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1911: Opposing managers Connie Mack, right, and John McGraw, at the opening game of the 1911 World Series, New York City, October 14, 1911. Mack's Philadelphia Athletics defeated McGraw's New York Giants in 6 games.
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Photo: Underwood Archives, Getty Images 1912: Fans waiting in line at the Polo Grounds for tickets for the first game of the 1912 World Series between the New York Giants and the Boston Red Sox, New York, New York, October 7, 1912.  The Giants won Game 6 5-2 and evened the series with an 11-4 blowout in Game 7, but lost the title in the eighth game when the Red Sox scored twice in the bottom of the 10th.
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Photo: Chicago History Museum, Getty Images 1917: A crowd of White Sox fans follow their team's progress during the 1917 World Series against the New York Giants, Peoria, IL. The crowd look up towards the balcony of a saloon, where a scorekeeper updates the baseball diagram as telegraph reports came in.  The Giants lost the series in 6 games.
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1921: A baseball crowd gathers at New York's Times Square in 1921. The New York Yankees clinched their first AL pennant in September and lost the World Series to the New York Giants in October. The Giants won Game 6 and Game 8 to claim their first title since 1905.
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Photo: Anonymous 1923: Fans line up for bleacher seats for Game 1 of the 1923 World Series at Yankee Stadium, October 10, 1923. For the third straight year, the Yankees faced their intracity rivals, the Giants, in the World Series, but for the first time the Yankees would be playing home games in their own stadium. The Giants gave up a 2-1 series lead to lose in 6 games.
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Photo: Uncredited, ASSOCIATED PRESS 1924: Washington Senators and New York Giants managers and players join umpires before the final game of baseball's World Series in Washington. The Giants lost game 6 and 7 to lose to the Senators.
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Photo: Joe Caneva 1936: Yankee Stadium, right, sits at the corner of 161st Street and River Avenue in the Bronx, while the Polo Grounds, home to the New York Giants -- and the Yankees from 1913 to 1922 -- lies across the Harlem River in Manhattan. Shortly after this photo was shot in September, both stadiums hosted the 1936 World Series, won by the Yankees, four games to two. The Polo Grounds ended up being demolished in 1964; public housing was built on the site.
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1936: Mel Ott, Giants slugger, is shown raising his foot in a typical pose just before hitting a fly ball in the World Series. The Giants lost game 6 when the Yankees collected 17 hits and scored seven in the top of the ninth to seal a 13-5 win.
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1951: New York Yankee outfielder Hank Bauer sends a triple to left field barrier in the 6th inning of World Series game five against the New York Giants at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 10, 1951. The long hit over left fielder Monte Irvin scored Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio and Johnny Mize to break the 1-1 tie. It gave the Yankees their margin of victory, 4-3, over the Giants for their third consecutive World Series Championship.
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Photo: Uncredited, AP 1962: Jack Sanford, 24-game winner for the San Francisco Giants, is shown as he pitched his way to a three-hit, 2-0 shutout victory over the New York Yankees, Oct. 5, 1962 in San Francisco in game 2 of the World Series at San Francisco's Candlestick Park.  In the sixth game, the Giants evened the Series as Billy Pierce outdueled Whitey Ford in San Francisco’s 5-2 victory, but lost Game 7.
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Photo: Deanne Fitzmaurice 2002: In Games 6 of the World Series in Anaheim, the Giants Barry Bonds is forced out at second base by the Angels Adam Kennedy.  The Giants blew a 5 run lead to lose game 6.  They scored the first run but lost game 7 as well.
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Photo: Lucy Nicholson, AFP/Getty Images 2002: Most San Francisco Giants fans remember the moment that manager Dusty Baker signaled for a new pitcher as he relieves Russ Ortiz (third from left) in the seventh inning of Game 6 of the 2002 World Series in Anaheim.  The Giants have a long history of winning and losing the pivotal Game 6 of a World Series.

1911: A’s 13, Giants 2

It wasn’t a Bay Bridge Series, but the Giants’ first World Series Game 6 was played against the A’s — the Philadelphia A’s. After winning the opener behind Christy Mathewson, the Giants lost three straight — with Mathewson taking the losses in Games 3 and 4, which were separated by a week because of rain. A 4-3, 10-inning victory in Game 5 gave New York a flicker of hope and the Giants scored in the top of the first of Game 6. But the A’s tied it in the bottom of the third, scored four in the fourth and then settled the issue with a seven-run seventh. It was the first of three consecutive World Series defeats for the Giants.

1912: Giants 5, Red Sox 2

The Giants’ return trip to the Series went eight games — Game 2 was called due to darkness with the scored tied 6-6 after 11 innings. New York was facing elimination against the Red Sox when the Giants took the field at the Polo Grounds for Game 6. A five-run first gave Rube Marquard — who had won a major-league record 19 consecutive games during the regular season — all the support he would need. The Giants won Game 6 5-2 and evened the series with an 11-4 blowout in Game 7, but lost the title in the eighth game when the Red Sox scored twice in the bottom of the 10th.

1917: White Sox 4, Giants 2

One inning spelled doom for the Giants, who lost their fourth consecutive Series. In a scoreless Game 6, the first two White Sox batters in the fourth reached base on Giants’ errors and Chicago then used a fielder’s choice and a single to right by Chick Gandil to score three unearned runs. The Giants pulled to within one in the fifth on a two-run triple by Buck Herzog, but wouldn’t score again. Olympian Jim Thorpe was on the Giants’ 1917 roster; he was in the starting lineup in Game 5, but was pulled in the first in favor of pinch-hitter Dave Robertson, who delivered an RBI single.

1921: Giants 8, Yankees 5

In the last of the three post-World War I Series to be played in a best-of-nine format, the Giants evened the Series — the Yankees’ first — with a Game 6 win. The Giants — held to one run in their three losses — fell behind 3-0 in the first inning, tied it with three in the top of the second, fell behind again in the bottom of the second, then took the lead for good with a four-run fourth. Jesse Barnes turned in a Yusmeiro Petit-like effort, relieving starter Fred Toney with two outs in the first and pitching the remaining 81/3 innings while allowing only two runs and striking out 10. Two days later, the Giants won Game 8 1-0 and had their first title since 1905.

1923: Yankees 6, Giants 4

The Yankees’ juggernaut was in its infancy when the Giants gave up a two-games-to-one lead with three consecutive losses, the last coming in Game 6. The Yankees scored in the top of the first of the final game when 28-year-old Babe Ruth hit a home run. The Giants scored single runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings to take a 4-1 lead, but the eighth inning proved their undoing. With one out, five consecutive Yankees reached base in what would become a five-run inning.

1924: Senators 2, Giants 1

In a Roaring ’20s version of the 2002 Series, the Giants were a game away from the title when they hit the road for Games 6 and 7 against the Senators. New York took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first in Game 6. Art Nehf — whose postseason record of six starts with seven innings pitched and three or fewer runs allowed was broken by Madison Bumgarner in Game 5 against the Royals — took a shutout into the fifth, but allowed two runs and that was enough for Washington. The next day, the Senators won Game 7 4-3 in 12 innings. The 1924 Series was the last for Giants manager John McGraw, who had led New York to 10 pennants and three world championships.

1936: Yankees 13, Giants 5

The Yankees, again, but with a different cast as Ruth had departed two years earlier and the AL champs were led by Lou Gehrig and a 21-year-old rookie from San Francisco named Joe DiMaggio. The Giants won the first game behind Carl Hubbell and staved off elimination with a 5-4, 10-inning win in Game 5. But the end came in Game 6 when the Yankees collected 17 hits and scored seven in the top of the ninth to seal a 13-5 win. The Yankees hit .302 in the six games with DiMaggio going 9-for-26 (.346) in his first Series.

1951: Yankees 4, Giants 3

Say “1951” to a Giants fan and they might respond, “Bobby Thomson and the 'Shot Heard Round the World.’” Say it to a Yankees fan, however, and they’ll probably respond, “Yankees in six.” The Giants, riding the momentum of Thomson’s pennant-winning homer against the Dodgers, won Games 1 and 3 — and then didn’t win again. The championship was won by the Yankees, 4-3, in Game 6, although the Giants nearly replicated their late-inning rally against Brooklyn. Three consecutive singles to lead off the ninth and back-to-back sacrifice flies made it a one-run game, but with runners at second and third with two outs, pinch-hitter Sal Yvars lined out to right to end the game and the Yankees had their 14th championship — the third of what would be five in a row.

1962: Giants 5, Yankees 2

The Giants brought the World Series to San Francisco for the first time in their fifth season on the West Coast. In similar fashion to 1951, the Giants had chased down the Dodgers in the regular season and then won a three-game playoff to reach the Series. Unlike ’51 though, the heartache didn’t come in Game 6. In the sixth game, the Giants evened the Series as Billy Pierce outdueled Whitey Ford in San Francisco’s 5-2 victory. The next day, Bay Area baseball fans groaned as Willie McCovey’s would-be championship-winning liner was caught by Bobby Richardson to secure a 1-0 Yankees win and the Giants’ fifth World Series loss to their former intracity rivals.

2002: Angels 6, Giants 5

It took four decades for the Giants to play another Game 6 in the World Series — and four decades after it those who experienced it will probably still wince at the thought. The Giants went to Southern California holding a 3-2 Series lead against the Angels. In Game 6, Shawon Dunston hit a two-run home run and Kenny Lofton scored on a wild pitch to give the Giants a 3-0 lead in the fifth. Barry Bonds homered to lead off the sixth and Jeff Kent made it 5-0 in the seventh with an RBI single to score Lofton. In the bottom of the seventh, eight outs from San Francisco’s first title, it all began slipping away. Russ Ortiz allowed two one-out singles and then was handed the ball by manager Dusty Baker as he walked off the mound. Scott Spiezio greeted reliever Felix Rodriguez with a three-run homer. In the eighth, Darren Erstad hit a leadoff homer off Tim Worrell. Two more singles brought Robb Nen into the game, and a double by Troy Glaus capped the 6-5 comeback. Even though the Giants scored first in Game 7, Giants fans knew what was coming. Angels 4, Giants 1. Another Series lost, a pain not soothed until 2010.

Mike Lerseth is an assistant sports editor for the San Francisco Chronicle. E-mail: mlerseth@sfchronicle.com. Twitter @MikeLerseth