Dodgers–Giants rivalry
The Dodgers–Giants rivalry is regarded as one of the fiercest and longest-standing rivalries in American baseball, with some observers considering it the greatest sports rivalry of all time. It dates back to the late 19th century, when both clubs were based in New York City.
After the season, Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley decided to move the team to Los Angeles for financial and other reasons. Along the way, he convinced New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham to preserve the rivalry by bringing his team to California as well. New York baseball fans were stunned and heartbroken by the move, which left the city with only one baseball team, the Yankees. However, to ease the loss of both the Dodgers and Giants, New York City was granted a fourth baseball team, the Mets, who began play in 1962. The Mets appealed to both sets of fans by adopting colors from each team: orange from the Giants and blue from the Dodgers. They eventually moved into a new stadium in Queens, a borough which had not previously hosted Major League Baseball.
Given that the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco had long harbored animosity against one another in the economic, cultural, and political arenas, the teams' new homes in California were fertile ground for the rivalry's transplantation. Each team's ability to endure for over a century while moving across the country, as well as the rivalry's growth from a cross-city to a cross-state engagement, have led to the rivalry being considered one of the greatest in sports history. Geographic factors have also led to the rivalry becoming one of the fiercest between fans as numerous acts of violence have occurred between both players and fans alike.
The Dodgers and Giants each have more National League pennants than any other team: the Dodgers have 26 and the Giants have 23. The Dodgers have one more World Series title than the Giants, with 9. The Dodgers have won the National League West 23 times compared to the Giants' 9 times since the beginning of the Divisional Era in 1969, and the all-time regular-season series head-to-head is tied. Since moving to California, the Dodgers hold the edge in pennants and World Series titles. The Giants' most recent World Series appearance and championship occurred in. The Dodgers last appeared in the World Series in, winning back-to-back titles for the first time in franchise history by defeating the Blue Jays in seven games.
During their time on the East Coast, the Giants won the series 722–671–17 against the Dodgers. However, since the two teams moved to the West Coast, the Dodgers lead 617–566 as of the end of their September 2025 regular season series. The two teams first met in the modern postseason in the 2021 National League Division Series, although they contested the 1889 World Series. They have played two tie-breaker series after ending the regular season tied for first place. Both series were best of 3 to decide the winner of the National League Pennant and both were won by the Giants 2–1 in 1951 and 1962. They are counted as part of the regular season.
History
Late 1800s–1957: The New York years
In the 1880s, New York City played host to a number of professional baseball clubs in the National League and the American Association. By 1889, each league had only one representative in New York—the Giants in the NL and Dodgers in the AA. The teams met in the 1889 World Series, in which the Giants defeated the Bridegrooms 6 games to 3. In 1890, the Dodgers entered the NL and the rivalry was officially underway.Although the two teams were geographically proximate rivals anyway, the animus between the two teams ran deeper than mere competitiveness. Giants fans were seen as well to do elitists of Manhattan while Dodgers fans tended to be more blue collar and had more Latino fans due to what was then the working class atmosphere of Brooklyn. In 1900, a year in which the Dodgers won the pennant and the Giants finished last, Giants owner Andrew Freedman attempted to have the NL split all profits equally, irrespective of the teams’ individual success or failure. In the early 1900s, the rivalry was heightened by a long-standing personal feud between Charles Ebbets, owner of the Dodgers, and John McGraw, manager of the Giants. The two used their teams as fighting surrogates, which caused incidents between players both on and off the field, and inflamed local fans' passions sometimes to deadly levels.
Prior to the season, Giants manager Bill Terry was asked his opinion of various teams for the upcoming campaign, including the Dodgers. His response of "Are they still in the league?" was to prove provocative. While the Dodgers struggled, the Giants found themselves tied with the St. Louis Cardinals atop the National League with two games left to play, and facing the sixth-place Dodgers for a two-game series in Brooklyn. Despite winning 14 of 22 from the Dodgers that year, the Giants lost those last two to the "Flatbush spoilers" and the pennant to the Cardinals, who won their final two games.
The rivalry is said to have been the motive for multiple fan-on-fan homicides, in 1938 and 2003. Future Dodgers manager Joe Torre recalled how he felt threatened being a Giants fan growing up in Brooklyn in the series.
The National League pennant race between the Dodgers and the Giants is considered one of the greatest pennant races of all time. The Dodgers held a -game lead over the Giants as late as August 11. Led by rookie Willie Mays, however, the Giants charged through August and September to catch and pass the Dodgers. The Dodgers won the final game of the season, tying the Giants for first place and necessitating a three-game tiebreaker for the pennant. The Giants won the first game, and the Dodgers won the second. In the third game of the series, the Dodgers led 4–1 going into the bottom of the ninth. However, the Giants ignited a rally capped off with a dramatic game-winning home run by Bobby Thomson, a play known as the Shot Heard 'Round the World. The Giants would eventually lose the World Series to the Yankees.
During the 1956–1957 offseason, Dodgers legend Jackie Robinson famously retired just hours after being traded to the Giants.
1958: Move to California
Following the 1957 season, Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley moved the team to Los Angeles despite the team being one of the most profitable teams in baseball at the time. At the same time, Giants owner Horace Stoneham was considering moving the team out of New York as well. After considering Minneapolis, Minnesota and St. Petersburg, Florida as potential locations, O'Malley convinced Stoneham to keep the rivalry alive and move the team to San Francisco. With the move, the teams became the first two MLB teams in the Western US. West Coast baseball officially began on Opening Day in 1958 at Seals Stadium in San Francisco, with the Giants defeating the visiting Dodgers 8–0.1958–1970s
In, the Giants led the Dodgers by three games as late as September 6. However, a late-year three-game sweep of the Giants both eliminated San Francisco from contention and allowed the Dodgers to catch the Milwaukee Braves, whom they defeated two games to zero in a three-game tiebreaker en route to winning the World Series. This started a string of pennant races between the two teams in the 1960s, in which the Giants and Dodgers finished no further than four games apart from each other and first place four times through.The Giants and Dodgers tied for first place in 1962 which necessitated a three game playoff which the Giants won in game three.
During the Dodgers championship season of, the Giants went on a 14-game winning streak in early September to take a -game lead, but the Dodgers responded with a 13-game winning streak and won 15 of their final 16 games to beat out the Giants by two games. The Dodgers continued the momentum of that winning streak to another World Series championship.
In 1966, a three-way race between the Dodgers, Giants, and Pittsburgh Pirates came down to the last day of the season. The Dodgers went into the second game of a doubleheader with the Philadelphia Phillies ahead of the Giants by one game. Had the Dodgers lost, the Giants would have been game out and would have had to fly to Cincinnati to make up a game that had been rained out earlier in the season. If the Giants won that game, they would then have met the Dodgers in a playoff. But the Dodgers won the second game in Philadelphia to win the pennant by games. In 1971, the Dodgers rallied from a -game September deficit to get within a game of the National League West-leading Giants with one game to play. But while the Dodgers were defeating the Houston Astros, the Giants beat the San Diego Padres to win the division.
1980s–1990s
In, the Dodgers blew an eighth-inning lead at San Francisco in the last game of the second-to-last series of the year. This loss dropped the Dodgers three games behind the Houston Astros and cost them the chance to win the National League West division outright when they swept Houston in the final three games of the year. Instead, they were forced to play the Astros in a one-game tiebreaker – which they lost 7–1. In, the Dodgers and Giants were tied for second in the NL West, both one game behind the Atlanta Braves, as they faced each other in the final three games of the year. The Dodgers won the first two games 4–0 and 15–4 to eliminate the Giants, but then the Giants knocked the Dodgers out of the pennant race on the season's last day on a go-ahead three-run home run by Joe Morgan in the seventh inning, eventually winning the game 5–3. Thus, the Braves finished first by one game.The Giants did it again in, as the Dodgers finished one game behind the Braves after losing two of three in San Francisco over the final weekend. Trevor Wilson tossed a complete game shutout on the day in which the Dodgers were eliminated. The Dodgers returned the favor in, as two Mike Piazza home runs and a dominant complete-game performance by Kevin Gross resulted in a 12–1 win on the final day of the season that kept the 103-win Giants out of the playoffs. True to the balanced spirit of the rivalry, despite winning the first three games of that four-game series in Los Angeles, the Giants were unable to sweep the Dodgers at their home park in a four-game series for the first time since, and the Braves won the division by one game.
In, a late September two-game sweep of the Dodgers at Candlestick Park highlighted by Barry Bonds' twirl after a home run in the first game and Brian Johnson's home run in the bottom of the 12th in the second tied the Giants with the Dodgers for first place and eventually propelled them into the playoffs. The impact on both organizations was significant; Fred Claire, who was then general manager of the Dodgers, said "those two days have stayed with me for the last 10 years", and Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke argued that "it led to an organizational upheaval... t has taken the Dodgers nearly a decade to recover." In contrast, the Giants' run from 1997 through 2003 produced the most playoff appearances in that stretch for the franchise since the 1930s.