“So, why are you so incensed that the Dodgers moved out of Brooklyn?”

[Anthony]

Back when “The Ghosts of Flatbush” came out, a Yankee fan asked me this question. And when you think about it, he had a point. I have been a Mets fan as long as I can remember. I was born 10 years after the Dodgers left. While I was born in Brooklyn, I grew up on Long Island. I live in Brooklyn now, and did for a few years earlier this decade, but for most of my adult life I have lived elsewhere – 3 years in Syracuse, 6 years in Washington, DC, 5 years in Chicago, and the rest on Long Island.

There is the eminent domain aspect (O’Malley wanted the state to take and give it to him for his stadium). While I am no Ron Paul supporter, I do get up in arms over abuses of the power (and taking property to give to a private organization is in my mind an abuse). Still, eminent domain is not exactly something that causes you to choose a sports team.

So what was it then?

My parents were Brooklyn born and they lamented the Dodgers leaving until the day they died. My father once told me the best Christmas present I ever gave him was a laminated and mounted front page of the Daily News the day the Dodgers won (the famous “Who’s a Bum”). The loyalty the Dodgers generated is unmatched in American professional sports (the closest you can probably get is soccer in places like Brazil, Argentina, Italy or Spain, where people literally bleed for their local clubs).

And it went both ways -- the players seemed to be a real part of the fabric of Brooklyn.

Could Jackie Robinson have happened anywhere else?

The famous praying for Gil Hodges?

My mother, who knew hardly anything about sports, 40 years later whining about Bobby Thompson?

People in my family crying when Roy Campanella died?

In an era before sports became the license to print money that it is today, the Dodgers were a money generating machine. They were popular beyond belief. They were not the Expos, getting 8,000 a game when the league average was 25,000 or the second team in a declining city like the Braves, Browns or A’s. But they moved anyway.

So I guess I get incensed with the Dodgers moving out is that was robbed and something that should have been mine. The Dodgers should have been my team. And I should have been able to join in to listening to the stories. The fact they were extremely profitable. The fact that the tore the heart out of Brooklyn.

So “Let’s Go Mets” but I will still wonder what I lost.

[dodger dynamo]

You lost a lot, the actual cultural feeling of family connection between the fans and the Brooklyn dodgers and Lot's of great baseball in a great place with lots of baseball history and lore. It's a shame.
Imagine during base ball season walking down the street and hearing the game from other people radio's as you go by, you might miss a call here and there, but you could have caught most of it. Where just about everybody was talking baseball Brooklyn baseball from the newsstand to the candy store to the barbershop.
I guess they were talking about in the offices too, the ones I was in, seemed
to be. Oh, yea, we talked about a lot of other things, but the brooks came up as bout as often as a how's your mother? last year, this year, next year it was all one big thing. This was a real tangible thing, not looking back with rose colored glasses. Things weren't perfect, strife, poverty, fear of war, but there was a sense of security and how much did we lose? pennants and world series, yet, it made us closer as fans and as a borough. The Brooklyn dodgers did that, the great melting pot of Ebbets field. isn't that strange? to think a baseball team that could do that?. How can you forget that?
You missed a lot and it is a shame. Ebbets field was electric I was born in 39 so I speak as a child who grew up with it and as a teenager who saw it end. Brooklyn loved it's bums, we who were there and still alive, still do.
bb the dd

[penncentralpete]

It literally ripped my heart and soul out when O'Malley stuck my boys in a suitcase and flew away to the west coast. We oldtime Dodger fans agree on one thing: Walter O'Malley was a pig. However, we oldtime Dodger fans agree on little else. Personally, I HATE that the Dodgers are now 3,000 miles away, but I never held it against "the laundry"..............to me, the Dodgers are the Dodgers. Plain and simple. THE DODGERS. My heart still skips a beat when I see those snow-white jerseys with "DODGERS" across the front. I always doubted that the old fans weren't cheering like mad when the LA Dodgers won the 1959 World Series with Alston, Koufax, Drysdale, Podres, Snider, Furillo, Hodges, Labine, Gilliam, Zimmer, etc. Not to mention Pee Wee Reese as their 3rd base coach. And when they swept the Yankees in four straight in 1963, there was much cheering (and tears) in Brooklyn.

[Anthony]

It literally ripped my heart and soul out when O'Malley stuck my boys in a suitcase and flew away to the west coast. We oldtime Dodger fans agree on one thing: Walter O'Malley was a pig. However, we oldtime Dodger fans agree on little else. Personally, I HATE that the Dodgers are now 3,000 miles away, but I never held it against "the laundry"..............to me, the Dodgers are the Dodgers. Plain and simple. THE DODGERS. My heart still skips a beat when I see those snow-white jerseys with "DODGERS" across the front. I always doubted that the old fans weren't cheering like mad when the LA Dodgers won the 1959 World Series with Alston, Koufax, Drysdale, Podres, Snider, Furillo, Hodges, Labine, Gilliam, Zimmer, etc. Not to mention Pee Wee Reese as their 3rd base coach. And when they swept the Yankees in four straight in 1963, there was much cheering (and tears) in Brooklyn.

But remember, I was born 10 years after the Dodgers left. So I personally had no stake in them. As for my father, he so hated the Dodgers for leaving he rooted for the YANKEES in the Dodger-Yankee World Series when I was a kid. To him, the Mets were the continuation of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

You lost a lot, the actual cultural feeling of family connection between the fans and the Brooklyn dodgers and Lot's of great baseball in a great place with lots of baseball history and lore. It's a shame.

I think that is a big part of it. The Dodgers were supposed to be my team. Sports is really a tradition, passed down. I was thinking about that yesterday, when I was at Citi Field. The new stadium is great, but I was telling my wife it was a bit sad. I was watching my kids (3 and 5) bounce around the stadium and thinking about how many times my father took me to Shea (one of my first memories is of a game at Shea). How I would love the first sight of the stadium when we drove along the LIE and how excited I would be walking through the parking lot.

Or how when I got older, I would take the LIRR to the game with friends and get the GA seats for $3.

Or the taste of the hot dogs.

Or the guys selling pretzels (3 for a dollar) as you left the stadium.

The Dodgers should have been my team. So maybe that is why I still get incensed with it.

[dodger dynamo]

Mostly we all get incensed by it, but for many of us the Mets was a continuation of New York NL baseball, not the Brooklyn dodgers. Don't get me wrong I'm not knocking the Mets it's just they really are two seperate teams.
Some old dodger fans did continue to follow the dodgers (and all hated and still hate O'malley), Some became Met's fans, some stopped watching baseball all together. I was drafted in the fall of 58 and I like the dodgers were moved to California, me and the dodger players against our will. So I look at the team that way, I'm able to separate the team from the man. I saw the games in La during the 59 series, Hodges, Furillo, Snider, pee wee, Koufax, podres these were "Brooklyn" Dodgers. I stopped following base ball for many years after Gil Hodges retired. I don't hate the team, I hate their 3,000 miles away, I also dislike the way O'malley tried to excise "Brooklyn" from the dodgers that breeds more hostility. I think if an effort had been made to still acknowledge their roots in a more tangible way over the years, many would have a softer view point, Some still wouldn't. For years it was the team begins and ends in La that their was no connection to Brooklyn.
Then when they need to summon up their history to suit their own purposes oh, then it's OK to speak of Zack wheat, uncle Robbie, dazzy Vance (who has a number, is in the HOF and doesn't have his number retired by the team) and Jackie Robinson. The rest of the Time they don't know who these people are. I was hoping after the team was sold they'd re-embrace their past, well it's changed hands twice now and they move out of vero beach, yea, right. Maybe the next owner will try. You've got a right to feel incensed.
battlin bake, the dodger dynamo

[BornthedaythebumswontheWS]

Back when “The Ghosts of Flatbush” came out, a Yankee fan asked me this question. And when you think about it, he had a point. I have been a Mets fan as long as I can remember. I was born 10 years after the Dodgers left. While I was born in Brooklyn, I grew up on Long Island. I live in Brooklyn now, and did for a few years earlier this decade, but for most of my adult life I have lived elsewhere – 3 years in Syracuse, 6 years in Washington, DC, 5 years in Chicago, and the rest on Long Island.

There is the eminent domain aspect (O’Malley wanted the state to take and give it to him for his stadium). While I am no Ron Paul supporter, I do get up in arms over abuses of the power (and taking property to give to a private organization is in my mind an abuse). Still, eminent domain is not exactly something that causes you to choose a sports team.

So what was it then?

My parents were Brooklyn born and they lamented the Dodgers leaving until the day they died. My father once told me the best Christmas present I ever gave him was a laminated and mounted front page of the Daily News the day the Dodgers won (the famous “Who’s a Bum”). The loyalty the Dodgers generated is unmatched in American professional sports (the closest you can probably get is soccer in places like Brazil, Argentina, Italy or Spain, where people literally bleed for their local clubs).

And it went both ways -- the players seemed to be a real part of the fabric of Brooklyn.

Could Jackie Robinson have happened anywhere else?

The famous praying for Gil Hodges?

My mother, who knew hardly anything about sports, 40 years later whining about Bobby Thompson?

People in my family crying when Roy Campanella died?

In an era before sports became the license to print money that it is today, the Dodgers were a money generating machine. They were popular beyond belief. They were not the Expos, getting 8,000 a game when the league average was 25,000 or the second team in a declining city like the Braves, Browns or A’s. But they moved anyway.

So I guess I get incensed with the Dodgers moving out is that was robbed and something that should have been mine. The Dodgers should have been my team. And I should have been able to join in to listening to the stories. The fact they were extremely profitable. The fact that the tore the heart out of Brooklyn.

So “Let’s Go Mets” but I will still wonder what I lost.

The Brooklyn Dodgers were more than a baseball team. They represented what was good, and even best about America. It is a mistake to think that Brooklyn Dodger fans are only incensed at losing their local heroes. Something very special died when the "Boys of Summer" headed for California. In a very real sense, not only has Brooklyn never been the same since this happened--but neither has the entire nation as a whole. Baseball is more a "culture," than it is a "game"--and nowhere was this more true than in Brooklyn.

[CaliforniaCajun]

I still think an effort is needed to put a major league franchise in Brooklyn, for MLB's sake as well as the sake of Brooklyn. Hopefully the community would want it bad enough to get it done if given the opportunity.

What I would really like to see is four 8-team leagues geographically aligned using the original concept: 22 games vs. each team in your league with the best record winning the pennant. Then your World Series would be two best of seven series.

To me, that would help create the environment that existed during the golden years of baseball, when teams were a more integral part of the community. This is the essence of what I read when people say leaving Brooklyn took something away that hasn't been replaced.

[MATHA531]

I still think an effort is needed to put a major league franchise in Brooklyn, for MLB's sake as well as the sake of Brooklyn. Hopefully the community would want it bad enough to get it done if given the opportunity.

What I would really like to see is four 8-team leagues geographically aligned using the original concept: 22 games vs. each team in your league with the best record winning the pennant. Then your World Series would be two best of seven series.

To me, that would help create the environment that existed during the golden years of baseball, when teams were a more integral part of the community. This is the essence of what I read when people say leaving Brooklyn took something away that hasn't been replaced.

Good idea but it won't fly...people are too used to wanting to see all the teams.

The NHL tried something like that for the three seasons before this one. They increased the number of games within the division to 8, you then played 4 games against other teams in the same conference and play against one division on the road and one division at home in the other conference.

It was a noble attempt to try to recapture the rivalries of the past. You should have heard some of the screaming from some quarters. There was a lot of crying from within western Canada how they would never get to see the Leafs and would see players such as Crosby only one every 3 years. There was also some complaints from fans they got tired of seeing the same teams so often.

Look, also the playoffs bring in money. I'm afraid they're here to stay.

[stejay]

The reason the fans were so incensed, is that there was still a large baseball market in Brooklyn at the time, and in fact, still is. I don't think there will be a team in Brooklyn any time this century though. The mets have burnt those bridges.

[CaliforniaCajun]

Good idea but it won't fly...people are too used to wanting to see all the teams.

The NHL tried something like that for the three seasons before this one. They increased the number of games within the division to 8, you then played 4 games against other teams in the same conference and play against one division on the road and one division at home in the other conference.

It was a noble attempt to try to recapture the rivalries of the past. You should have heard some of the screaming from some quarters. There was a lot of crying from within western Canada how they would never get to see the Leafs and would see players such as Crosby only one every 3 years. There was also some complaints from fans they got tired of seeing the same teams so often.

Look, also the playoffs bring in money. I'm afraid they're here to stay.

Good ideas take a long time to take root.

When I was a kid (famous words I'm sure), my team faced clubs at various stages of the season. In other words, everybody saw each other when they were hot, when they were cold, when key players were injured, and when key players were healthy.

I think you lose your identity as a league if you play certain teams only six times a year in home and home series one week apart.

If you want to make money in the playoffs, pit teams against one another who haven't played during the regular season. There were no doubts who the best teams in each league were because they demonstrated that over either 154 or 162-game seasons.

I'm an Angel fan. I'll forego six games against the Yankees and prove my mettle with 22 games each with the Mariners, Giants, A's, Dodgers, Padres, Diamondbacks, and Rockies. If I come out on top after 154 games, I'll be ready for the playoffs and there will be that extra element of excitement because I have never faced my postseason opponents before.

I guess I go back to 1968 as a treasured memory. Denny McLain won 31 games for Detroit and Bob Gibson had a 1.12 ERA for the Cardinals. That may be my favorite World Series (except the year my team won) because of the epic battle between the irresistable object vs. the immovable force. And what happened? Gibson proved to be better than McLain, but Mickey Lolich proved to be the World Series hero and the Tigers won.

The NFL has surpassed MLB (in my opinion but not in my heart) as the #1 sport because it was willing to merge with the AFL and create new rivalries and the Super Bowl is at a status that the World Series (I don't think) can't ever match again.

The sport that's willing to re-define itself and sell itself will emerge supreme.

[jnakamura]

The reason the fans were so incensed, is that there was still a large baseball market in Brooklyn at the time, and in fact, still is. I don't think there will be a team in Brooklyn any time this century though. The mets have burnt those bridges.

Imagine if they did put a team in Brooklyn--they would have TWO Ebbets Field-looking stadiums within 5 miles of each other. Talk about bizarre.

[CaliforniaCajun]

Imagine if they did put a team in Brooklyn--they would have TWO Ebbets Field-looking stadiums within 5 miles of each other. Talk about bizarre.

It's a tribute to the old Dodgers because Fred Wilpon was a Brooklyn fan.

What I'd like to have seen is for the Pacific Coast League to be elevated to major league status, because that way I'd still have my Angels and you'd have your Dodgers and the 154-game season would remain intact with a World Series arrangement between the three leagues.

[MATHA531]

Yes of course that would have solved the problem completely, however I see some drawbacks...

1. How do you declare a championship with 3 major leagues...do you go for a Wild Card? Do you do something similar to the NFL namely the 3 major league champions plus the next best 3 records...give the top 2 a bye, playoff the remaining 4 teams best of 7, then another round and finally the World Series..of course that might lead to two teams in the same league being in the World Series...

2. Also Do you have eight teams to make the PCL a major league...let's see LA, Hollywood, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle but who's your eighth team..I suppose either Sacremento or Portland????

[stejay]

Imagine if they did put a team in Brooklyn--they would have TWO Ebbets Field-looking stadiums within 5 miles of each other. Talk about bizarre.

It wouldnt happen now. 10-20 years ago, I would have said it was possible, if not unlikely. Now it's impossible. That would be quite funny though...

[VIBaseball]

Among other things, this article in today's NY Times quotes letters to Mayor Robert Wagner from Brooklynites about the move:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/sp...tml?ref=sports

It drives at what dodger dynamo and penncentralpete were talking about.

[CaliforniaCajun]

Yes of course that would have solved the problem completely, however I see some drawbacks...

1. How do you declare a championship with 3 major leagues...do you go for a Wild Card? Do you do something similar to the NFL namely the 3 major league champions plus the next best 3 records...give the top 2 a bye, playoff the remaining 4 teams best of 7, then another round and finally the World Series..of course that might lead to two teams in the same league being in the World Series...

2. Also Do you have eight teams to make the PCL a major league...let's see LA, Hollywood, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle but who's your eighth team..I suppose either Sacremento or Portland????

You would have to have a wild card, or perhaps absorb these teams into the AL and NL. Today with 300 million people (there were 75 million when the original AL and NL lineup existed in 1901), I'd go with four eight-team leagues which would eliminate the wild card.

[pgsuperfan]

It's a tribute to the old Dodgers because Fred Wilpon was a Brooklyn fan.

What I'd like to have seen is for the Pacific Coast League to be elevated to major league status, because that way I'd still have my Angels and you'd have your Dodgers and the 154-game season would remain intact with a World Series arrangement between the three leagues.

Yes I agree with you I am an old ANGELS fan. I saw my first ANGEL game at old WRIGLEY FIELD in LA. I can still see STEVE BILKO Hitting one out lol
The old PCL should have been made a third major league. This season here in RENO, we have a PCL club the ACES. They can trace their history back to the SF Seals and the current PORTLAND BEAVER team goes back the ANGELS. A few days ago I was out watching the ACES play the BEAVERS and I could see the ANGELS playing the SEALS lol But back to the DODGERS I just watched the BROOKLYN DODGER movie on HBO and in the movie they stated that O'Malley was trying to build a Domed Stadium on the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush to replace aging EBBETS FIELD and the city wanted O"Malley to build his stadium in Queens where I understand Shea Stadium was if that had happened maybe O'Malley would have never moved west. Also at that time LA was trying to lure the old WASHINGTON SENATORS(TWINS) to move to LA. Baseball history would be different today.

[Iron Jaw]

Yes of course that would have solved the problem completely, however I see some drawbacks...

1. How do you declare a championship with 3 major leagues...do you go for a Wild Card? Do you do something similar to the NFL namely the 3 major league champions plus the next best 3 records...give the top 2 a bye, playoff the remaining 4 teams best of 7, then another round and finally the World Series..of course that might lead to two teams in the same league being in the World Series...

2. Also Do you have eight teams to make the PCL a major league...let's see LA, Hollywood, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle but who's your eighth team..I suppose either Sacremento or Portland????

I would have just made another major league (divided into two leagues like the AL and NL) and played independently of the existing ML, with a version of the World Series within the frame of the new major league itself. With the existing ML all based from Kansas City to the east, a western ML would have probably done okay with the population explosions in California and Texas going on at the time.

[six4three]

I think the PCL clubs would have had to be absorbed into the existing Leagues. Three is, as noted, too unwieldly, and the prospect of playing a World Series without a representative from either the American or National League seems heretical.

And Portland would have been a must.

[Bobcat]

Mostly we all get incensed by it, but for many of us the Mets was a continuation of New York NL baseball, not the Brooklyn dodgers. Don't get me wrong I'm not knocking the Mets it's just they really are two seperate teams.
Some old dodger fans did continue to follow the dodgers (and all hated and still hate O'malley), Some became Met's fans, some stopped watching baseball all together. I was drafted in the fall of 58 and I like the dodgers were moved to California, me and the dodger players against our will. So I look at the team that way, I'm able to separate the team from the man. I saw the games in La during the 59 series, Hodges, Furillo, Snider, pee wee, Koufax, podres these were "Brooklyn" Dodgers. I stopped following base ball for many years after Gil Hodges retired. I don't hate the team, I hate their 3,000 miles away, I also dislike the way O'malley tried to excise "Brooklyn" from the dodgers that breeds more hostility. I think if an effort had been made to still acknowledge their roots in a more tangible way over the years, many would have a softer view point, Some still wouldn't. For years it was the team begins and ends in La that their was no connection to Brooklyn.
Then when they need to summon up their history to suit their own purposes oh, then it's OK to speak of Zack wheat, uncle Robbie, dazzy Vance (who has a number, is in the HOF and doesn't have his number retired by the team) and Jackie Robinson. The rest of the Time they don't know who these people are. I was hoping after the team was sold they'd re-embrace their past, well it's changed hands twice now and they move out of vero beach, yea, right. Maybe the next owner will try. You've got a right to feel incensed.
battlin bake, the dodger dynamo

Interesting in that I was listening to the play-by-play of the last game of the 1959 series an even Mel Allen referred to them as the "Brooklyn Dodgers" at the very end of the broadcast. Guess it's in the blood.

[penncentralpete]

On October 9, 1957, a headline in the New York Herald-Tribune placed a lingering fear into words that carried a dreaded finality, “It’s Official — Dodgers Go To Los Angeles.” Under the byline of Dodgers beat writer Tommy Holmes were the words, “The Dodgers yesterday took the irrevocable step from Ebbets Field to Los Angeles.”
And so it was over. The fat lady had sung; the song had ended; King Kong had fallen from the top of the Empire State Building; for Brooklyn fans it was the beginning of the winter of our discontent. The Dodgers had left Brooklyn. It was with melancholy, and sadness and depression, but not without rancor that the Flatbush Faithful bid their beloved Bums adieu. I was 11 years old, and to say the least, both stunned and heartbroken.

[penncentralpete]

The malice and resentment was directed at one man, and though New York City Parks Commissioner and “Czar” Robert Moses has been implicated in the abduction, it was eminently clear to the populous of the borough that one man only carried that responsibility — one Walter Francis O’Malley.

[penncentralpete]

The malice and resentment was directed at one man, and though New York City Parks Commissioner and “Czar” Robert Moses has been implicated in the abduction, it was eminently clear to the populous of the borough that one man only carried that responsibility — one Walter Francis O’Malley.

O’Malley, the president of the Dodgers, has been variously described as shrewd, congenial, and conversational to the point of manifesting a bit of the blarney. An astute businessman, he was outwardly candid, friendly and charming. Physically he was a bit portly, bespeckled and perpetually armed with a cigar tucked into a holder.

But he was often described in other ways. Branch Rickey said “he was the most devious man I’ve ever met,” and Leo Durocher derisively called him “Whalebelly” to his face.

[penncentralpete]

The malice and resentment was directed at one man, and though New York City Parks Commissioner and “Czar” Robert Moses has been implicated in the abduction, it was eminently clear to the populous of the borough that one man only carried that responsibility — one Walter Francis O’Malley.

He held court with convivial afternoons over drinks and poker at the Hotel Bossert. He grew to be a presence, the presence among his counterparts in the major leagues. O’Malley was considered to be a manipulator of people and events. In engineering the exodus of major league baseball to the West Coast, it appears to be a plan he had been nurturing for years, all the while “negotiating” with the city of New York to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn.

[penncentralpete]

On October 9, 1957, a headline in the New York Herald-Tribune placed a lingering fear into words that carried a dreaded finality, “It’s Official — Dodgers Go To Los Angeles.” Under the byline of Dodgers beat writer Tommy Holmes were the words, “The Dodgers yesterday took the irrevocable step from Ebbets Field to Los Angeles.”
And so it was over. The fat lady had sung; the song had ended; King Kong had fallen from the top of the Empire State Building; for Brooklyn fans it was the beginning of the winter of our discontent. The Dodgers had left Brooklyn. It was with melancholy, and sadness and depression, but not without rancor that the Flatbush Faithful bid their beloved Bums adieu. I was 11 years old, and to say the least, both stunned and heartbroken.

Los Angeles first began to be mentioned as a site for a baseball franchise in 1941 when Don Barnes, owner of the St. Louis Browns, requested that he be allowed to relocate his team to L.A. He believed that he had all the bases covered, including scheduling and claimed to have the necessary votes from the owners.

His request was on the agenda at the major league meetings and was to be addressed at 9 a.m. on Monday, December 8, 1941. Events of December 7 made the move a moot point, since baseball was not even sure of playing at all in the coming season.

Immediately following the dispatching of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Los Angeles was back on track as a potential major league city.