Monday, Aug. 21, 1961, was a giant occasion in Tacoma baseball history.

The Tacoma Giants, a cinch to win the Pacific Coast League pennant after a 16-game winning streak, were in town for a one-game homestand with their arch rivals, the Seattle Rainiers. They were welcomed by 8,056 happy fans inside the year-old Cheney Stadium. Another 1,000 crowded the right-field vantage point called “Tightwad Hill.”

The notion of “Tacoma Rainiers” wouldn’t have sat well with this crowd. The Seattle-Tacoma pro baseball rivalry goes back to the Pacific Northwest League founded in 1890. But in the 1950s, the closest pro game was at Seattle’s Sicks’ Stadium, home of the Rainiers. The long drive up Highway 99 gave Tacoma baseball lovers plenty of time to dream of having their first PCL team since the 1905 Tigers jilted them for Sacramento in midseason.

On this night their dreams were coming true.

Before the game, Tacoma manager Red Davis accepted the Young Men’s Business Club trophy for winning that season’s series with Seattle. The Rainiers showed their distaste for the ceremony by taking a 4-0 lead.

The sleeping Giant bats awakened in the fourth inning. A Bob Farley single, a sacrifice by Dick Phillips and walks for sluggers Bob Perry and Dusty Rhodes loaded the bases. Bill Hain’s single scored two, and catcher Tom Haller turned the next pitch into a three-run Tightwad Hill souvenir. An insurance run in the seventh made the score 6-4 for reliever Verle Tiefenthaler, who picked up his 11th win with a flawless 5 innings.

It was the 38th comeback victory of the season for the Giants and their 13th win in 22 games with Seattle.

Tacoma had limped out of June in fourth place with five straight losses. But after shortstop Gil Garrido’s homer beat the Portland Beavers on Aug. 19 and capped their winning streak at 16 games, the Giants had gone 57-10 since July 4, a string of dominance that has gotten them mentioned as the finest minor league team ever assembled.

Tacoma’s baseball angels were Ben Cheney and Clay Huntington, who persuaded Rosy Ryan, president of the Phoenix Giants, to consider relocating his San Francisco Giants farm club. When the City of Tacoma found $590,000 to build a stadium on Snake Lake swampland donated by Pierce County, Ryan signed a five-year lease.

Soldiers from Fort Lewis cleared the site with flamethrowers. Preformed concrete technology reduced construction time, and the grandstand seats and light standards were rescued from Seals Stadium in San Francisco.

The “100-day wonder” was finished in time for rainouts in five of the first games of the 1960 season.

For kids, the team was a godsend. They packed the bleachers, getting in free with Knot Hole Club memberships, feasting on two-bit hot dogs and packing their precious baseball mitts in hopes of capturing the Holy Grail of souvenirs: a foul ball.

The midseason exhibition games with San Francisco were hard-fought and brought stars such as Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda to town. San Francisco needed 10 innings to win the 1961 game on an inside-the-park homer by Felipe Alou. Tacoma’s Bob Perry ran down Alou’s drive but dropped the ball after a painful collision with the center-field wall 425 feet away.

Giveaways including ice cream bars on Dairy Night, tickets on Little League Night and team pictures on Radio Appreciation Night helped Tacoma lead the league in 1961 attendance at 243,790.

There was plenty of old-fashioned charm. Organist Jane McKee of the popular nightspot Steve’s Gay ’90s entertained from a perch below the press box. A ship captain’s bell rang out the number of Tacoma scores after each inning. The scoreboard was in the 32-foot-high center-field wall, where the numbers for hits, runs and errors were changed manually.

But attending wasn’t necessary to follow the Giants. Transistor radios brought games to fans through KTAC radio’s “Voice of the Giants,” Don Hill, who had plenty of occasion to utter his signature phrase: “How about that, Giants fans!”

On KTAC-TV, young sportscaster Bob Robertson called games for both the Giants and the Rainiers. Fans also could track the team through the colorful writing of Tacoma News Tribune sports writer Ed Honeywell.

The first-year Giants placed second behind a Spokane Indians team that featured Willie Davis, Frank Howard and Ron Fairly, but Tacoma enjoyed its own stable of stars: Future Hall of Famers Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry and Willie McCovey all played for Tacoma in 1960.

The 1961 season dawned with a newly paved parking lot and high hopes for a team that became known for sparkling defense, a deep pitching rotation and home run power.

The youngest Giant was “the Little Magician,” 19-year-old Garrido, a 5-foot-8, 148-pound Panamanian who was named the best shortstop in minor league baseball. His double-play partner was second baseman Chuck Hiller, who batted .324. Utilityman Dick Phillips led the team with 98 RBI and was named the league’s most valuable player.

On the mound were Gaylord Perry (earned run average 2.53), Dom Zanni (2.56), knuckleballer Eddie Fisher (3.29), Georges Maranda (3.41), Ron Herbel (3.68) and a stingy bullpen led by Tiefenthaler (3.92) and Ray Daviault (2.99).

Rhodes, the 1954 World Series MVP, played left field. Center fielder Perry, when he wasn’t making Willie Mays-style basket catches, was rattling the “Green Monster” wall in center for triples and clubbing 22 homers. Rafael Alomar and Manny Mota rounded out the talented outfield.

The 1961 PCL championship, clinched by Tacoma on Labor Day weekend in Hawaii, was a mere footnote amid the more serious news of that late August. A brick wall was rising between East and West Berlin, and Army troops searched in vain for 8-year-old Anne Marie Burr, who was abducted from her North End Tacoma home.

After the 1965 season, Giants owner Horace Stoneham broke Tacoma hearts when he moved his franchise back to Phoenix.

But on that warm Monday evening in 1961, Tacoma baseball fans hadn’t a care in the world as their heroes vanquished their rivals on the way to a championship that made a baseball town’s dreams come true.

Pat McCoid: 253-597-8272