1962: The Dodgers return to NY for first time. What was the reaction?

[Steve Jeltz]

I have always wondered what was the Brooklyn's fans reaction when the Dodgers first came back to play the Mets in 1962? I have never read or heard of the type of atmosphere that surrounded the Polo Grounds as the Dodgers returned for their first series in NY in 5 years. Thank you in advance.

[donzblock]

Confusion. There were many Brooklyn Dodgers on that LA team. In the game I saw, the Mets lost something like 17-6; Frank Howard did well. Booing him was possible. I could never boo Koufax or Drysdale ar any of the players who had played in Brooklyn.

[Spirit of '55]

Friends:

Although I was very, very young, I do vaguely remember sitting in the kitchen on Van Siclen Avenue, the summer sun streaming in the window, with my Dad and his friend Irv, who were both drinking Schaefer, and listening to a Mets-Dodgers game on the radio, probably around the Summer of '62. They were discussing whom to root for. Strangely, my Dad asked me if I was old enough to remember the Brooklyn Dodgers. Hell, I wasn't old enough to go potty by myself yet.

I think he was planting a seed that day.

[penncentralpete]

Confusion. There were many Brooklyn Dodgers on that LA team. In the game I saw, the Mets lost something like 17-6; Frank Howard did well. Booing him was possible. I could never boo Koufax or Drysdale ar any of the players who had played in Brooklyn.

The Dodgers came into the Polo Grounds for a double-dip on May 30,1962. Over 55,000 attended (including yours truly). The Dodgers won both ends 13-6 and 6-5. Koufax won the opener and Larry Sherry got credit for the win in the nightcap. I would say 40,000 folks were rooting for the Dodgers.

[penncentralpete]

On the train after the doubleheader, the Daily Mirror's headline already screamed: "METS GET BUMS' RUSH"...........

[Spirit of '55]

I would say 40,000 folks were rooting for the Dodgers.

Friends:

So it went. I have to assume that the bitterness grew as the Brooklyn Dodger roster was mustered out of the Los Angeles team.

I was speaking with a twentysomething store clerk the other day here in Florida. He saw my lid and told the little Spanish girl (who was from Brooklyn and MISTOOK IT FOR A BOSTON RED SOX HAT, good God!) who was checking out my purchases, "Hey, Lourdes! Who are you kidding? That's a BROOKLYN DODGERS hat! You don't see many of those around here. Hey, Brooklyn's booming! Think the Dodgers'll come home, man?"

And the Caribbean home care assistant that comes by to do my shopping, etc. caught me watching a Dodger DVD---"Greed man, that's all it was. They have to go back to Brooklyn. That's their native country."

Both these people agreed---within the next twenty years OUR Dodgers will come home.

The groundswell has begun.

[DODGER DEB]

I, and my sister DEBS, were at those games at the Polo Grounds. The place was packed to the rafters. It is correct to say that most were BROOKLYN DODGER fans, as WE were (and always remained), but, WE came to see OUR BROOKLYN DODGERS, as individuals, and there was very little rooting for that west coast group to actually win, although with the METS of 1962 that was easy.

WE had seen OUR DODGERS many times since 1957, having been to Philadelphia when that team came east.....but, WE never rooted for that team to win anything.

I must tell you, though, it was a sad, sad day for US. What really got to US was seeing those two foreign letters on their hats and in a strange visiting uniform, but yet, they were home here in NYC. I cannot tell you how that tore at OUR hearts and souls!

c.

[MATHA531]

30 May 1962...in those days Memorial Day was celebrated on 30 May no matter what day of the week it was...it was the first visit of the Los Angeles National League baseball team to play the expansion Mets and as Lindsey Nelson, the lead Met broadcaster would say, "A holiday double header."

The Polo Grounds, boys and girls for those of you too young to remember, had the teams' club houses in dead centre field...and fans were there early...they saw Vin Scully come down the stairs and yelled to him, "Go back to Los Angeles you traitor."

(About a week earlier, the Mets had made their first visit to the left coast and were playing at Chavez Ravine Stadium when the camera panned to Lindsey Nelson who opened up a window showing Scully and Jerry Dogget saying hello to their "friends" back in New York...

I watched the double header on television, on channel 9 as the Mets had assumed the old Brooklyn Dodger tradition of televising all home games and 2/3 of the road games (a tradition that was to begin ending the following season when for the first time in NY baseball history, some Met (and Yankee) home games were not televised...

The first game was a massacre as noted by DD...Sandy Koufax was the winning pitcher...the second game was close throughout and the Mets pulled off a triple play (typical triple play runners on first and second and none out...line drive to the shortstop who threw to second and a big stretch by Gil Hodges at first base and umpire Tom Gorman, entranced by the moment, called the LA runner out even though he was really safe to complete the triple play..Frank Howard won the game for the Los Angeles National League team with a home run in the ninth inning and as noted Larry Sherry got the win...

Between games on the telecast, they interviewed some NL executive (I think it was a guy named Chub Feeney but I could be wrong) and Lindsey Nelson was giving him a little bit of flack about Warren Giles idiotic statement in 1957 at the meeting that gave O'Malley permission to steal the team from Brooklyn when he said, "Who needs New York?" and this clown tried to explain Giles was quoted out of context...really he tried.

And Lindsey Nelson, not an unbiased observer at all, noted several times that what was happening was that the fans were New York Met fans...not Dodger fans..

It was surreal so to speak..and the following weekend the Giants came in for the first time...I think the Mets, bless their hearts, lost every game on this home stand to the left coast teams.

[stan opdyke]

First time at Polo Grounds

I was a spectator at the Memorial Day doubleheader between the Mets and Dodgers in 1962. I am sad to say I don't really remember the day, though I still have the scorecard from those games. I actually remember the Polo Grounds from a Met/Dodger doubleheader I attended a year later. It is odd that I don't remember the 1962 doubleheader--- I was 13 years old at the time and I remember plenty of baseball games I attended before 1962. Too bad that Ebbets Field was gone by the time the Mets were born. Oh how I wish that my memory of the 1963 Met/Dodger doubleheader was from a great summer day at Ebbets Field.

[The Real McCoy]

I remember the '62 visit as somewhat of an anticlimax (I was hitting .350 as a cynic at the time). For a several years I had been pilgrimaging to Philadelphia for the Dodgers' visit to the crumbling ball park in the north end of that city. Actually, it was an easy trip, Penn Station to the North Philly terminus and, as I recall, a walk to the ballpark (of course, I was also an all star when it came to avoiding taxi fares). I had also seen the former Dodgers in '61 (first August Saturday against the Cubs) in the Coliseum (a bit of a longer pilgrimage).

[metfan13]

30 May 1962...in those days Memorial Day was celebrated on 30 May no matter what day of the week it was...it was the first visit of the Los Angeles National League baseball team to play the expansion Mets and as Lindsey Nelson, the lead Met broadcaster would say, "A holiday double header."

The Polo Grounds, boys and girls for those of you too young to remember, had the teams' club houses in dead centre field...and fans were there early...they saw Vin Scully come down the stairs and yelled to him, "Go back to Los Angeles you traitor."

(About a week earlier, the Mets had made their first visit to the left coast and were playing at Chavez Ravine Stadium when the camera panned to Lindsey Nelson who opened up a window showing Scully and Jerry Dogget saying hello to their "friends" back in New York...

I watched the double header on television, on channel 9 as the Mets had assumed the old Brooklyn Dodger tradition of televising all home games and 2/3 of the road games (a tradition that was to begin ending the following season when for the first time in NY baseball history, some Met (and Yankee) home games were not televised...

The first game was a massacre as noted by DD...Sandy Koufax was the winning pitcher...the second game was close throughout and the Mets pulled off a triple play (typical triple play runners on first and second and none out...line drive to the shortstop who threw to second and a big stretch by Gil Hodges at first base and umpire Tom Gorman, entranced by the moment, called the LA runner out even though he was really safe to complete the triple play..Frank Howard won the game for the Los Angeles National League team with a home run in the ninth inning and as noted Larry Sherry got the win...

Between games on the telecast, they interviewed some NL executive (I think it was a guy named Chub Feeney but I could be wrong) and Lindsey Nelson was giving him a little bit of flack about Warren Giles idiotic statement in 1957 at the meeting that gave O'Malley permission to steal the team from Brooklyn when he said, "Who needs New York?" and this clown tried to explain Giles was quoted out of context...really he tried.

And Lindsey Nelson, not an unbiased observer at all, noted several times that what was happening was that the fans were New York Met fans...not Dodger fans..

It was surreal so to speak..and the following weekend the Giants came in for the first time...I think the Mets, bless their hearts, lost every game on this home stand to the left coast teams.

Actually it was Willie Davis' homer in the 9th that won the game for the Dodgers.

[metfan13]

And Hodges has 3 homers for the Mets that day. One in the first game and 2 in the second.

[Pere]

I could never boo Koufax or Drysdale ar any of the players who had played in Brooklyn.

I have to assume that the bitterness grew as the Brooklyn Dodger roster was mustered out of the Los Angeles team.

Sure. It wasn't Brooklyn's players who wanted to move away. (I've been assured that Giants fans rooted for them over the Mets too.)

"Hey, Brooklyn's booming! Think the Dodgers'll come home, man?"

"They have to go back to Brooklyn. That's their native country."

Both these people agreed---within the next twenty years OUR Dodgers will come home.

I take it you folks know the song, "Sunny's Diner," by Tom Russell?

If not, look for it, and a word of warning... it has been known to bring tears...

[Pere]

I can assure you that although New York Giants fans were torn between the Mets and the Carpetbagging Giants, not one of us ever rooted for the Carpetbagging Dodgers.

Uh, I know. I was analogizing between the Dodgers' and Giants' fans' circumstances. I see now that my sentence construction was unclear.

I meant: when the San Francisco Giants played in New York against the New York Mets, former New York Giants fans rooted for the Giants, not the Mets... at least as long as the San Francisco team still included players who had played as New York Giants.

[keacla1]

1962: The Dodgers return to NY for first time. What was the reaction?

It is fairly evident from the posts of Brooklyn fans here that very few continued to root for the Dodgers after they moved to LA. I hope and assume that very few turned to the Yankees after the Dodgers left. Did most Brooklyn fans embrace the Mets when they were formed, or did they abandon baseball for good?

Keith Allen