The Continuing Popularity of the Brooklyn Dodgers

Can anyone please offer some opinions as to why baseball fans, or at least Dodger fans, still have a facination with Brooklyn? Why don't the Philadelphia Athletics, the Boston Braves, and the New York Giants get the same kind of love? I have a couple of theories, but I'd rather hear from others, especially those who live in NY, Vero Beach, and LA.

Sgalope: It’s interesting that for your VERY FIRST POST on this site, you’ve asked a question about Brooklyn Dodger history. Interesting, because that’s precisely the scenario and the kind of question that my fellow Brooklyn fans and I envisioned when, more than seven years ago, we asked the Webmaster to create a Brooklyn Dodgers Forum. (The original version of this site did not have a Teams of Yesteryear section; the Brooklyn Dodgers Forum was the first in that category.)

He agreed, stating that one of the original goals of this site was to celebrate the game’s history...and to be a place where the fans of today could come to learn about that history.

For us, then, those early days became a heady experience. Through the wonders of technology and cyberspace, our small group of passionate Brooklyn fans were able to find one another and begin a dialogue about our shared experience all those years ago.

Our earliest threads explored the very question you asked…a question we had asked ourselves so many times in the past 50 years: What was so special about THAT team and THAT time that created the devotion and passion that has kept the memory alive for more than half a century…and that, until earlier this year, made ours the post popular team Forum on this site?

(Rather remarkable when you consider that there are hardly a dozen of us Brooklyn fans on this site who have a first-hand connection to the team’s history. We certainly could never have amassed over 20,000 posts without the contribution of curious fever members from all over this site who came to our Forum to learn and who considered us their favorite place to visit.)

We posted our thoughts and memories with the hope and expectation that our words would be available when people like you came to this site in search of some first-hand recollections about that unique piece of baseball history.

I would refer you to those early threads, but sadly, for technical reasons, they have been deleted. (You can review how and why that happened in the thread “Two Years of Threads, then gone?” in the Web Improvements and Site Ideas Forum.)

Your question is a vivid and painful reminder of how valuable all historical material is and how important it is to retain it.

In the absence of those early threads, I suggest you browse through our Forum, as well as through our Archives. I’m sure some threads will provide some of the information you’re looking for. If not, just ask.

In the Brooklyn Dodgers Forum, of course.

[KCGHOST]

"The Boys of Summer" by Roger Kahn has given the Brooklyn Dodgers a fame that is most enduring.

[crazyhorsesghost]

Some old traditions just die hard. I myself still wish they were back in Brooklyn but unfortunately all things or at least most of them do change. For good or bad. So I watch the old films of them I have of them from the Brooklyn days and dream.

[rrhersh]

Why don't the Philadelphia Athletics, the Boston Braves, and the New York Giants get the same kind of love?

As a point of information, there is a version of this with the Athletics, though nothing like on the scale of the Dodgers. See http://www.philadelphiaathletics.org/

[Urbanshocker13]

This would be better placed in the Brooklyn Dodgers thread in the team of yesteryears section at the bottom of the page. You will find allot of good answers there and good conversations.

[sgalope]

Can anyone please offer some opinions as to why baseball fans, or at least Dodger fans, still have a facination with Brooklyn? Why don't the Philadelphia Athletics, the Boston Braves, and the New York Giants get the same kind of love? I have a couple of theories, but I'd rather hear from others, especially those who live in NY, Vero Beach, and LA.

Some have told me that the Dodgers should cut all ties with Brooklyn, and that the organization only continues to sell Brooklyn memorabilia in an attempt to reach the hip-hop crowd.

All I can offer is that one has to be a true Dodger fan, as I am, to really understand.