Horace Stoneham

Horace C. Stoneham

• School Fordham University

• Born April 27, 1903 in Newark, NJ USA
• Died January 7, 1990 in Scottsdale, AZ USA

Biographical Information

Horace Stoneham was owner of the New York/San Francisco Giants for forty years, and along with Walter O'Malley, was responsible for bringing major league baseball to California.

Stoneham was a Giants executive under his father Charles Stoneham and became the primary owner of the club at age 32 upon his father's death in January 1936. The team won the National League pennant in his first two years at the helm, but by the mid-1940s, the Giants had fallen to the NL cellar.

During the 1948 season, Stoneham made one of the boldest moves of his career, hiring manager Leo Durocher away from the rival Brooklyn Dodgers. Under Durocher, the club experienced a resurgence, winning a pennant in 1951 and capturing the 1954 World Series crown.

After suffering several years of declining attendance and unsuccessfully seeking a new ballpark to replace the aging Polo Grounds, Stoneham moved the club to San Francisco in 1958 as the same time as O'Malley moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles, CA.

The Giants won another pennant in 1962, but attendance again dropped starting in the late 1960s. During this time, Stoneham also served as the club's General Manager from 1970 to 1975. He attempted to sell the team to ownership that would have moved the Giants to Toronto, ON, but instead, the club was sold to Bob Lurie in 1976.

In addition to his father, Stoneham was the nephew of Horace A. Stoneham, a director of the New York Giants and secretary of the Jersey City Giants, and the uncle of Chub Feeney. His cousin Charlie Stoneham was a minor league executive and his son-in-law, Charles Rupert served as Vice-President of the Giants.

Preceded by Chub Feeney

San Francisco Giants General Manager 1970-1975

Succeeded by Spec Richardson

Further Reading

• Steven Treder: Forty Years a Giant: The Life of Horace Stoneham, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, 2021. ISBN 978-1496224194

Related Sites

• Horace Stoneham at the SABR Bio Project