The San Francisco Giants are one of the most distinguished clubs in American professional sports.

The Giants began life as a second baseball club founded by John B. Day and Jim Mutrie. The Gothams (as the Giants were originally known) were their entry to the National League, while their other club, the Metropolitans (the original Mets) played in the American Association. While the Metropolitans were initially the more successful club, Day and Mutrie began moving star players to the Gothams and the team won its first National League pennant in 1888. Andrew Freeman, though considered "the worst owner in the world" during his time, changed the Giants' fortunes. In 1902, after a series of disastrous moves that left the Giants 53 1/2 games behind, Freedman signed John McGraw as a player-manager.

McGraw would go on and manage the Giants for three decades, one of the longest tenures in professional sports. Under McGraw, the Giants would win ten National League pennants and three World Series championships. The Giants under McGraw famously snubbed their first ever World Series in 1904, an encounter with the Boston Red Sox, because McGraw considered the new American League as little more than a minor league. In that era the Giants had their fair share of stars, Mickey Welch, Roger Connor, Tim Keefe, Jim O'Rourke and Monte Ward, the player-lawyer who formed the renegade Players League in 1890 to protest unfair player contracts.

McGraw would also cultivate his own crop of baseball heroes during his time with the Giants. Names such as Christy Mathewson, Iron Man Joe McGinnity, Bill Terry, Jim Thorpe, Mel Ott and Casey Stengel are just a sample of the many players who honed their skills under McGraw. McGraw handed over the team to Bill Terry in 1932, and Terry played for and managed the Giants for ten years, winning four pennants and one World Series. The San Francisco Giants is a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California.

The Giants play in the Western Division of the National League (NL). Founded in 1883, the Giants are one of the oldest in major league baseball. They have their home arena at the SBC Park. The uniform of the players include the colors Black, Orange, and French Vanilla (off-white). The San Francisco Giants have won one Wild Card title in 2002; won six Division titles in 1971, 1987, 1989, 1997, 2000 and 2003; won twenty National League pennants in 1888, 1889, 1904, 1905, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1917, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1933, 1936, 1937, 1951, 1954, 1962, 1989 and 2002 and won five World Series championships in 1905, 1921, 1922, 1933,1954. In 2003, the Giants recorded 100 victories for the seventh time in franchise history and the third in San Francisco. With their 100-61 record, the Giants spent the entire season in first place in the NL West. They became just the ninth wire-to-wire winner of a division or pennant in baseball history. The previous three were Baltimore in 1997, Cleveland in 1998, and Seattle in 2001. They lost to the wild card Florida Marlins 3 games to 1 in the 2003 National League Division Series. In 2004, the Giants ended the season one game behind the Houston Astros for the wild card race, and two games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the division race. Barry Bonds received his fourth consecutive Most Valuable Player (MVP) award as well, marking the fifth consecutive year a Giant has received the award. Jeff Kent received it in 2000, a feat no other team has accomplished.