It's got to be one of the most unique patches to ever grace a team uniform.  It's certainly the one that we are asked about most frequently.  It's the NY Giants "Spider" patch of course. 

Carl Ford Lockhart played college football at North Texas University.  The long and lean defensive back was drafted by the New York Giants in the thirteenth round of the 1965 draft.  Upon his arrival at Giants training camp, Emlen Tunnell, the Giants defensive backs coach, gave Carl the nickname Spider. The popular and talented Spider spent his entire ten year career with the Giants.  He was a Pro Bowler in 1966 and 1968 and led the league in defensive tds in '68.

Spider retired from football in 1975 at 32.  On July 9, 1986, at the age of 43, which was also his uniform number, Spider succombed to cancer.  In his honor, the "Spider patch" was worn by the Giants throughout the Super Bowl winning 1986 season.

So now you know.

With all the talk about today being the 40th anniversary of the Eagle landing on the moon, we wondered how the world of baseball reacted on July 20, 1969.  The coolest story we found might turn out to be a legend, but we'd like to think there's some truth to it.

Legend has it that former SF Giants manager Alvin Dark once claimed that a man would land on the moon before Gaylord Perry would hit a home run.  Well on July 20, 1969, hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Perry hit a home run.  There are a lot of questions surrounding when that statement was actually made and who said it, but we can at least verify that Perry did hit his first home run on that date.

Check out this link for more details: http://www.snopes.com/sports/baseball/perry.asp

On May 28, 1957 National League owners unanimously authorized baseball's expansion to the west coast.  The Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants were approved to move their franchises to Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively. 

Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley had been trying to get a new stadium built in Brooklyn to replace the 32,000 seat Ebbets Field that he felt his team had outgrown.  His unsuccessful attempts to get the new stadium approvals led to meetings with Los Angeles officials, where over a series of secret discussions the plan to move baseball to California was hatched.  San Francisco mayor George Christopher, hearing about the O'Malley meetings, arranged to meet with Giants owner Horace Stoneham.  Stoneham's Giants were not drawing fans on a consistent basis and he felt that a move to the west coast would revitalize the franchise. 

On May 28th their wishes were granted, with only two conditions placed on the deal.

1) One team could not go without the other.  If one team backed out the deal was off.

2) Both teams had to make their announcements before October 1, 1957. 

Unfortunately for New York baseball fans both conditions were met and their beloved teams were gone by the start of the 1958 season.

New York was left with no National League team until 1962 when the New York Mets began play in Queens. 

As a side note, ever wonder why the Mets uniforms are orange and blue?  To embrace the mourning Giants and Dodgers fan base the Mets took orange from the Giants and blue from the Dodgers.  Who knows if it worked, but the effort and idea were appreciated.

In this picture Giants owner Horace Stoneham (third from left) listens to Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley (far left) as he discusses the potential move with NY mayor Rober Wagner (middle).

Dodgers fans try to keep their team in Brooklyn