Hey, everybody, I'm Justin McGuire, and this is Baseball by the Book, the only podcast that

matters. That's right, folks, who are once again listening to Baseball by the Book, the podcast

in which we talk to authors of baseball books past and present. Today we are joined by

Stephen Treader. His work has been published in 9, the Hardball Times

Baseball Annual, and the National Pastime. He wrote a weekly column on baseball history for the

Hardball Times from 2004 to 2013. Today he's here to talk about his book, 40 Years a Giant,

The Life of Horace Stoneham. Thanks to Dan Newman for his help

in putting this episode together, and thanks as always to Jay Daniel, who does our social media

graphics. Let's get started. Hi, Steve. Welcome to baseball by the book. Hello, Justin. Delad to be

here. Horace Stoneham was the owner of the Giants, both in New York and San Francisco, for a long time,

1936 to 1976.

So he was obviously a guy who saw a lot of baseball history and was directly involved with a lot of that history.

What was it about Stoneham that made you want to tell his story?

Well, I'm a born and bred Giants fan myself. I was born in 1958, the year that the Giants actually

arrived in San Francisco and grew up in a household full of San Francisco Giants fans. So I can't

remember not being a Giants fan. So as a Giants fan, I knew the name Horace Stoneham. I knew who he was,

but he was not well, he was not prominent. We fans didn't know really anything about him other than his name.

And, you know, that was good enough for me when I was a kid. But as I grew older, you know, and became more of a

baseball historian and scholar in later decades, it began to be clear to me that Horace Stonham wasn't

just any owner. He was a very particularly important owner. As you say, he owned the team for 40

years, which in itself is one of the longest ownership ten years in history.

And more than that, he was a very impactful owner.

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