees that day and Ruth grabbed a bat from the Cleveland dugout to steady himself and he stood there and he waved his hat and then he listened to the cheers come down and he leaned on Feller’s bat. Feller took the bat and saved it and it’s now in his museum, just off of I-81 in Van Meter, Iowa. “The Babe was a very sick man,” Feller said. “He was dead in five months.”

Like Ruth, Feller doesn’t give the impression of being very modest, but he knows the game and loves it and he has decided opinions on pitchers and hitters. He’s an admirer of Nolan Ryan (“he’s a very close friend of mine,” he told Costas) and believes Sandy Koufax (I tilted an ear to hear this and think I got it right) was the best lefty he’d ever seen and “for five years” the best pitcher in baseball. Feller should know, I suppose, but vaulting Koufax to the top of the lefty list puts him ahead of Warren Spahn and Lefty Gomez. Feller talked about his own vaunted speed, saying that he had been clocked at 107 mph — an amazing feat if true. But no one was faster than Johnson, he said. He talked about World War Two, with Costas noting that Feller’s three years off to fight the war probably cost him 300 wins — and perhaps as many as 350-360. Feller says he has no regrets. “That was one we had to win,” he said. “Studio 42″ (the Costas program) showed Feller in the Navy. Feller was a part of “The Great Mariana Turkey Shoot” in the Philippine Sea in June of 1944.  “If you were killed you were a hero,” Feller said. “If you didn’t you were a survivor.”  

Feller said that the champion 1948 Indians team (on which he played) was a good team, but not nearly as good as the 1954 team that lost four straight to the New York Giants. In ’48, Feller lost a first game nail biter to Braves’ pitcher Johnny Sain and then an 11-5 blow-out to Warren Spahn. Satchell Paige relieved Feller in the blow-out and Feller talked about him. “He was 44 at the time,” he said. “He claimed he was 42 but he was 44,” and then went on to talk about the barnstorming white teams that he had put together to play the Negro Leaguers prior to baseball’s integration. Paige, he said, had a wicked fastball “but not much of a curve.” The 1954 series, a 4-0 New York Giants sweep. Feller cited Willie Mays’ catch in the first game and Giants’ pitcher Johnny Antonelli’s pitching as the reasons for the sweep. “Antonelli never pitched better in his life,” he said.

Feller’s most interesting comments, however, had to do with hitters. He was particularly outspoken — blunt really — when talking about his success against great hitters. “Gehrig couldn’t hit me,” he said, “not at all.” During the last games of 1938, Feller recounted, he put Greenberg down in order to kill whatever chance the Detroit first sacker had of breaking Ruth’s home run record. Greenberg had 58 round-trippers that year, in addition to 146 RBIs. He walked 119 times. But he couldn’t solve Feller, who issued one of the best baseball one-liners I’ve ever heard: “Hank Greenberg couldn’t hit me with an ironing board,” he said. Rapid Robert’s answer to Costa’s question about who hit him well came as something of a surprise: “Tommy Henrich,” he said, and there was an edge of defiance in his voice. The great ones couldn’t hit Feller — one of the few who mastered Gehrig — but Tommy Henrich sprayed him to all fields.

Tommy Henrich is one of those Yankees who played in the shadow of Gehrig and Ruth and DiMaggio — but he was beloved by his teammates: in part because he seemed to play harder when the Yankees were behind. He had four World Series rings with a lifetime batting average of .282 with 183 home runs. Like Feller, he took three years away from baseball during World War II. He hit .308 with 25 HRs and 100 RBI in 1948, arguably his best season. But “Old Reliable” is probably best known for his heads-up play in the 1941 Series that might have saved the series for the Yankees. With Brooklyn set to tie the series at two games apiece and leading 4-3 with two outs in the ninth, Henrich came to the plate. With the count at 3-2 he swung at strike three. But Trolley catcher Mickey Owen couldn’t handle the ball and Henrich was safe at first. Joe DiMaggio then singled, and Charlie Keller doubled to score both runners and take the lead. Joe Gordon later doubled to bring in two more runs, and the Yankees had a 7-4 victory and a 3-1 Series lead. And the Yankees went on to win the series.

Henrich was a fine ball player and a good man. He was known for his glove in the outfield, his mentoring of younger players, his deep voice and good sense of humor — and his ability to hit the heck out of Bob Feller. Feller still can’t figure it out. “It’s just one of those things.” Oddly, a mere two weeks before the Costas-Feller interview was aired, Henrich died in Dayton, Ohio. He was 96.