What if?

[tonypug]

What if O'Malley and Moses were able to agree and the Dodgers built their new park at Atlantic and Flatbush. WE all knew that the team that was together for ten years had to start going through many changes, and we would no longer be going to Ebbets Field. When the Dodgers left, we were bitter, but were left with pleasant memories of a winning team. Would we have been patient as our team went through the building process? Would we have been happy going to a Stadium that had room for 25,000 more fans? I am sure a lot of the coziness would have changed. Since most of us were just becoming young adults or as in my case approaching my teenage years would we have the patience to see a new team take shape. I am asking myself the same questions.

[kramer_47]

What if?

What if O'Malley and Moses were able to agree and the Dodgers built their new park at Atlantic and Flatbush. WE all knew that the team that was together for ten years had to start going through many changes, and we would no longer be going to Ebbets Field. When the Dodgers left, we were bitter, but were left with pleasant memories of a winning team. Would we have been patient as our team went through the building process? Would we have been happy going to a Stadium that had room for 25,000 more fans? I am sure a lot of the coziness would have changed. Since most of us were just becoming young adults or as in my case approaching my teenage years would we have the patience to see a new team take shape. I am asking myself the same questions.

I think it would have been just like the Yankee fans when they went through there down times, remember the Yankees after 1964, we would have survived until our Dodgers brought in some new blood. Then again the Dodgers won the World Series in 1959,1963,1965 and throughout the years have had mostly winning teams. So I think we would have been well satisfied as our old stars retired and the new ones took over. The main thing is that the Dodgers would still be in Brooklyn where they belong.

[brooklyndodger14]

Re: What if?

Hello everyone!

My name is Dennis (brooklyndodger14). The idea of Koufax and Gilliam prospering while remaining in Brooklyn coupled with the emergence of Drysdale, Roseboro, Wills, et al. into the 60's presents an interesting scenario. True, the core of devotion that was ripped out after 1957 would still be intact, but I believe an inevitable evolution would still occur.

The economic and social changes that took place around the Ebbets neighborhood in particular and Brooklyn and the rest of the city in general would have occurred anyway, and the construction of the proposed Atlantic Avenue ballpark (domed? Not likely, as the technology was still in the abstract as opposed to the practical stage), with its increased seating capacity would certainly have resulted in a trade-off of intimacy for revenue. Yet the fan support would certainly be there especially if the Giants had moved West on their own (even if we do know that Stoneham was always second-fiddle to O'Malley, and was thus incapable of original thought).

The trend in multi-purpose playing fields that originated with Shea Stadium's debut in 1964 would have occured earlier with the advent of the Dodgers/Atlantic Avenue facility.

At least it would not have been serving as a suspicious excuse for major office development that threatens residential neighborhoods like the current Bruce Ratner/Jersey Nets project is. I would like to hope so, anyway.

And the Yankees/Dodgers rivalry would still be very keen (I always thought Yanks/Brooks Series were always better than Yanks/Giants) and think of the extra Subway Series we would have had in '63, '77, '78, and '81! Or Dodgers-only Series as previously mentioned in '59, '63, '65, '66, and '88! (I think I would have still hated Garvey & Russell though, lol).

If only...

[Elvis]

domed? Not likely, as the technology was still in the abstract as opposed to the practical stage...

The practical technology was already there in the 1950s to build a dome. It wasn't exactly the dark ages. Brooklyn could've had baseball's first ugly, "Dodgerturf", multipurpose, bad-sightlined domed stadium in the late 50s. But it probably would've been outdated by the 1980s. Then Brooklyn probably would've had to fund another stadium.

[brooklyndodger14]

Got Dome?

Yes, you are correct that the technology did exist in the 50's, but as the first baseball application of that technology did not occur until the Astrodome (an internally supported framework unlike Atlantic Avenue's proposed R. Buckminster Fuller "geodesic" design that had an external support structure) in '64-65, was why I was stating that it was more "abstract" than practical for the time.

It is speculative on my part to say that issues such as winter weather (snow accumulation), and natural vs. artificial light to illuminate the interior (until Houston, no one had ever considered large glass-covered field areas beyond the size of greenhouses) would be among the problems to be addressed.

And I do fully agree that Brooklyn would then have been lobbying anew for yet another replacement ballpark.

The practical technology was already there in the 1950s to build a dome. It wasn't exactly the dark ages. Brooklyn could've had baseball's first ugly, "Dodgerturf", multipurpose, bad-sightlined domed stadium in the late 50s. But it probably would've been outdated by the 1980s. Then Brooklyn probably would've had to fund another stadium.

[kramer_47]

What if?

Here is what the dome stadium would have looked like if O'Malley and Moses worked out a deal.

[MATHA531]

But the question remains if the slime ball ever really thought this ball park would be built...the model came out long after he agreed to move the franchise. Imagine the Dodgers were hosting the 1956 World Series and the slime ball was entertaining LA city officials in his box and suddenly announced in early 1957 he was buying a plane for his team and also at that time he traded the Ft. Worth franchise with Phil Wrigley for the Cubs' LA franchise...surely the marks of a man who was leaving.

But I do know one technology that didn't exist and was not to exist for another generation. While O'Mally was telling us all that he would fund the ball park if the city stole the land from the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was illegal BTW under NYS law but let's not let the facts get in the way of a good story, the slime ball claimed he would be taking the Brooklyn games off free television and putting them on pay television all the better to collect the money to build his ball park...(incidentally for those of you unaware of this, throughout the 50's the Brooklyn franchise televised all 77 home games and 2/3 of the road games on free television as well as the 11 games played in New York against the Giants meaning Brooklyn fans could turn on channel 9 (or 11 for the games in NY) and watch their heroes in 138 of the 154 games for which the slime ball of course was collecting plenty of money from WOR making the attendance "slump" (which was happening all through mlb at the time BTW) almost academic.....

There never was going to be a Dodger ball park at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues and although Robert Moses was a terrible excuse for a human being, he was not the man most responsible for the transfer of the Brooklyn franchise.

[Elvis]

Is that kind of vulgarity really necessary?

[Elvis]

Questions:

If the Dodgers had remained in Brooklyn...

How would they have fared in later years?

What would the franchise be like, say in the 70s?

With the recession and playing in a dated stadium, either Ebbets or Dodgerdome, would they still be a thriving franchise?

Would the Giants still be in NY even if the Dodgers stayed? Would they still be in the Polo Grounds in the 70s? In Queens (Shea Stadium)?

What would Dodgerdome or Dodger Stadium in Brooklyn have really looked like?

Could the Dodgers and Giants have shared a new Municipal Stadium in New York? Would the Dodgers then be the "New York Dodgers", or the "Brooklyn Dodgers of Flushing"?

[MATHA531]

Elvis...

Many of those are good questions and the answers are:

Who knows?

The Giants questions are easy....they were history in NY...they had totally lost their fan base and would have probably have ended up where they belonged namely in Minneapolis it would have been impossible for 2 teams in the same league the way baseball is scheduled to share a Stadium.

The Brooklyn franchise may well have thrived in an outdated stadium...see the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox for confirmation.

Note that when the Mets have been managed well, they have been a wildly sucessful franchise too.

If your questions are to try to justify the transfer of the franchise from a historical sense, that still doesn't change that what happened in 1957 was almost criminal. We can only judge what happened from the sense of what was in 1957 and in 1957 the franchise was still the 2nd or 3rd biggest money maker in baseball everything considered even though most people knew they were a lame duck.

[tonypug]

Elvis...

Many of those are good questions and the answers are:

Who knows?

The Giants questions are easy....they were history in NY...they had totally lost their fan base and would have probably have ended up where they belonged namely in Minneapolis it would have been impossible for 2 teams in the same league the way baseball is scheduled to share a Stadium.

The Brooklyn franchise may well have thrived in an outdated stadium...see the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox for confirmation.

Note that when the Mets have been managed well, they have been a wildly sucessful franchise too.

If your questions are to try to justify the transfer of the franchise from a historical sense, that still doesn't change that what happened in 1957 was almost criminal. We can only judge what happened from the sense of what was in 1957 and in 1957 the franchise was still the 2nd or 3rd biggest money maker in baseball everything considered even though most people knew they were a lame duck.

Most of us couldn't believe that the Dodgers would ever leave Brooklyn. We kept thinking the hero on the white horse would come galloping in and save the day. O'Malley used that to his advantage, he kept throwing out words that gave us hope, all the while cementing his deal in LA.There never was a great outcry about the Dodgers leaving, we never believed it was going to happen until it was to late.

[MATHA531]

Towards the end, Nelson Rockefeller tried to buy the team from the slime ball and when he heard that, Mayor Poulson of LA was said to have remarked, "Here we are trying to make Angels out of the Dodgers and we have to compete with the Rockefeller millions." Note make Angels out of the Dodgers...had O'Malley been half a human being, he would have taken his greed and had the decency to leave the name and history in Brooklyn and called his carpet bagged franchise the Angels (actually O'Malleys might be a better name)...in that way I suspect that today there would be a Brooklyn Dodger franchise playing who knows where, possibly Coney Island, possibly Flushing, possibly Nassau County (Brooklyn after all is on Long Island) and all the bitterness would have been reduced to a three or four year period without major league baseball by a team called the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Alas the greedy slime ball didn't even have the decency to do that.

[kramer_47]

What if?

The Brooklyn Dodgers are the most popular team in the national league and probably all of baseball. They are the icons of baseball teams, never again will there be a team or fans like them, Yankee fans may argue but the Dodgers were the all time best. Here it is 49 years after they left and we are still talking about them. Ebbets field may have been old, wasn't it built around the same time as Wrigley field, but look at all the new fan friendly stadiums with character they are all designed with Ebbets field in mind. They may have gone to the new dome around 1960, and they would have thrived over the following decades, but I bet today they would have been playing in the new Ebbets field. We would have been watching the games on cable network DSNY with an occasional game on WOR-9 and Vince Scully would still be at the mic. No doubt we could have made it through the years in Brooklyn very nicely.

[tonypug]

But the question remains if the slime ball ever really thought this ball park would be built...the model came out long after he agreed to move the franchise. Imagine the Dodgers were hosting the 1956 World Series and the slime ball was entertaining LA city officials in his box and suddenly announced in early 1957 he was buying a plane for his team and also at that time he traded the Ft. Worth franchise with Phil Wrigley for the Cubs' LA franchise...surely the marks of a man who was leaving.

But I do know one technology that didn't exist and was not to exist for another generation. While O'Mally was telling us all that he would fund the ball park if the city stole the land from the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was illegal BTW under NYS law but let's not let the facts get in the way of a good story, the slime ball claimed he would be taking the Brooklyn games off free television and putting them on pay television all the better to collect the money to build his ball park...(incidentally for those of you unaware of this, throughout the 50's the Brooklyn franchise televised all 77 home games and 2/3 of the road games on free television as well as the 11 games played in New York against the Giants meaning Brooklyn fans could turn on channel 9 (or 11 for the games in NY) and watch their heroes in 138 of the 154 games for which the slut of course was collecting plenty of money from WOR making the attendance "slump" (which was happening all through mlb at the time BTW) almost academic.....

There never was going to be a Dodger ball park at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues and although Robert Moses was a terrible excuse for a human being, he was not the man most responsible for the transfer of the Brooklyn franchise.

Matha, you are right on with what you say. Robert Moses is a convenient villain, but he was not the reason the Dodgers were kidnapped out of Brooklyn. Whalebelly was the only person who could have moved the Dodgers, and he did so. Whalebelly knew that a ballpark would never be built at Atlantic and Flatbush, so he knew that was a good place to take a stand. This allowed him to put the squeeze on LA, all the while giving the impression that he was trying to negotiate with Brooklyn.One thing Whalebelly was real good at was manipulating people.

[Bluesteve32]

Towards the end, Nelson Rockefeller tried to buy the team from the slime ball and when he heard that, Mayor Poulson of LA was said to have remarked, "Here we are trying to make Angels out of the Dodgers and we have to compete with the Rockefeller millions." Note make Angels out of the Dodgers...had O'Malley been half a human being, he would have taken his greed and had the decency to leave the name and history in Brooklyn and called his carpet bagged franchise the Angels (actually O'Malleys might be a better name)...in that way I suspect that today there would be a Brooklyn Dodger franchise playing who knows where, possibly Coney Island, possibly Flushing, possibly Nassau County (Brooklyn after all is on Long Island) and all the bitterness would have been reduced to a three or four year period without major league baseball by a team called the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Alas the greedy slime ball didn't even have the decency to do that.

Please don't infer to Elvis that O'Money actually considered changing the Dodgers to the Angels when he moved the club to LA.

Do Brooklynites feel that Mr O'Malley and Adolf Hitler are dwelling in the same dormatory in the infernal regions reserved to those types of individuals?