Giants Fans Hate Dodgers, but Does L.A. Really Care?

Class vs. Crass.

That’s the way San Francisco Giants fans see their hostile rivalry with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Most seasons, Giants fans are happy just to see the Dodgers lose. But this year there’s actually something at stake--the NL West championship. And that’s reinvigorated one of baseball’s fiercest feuds, although just how fierce depends which side you’re on.

“The Dodgers were created by Satan,” San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll wrote for last Monday’s editions. “Most baseball fans know that. They are a group of evil men with evil intentions. They wear royal blue and play before fans who do not care anything about baseball.”

OK, maybe that attitude is a bit exaggerated. But most Giants fans aren’t shy about revealing their hatred of the National League neighbors to the south.

“It’s a pure sports hate,” Danny Broone said at a recent Giants game. “I grew up with the concept of the rivalry. You’re taught that if nothing else goes right during the season, at least beat the Dodgers.”

Broone said he attends several Dodgers-Giants games each year, but won’t take his two young sons because crowds can get too “vehement.”

“It’s not so much that you hate those people, but they’re standing in the way of the pennant title,” said Broone’s wife, Trisha, a newly converted Giants fan. Her husband said it’s only a matter of time before she also despises the Dodgers.

When the Dodgers play in San Francisco, wearing Dodger blue can mean constant razzing by fans. And chants of “Beat L.A.! Beat L.A.!” are standard--even when the two teams aren’t playing each other--when the scoreboard shows the Dodgers losing.

Bleacher brawls used to be common when the Dodgers came to town, although that subsided in recent years after beer sales were cut off following the seventh inning.

Any love between the Giants and Dodgers may have been forever lost the day San Francisco pitcher Juan Marichal clubbed Los Angeles catcher John Roseboro with a bat.

Aug. 22, 1965, sometimes known as “Bloody Sunday,” is a day still remembered fondly by many fans of the Giants, who beat the Dodgers in more ways than one. After the ensuing brawl, Willie Mays hit a 450-foot three-run homer off Sandy Koufax to give the Giants a 4-3 win.

Giants manager Dusty Baker--himself a former Dodger--keeps a glass-framed photo of the brawl on his stadium office wall.

“Roseboro deserved it. He needed an attitude adjustment,” said Dennis Danzinger, who peddles souvenirs at Giants games.

As far as Danzinger and other northern California Giants fans are concerned, Los Angeles is a car-dependent, celebrity-obsessed, smoggy, crime-ridden mess. It’s not exactly their first vacation destination.

Many Dodger fans, on the other hand, said they have no personal gripe with the Giants or their city. They’re the team to beat this year, just as San Diego stood in the way of the division title last year.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for the Giants,” said Peter George as he watched the Dodgers on television at a sports bar in Los Angeles. “They’ve got a lot of good players. It’s a great place, a beautiful place.”

If there are any complaints it’s that San Francisco fans can be a bit too intense.

“They’ve got to learn to chill,” said Tom Wade, another sports bar patron. “It’s a very nice city, but it’ll never be another L.A. We’re cool down here, we go with the flow. San Francisco is locked into their culture, we’re not.”

Baseball historian Eric Solomon said the reason for the differing attitudes goes back to the teams’ New York roots.

The New York Giants won five World Series titles, while the Brooklyn Dodgers were perennial losers, though they did win the championship once, in 1955. Since they moved to California in 1958, the Dodgers have won the World Series five times, while the Giants have lost both times they made it there.

“The Dodgers go to L.A. and they are real winners. The Giants go to San Francisco, and while they have some great players, they are not winners,” said Solomon, a San Francisco State University professor. “Suddenly, the images are reversed.

“It would seem somewhat logical that there is always a sense of insecurity about the Giants. And there is always the sense about the Dodgers that they know how to win.”

Not exactly the kind of psychology Giants fans want to hear. Still, they’re hopeful Barry Bonds and Rod Beck will outlast the Dodgers, perhaps creating another great moment--like Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard Round the World” to win the 1951 pennant.

One of the Giants’ most notable fans--Mayor Willie Brown--said he hopes to make a bet with Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan on the outcome of the race for the NL West crown.

“It’s an athletic rivalry between the two teams,” Brown said, “but it also gives us a chance to demonstrate to Los Angeles that they’re still second banana.”