3 Fun Facts About the New York Giants
The New York Giants started in 1925 when they and four other teams joined the young National Football League. The Giants are the only surviving team of those five. The four teams that fell by the wayside over the years include the Los Angeles Phonies, the Chicago Coldbones, the Houston Humidities, and the Des Moines Corn Detasslers.
Baseball’s San Francisco Giants were in New York when the New York Giants football team adopted the same moniker. Again, I ask: why do teams take on the names of other sports franchises that already use that name. It’s happened a bunch of times. So, the Giants called their corporation the “New York Football Giants” to distinguish from themselves from the baseball team. What, there were NO OTHER team names available on the entire earth? How about a name like the New York City-That-Never-Sleeps-Because-It-Has-Downed-148-Cups-of-Coffee-And-Smoked-4-Packs-of-Cigarettes. That’s a team I can cheer for.
The Giants have a long-standing rivalry with the Philadelphia Eagles. Apparently, it started in 1933, but has manifested itself many times since, including a brutal hit in the 1960s from the Eagle’s Chuck “Concrete Charlie” Bednarik on the Giants Frank Gifford that sidelined him for 18 months. Years later, Bednarik denied requests to do the same to the person who taught Franks’s wife, Kathie Lee Gifford, how to sing.
