Polo Grounds
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40 free Polo Grounds trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
For more than seventy years the Polo Grounds was the strangest and most storied ballpark in New York. It sat beneath a cliff beside the Harlem River, with foul lines so short and a center field so deep that routine fly balls became home runs and mighty drives became outs. This quiz covers the whole story: the baseball Giants and the clubs that shared their home, legendary catches and pennant-winning swings, heavyweight title fights, football championships decided on ice, and the surprises that filled the calendar, from an open-air classical concert to international visitors. It also asks where the ballpark stood, how it got its shape and what replaced it. It suits baseball history fans, hosts planning a trivia night round on New York sport, and anyone who has heard the name and wondered what happened there. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still leaves you with a good story.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Giants center fielder made the running grab known as The Catch at the Polo Grounds in 1954?
Willie Mays
Willie Mays ran down Vic Wertz's drive about 420 feet from home plate with the score tied 2–2 in the eighth inning. His throw back to the infield stopped a runner advancing, and the Giants won in extra innings.
Q 02Which footwear did the football Giants switch to at halftime to win the 1934 NFL title game on a frozen Polo Grounds?
Sneakers
Sneakers borrowed from a nearby college's basketball team gave the Giants footing on the ice, and they scored 27 points in the fourth quarter. They beat the previously undefeated Chicago Bears 30–13.
Q 03Whose 1951 pennant-winning home run at the Polo Grounds is known as the Shot Heard 'Round the World?
Bobby Thomson
Bobby Thomson's three-run homer in the ninth inning turned a 4–2 deficit into a 5–4 win over the Brooklyn Dodgers. It decided the third and final game of a playoff for the National League pennant.
Q 04Which slugger was the only batter to reach the Polo Grounds' distant center-field stands before the 1923 rebuild?
Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth hit his first home run for his New York club at the Polo Grounds on May 1, 1920, clearing the right-field grandstand. His longest drive there, in 1921, was estimated at over 550 feet.
Q 05The baseball-painted wrecking ball that razed the Polo Grounds in 1964 had earlier demolished which ballpark?
Ebbets Field
Ebbets Field, home of the Giants' great rivals the Brooklyn Dodgers, fell to the same ball in 1960. The Polo Grounds crew wore Giants jerseys and needed four and a half months to level the stadium.
Q 06Which nickname did the Polo Grounds earn from the long, narrow shape of its double-decked stands after 1923?
The Bathtub
The Bathtub had foul lines of only 279 and 258 feet, yet its center-field clubhouse stood 483 feet from home plate. The bullpens sat in play in the outfield gaps.
Q 07Which team did the Giants beat in a 1921 World Series played entirely at the Polo Grounds?
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees were the Giants' tenants, subletting the Polo Grounds from 1913 to 1922, so the clubs simply took turns as the home team. It was the first World Series held at a single site and the first broadcast on radio.
Q 08The Polo Grounds hosted the 1947 All-Ireland final, the only one ever played outside Ireland, in which sport?
Gaelic football
Gaelic football's 1947 final went to New York to mark the centenary of the worst year of the Great Famine. Cavan beat Kerry in a city chosen for its many Irish Americans descended from Famine exiles.
Q 09Which future Super Bowl-winning coach played at the Polo Grounds as one of Fordham's Seven Blocks of Granite?
Vince Lombardi
Vince Lombardi was the right guard on Fordham's famed 1936 line, a 5-foot-8, 180-pound senior thought undersized for the job. He went on to coach the Green Bay Packers to wins in the first two Super Bowls.
Q 10Which heavyweight champion rallied to knock out Billy Conn in the thirteenth round at the Polo Grounds in 1941?
Joe Louis
Joe Louis was behind on two of the three scorecards when Conn, a former light heavyweight champion, went looking for a knockout of his own. Louis dropped him late in the round and Conn could not beat the count.
Q 11In which New York City borough did all four stadiums that carried the Polo Grounds name stand?
Manhattan
Manhattan held every version: the first stood beside 110th Street, and the later ones sat 45 blocks north at 155th Street, where the Giants took the name with them.
Q 12Which ballpark, opened in 1964 beside the World's Fair, replaced the Polo Grounds as home of the Mets and Jets?
Shea Stadium
Shea Stadium was named for William Shea, the lawyer most responsible for bringing National League baseball back to New York. It opened five days before the fair across the street.
Q 13What destroyed the Polo Grounds' grandstand in April 1911, forcing the Giants to rebuild it?
A fire
Q 21Which Giants rookie failed to touch second base at the Polo Grounds in 1908, wiping out a winning run?
Fred Merkle
Fred Merkle, at 19 the youngest player in the National League, turned for the dugout as fans ran onto the field. The game was ruled a 1–1 tie, and the Cubs won the makeup game and the pennant by one game.
Q 22Which Giants slugger hit 323 of his 511 home runs at the Polo Grounds, helped by its short right-field fence?
Mel Ott
Mel Ott stood only 5 feet 9 yet led the National League in home runs six times and was its first player to pass 500. Teased about the short fence, he replied that every other hitter was free to aim for it too.
Q 23Who became the first man to regain the heavyweight title, beating Ingemar Johansson at the Polo Grounds in 1960?
A fire of uncertain origin swept the horseshoe grandstand in the early hours of April 14, 1911, leaving only steel uprights. The park reopened just two and a half months later.
Q 14The original Polo Grounds of the 1870s stood directly across 110th Street from which New York City landmark?
Central Park
Central Park's northeast corner faced the original grounds, which were built for polo and ran from 110th to 112th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. A baseball club first leased them in 1880.
Q 15Which manager, nicknamed the Ol' Perfessor, led the Polo Grounds-based 1962 Mets through 120 losses?
Casey Stengel
Casey Stengel's Mets went 40–120, the most losses by any major league team in the 20th century, and finished last in all four seasons he managed them.
Q 16Which college's backfield was christened the Four Horsemen after it beat Army at the Polo Grounds in 1924?
Notre Dame
Notre Dame won 13–7, and sportswriter Grantland Rice's report likened its four backs to the riders of the Apocalypse. A student publicist then posed the players in uniform on four horses for a photograph.
Q 17What was built on the site of the Polo Grounds after the stadium was torn down in 1964?
A public housing complex
A public housing complex called Polo Grounds Towers opened there in 1968, after the city claimed the land by eminent domain. The family that owned the ground fought the seizure until 1967.
Q 18From which high ground above the Polo Grounds could fans watch Giants games without buying a ticket?
Coogan's Bluff
Coogan's Bluff was named for James J. Coogan, a real estate developer whose family owned the land under the stadium throughout the Giants' stay. The ballpark itself sat below in Coogan's Hollow.
Q 19Which shortstop was fatally struck by a pitch at the Polo Grounds in 1920, the only MLB player killed in a game?
Ray Chapman
Ray Chapman died 12 hours after the pitch struck his head, at a time when batters wore no helmets. His death was later cited as a reason to adopt batting helmets, though they were not required for over 30 years.
Q 20Which champion was knocked out of the ring by Luis Firpo at the Polo Grounds in 1923 yet won a round later?
Jack Dempsey
Jack Dempsey was helped back into the ring by ringside writers and knocked Firpo out in the second round. George Bellows turned the moment into a celebrated painting.
Floyd Patterson
Floyd Patterson knocked out the Swede in the fifth round, almost a year to the day after losing the crown to him. It proved to be the last major boxing match held at the stadium.
Q 24Which Giants pitcher struck out five future Hall of Famers in a row at the Polo Grounds in the 1934 All-Star Game?
Carl Hubbell
Carl Hubbell used his screwball to fan Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin among the five. He later set a major league record by winning 24 consecutive decisions across 1936 and 1937.
Q 25Which manager ran the Giants at the Polo Grounds for almost thirty years, winning ten pennants?
John McGraw
John McGraw had been the third baseman of the aggressive, pennant-winning Baltimore Orioles of the 1890s, and he went on to win 2,763 games as a manager.
Q 26Which Milwaukee Braves slugger reached the Polo Grounds' center-field bleachers in 1962, a day after Lou Brock did?
Hank Aaron
Hank Aaron and Brock were two of only five players to reach those seats after the 1923 remodeling. One of the five, pitcher Schoolboy Rowe, did it in batting practice before an exhibition game.
Q 27Which 111-win team did the Giants sweep in the 1954 World Series, which opened at the Polo Grounds?
Cleveland Indians
The Cleveland Indians had won a then American League record 111 games and were heavy favorites. Pinch hitter Dusty Rhodes won Game 1 with a home run that barely cleared the 258-foot right-field fence.
Q 28Which Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher gave up the pennant-deciding home run at the Polo Grounds in the 1951 playoff?
Ralph Branca
Ralph Branca got the call because fellow reliever Erskine, warming up beside him, was bouncing curveballs in the dirt. The batter he faced had already homered off him in the first game of the playoff.
Q 29Which surviving piece of the Polo Grounds, restored and reopened in 2014, is named for Giants owner John T. Brush?
A stairway
A stairway opened in 1913 carried fans down the hillside from Edgecombe Avenue to a ticket booth overlooking the field. Its $950,000 restoration was paid for by teams that once played at the ballpark.
Q 30Under which name did the New York Jets play their first three seasons at the Polo Grounds, from 1960 to 1962?
Titans
The Titans were named by founding owner Harry Wismer, who reasoned that titans are bigger and stronger than giants. New owners renamed the team in 1963, its last season in the old ballpark.