If you own a TiVO, DVR, or some other sort of legalized taping apparatus, you will want to seek out HBO's latest sports documentary, "Brooklyn Dodgers: Ghosts of Flatbush." It covers that team's history for the years between 1947 and 1957. It begins naturally with the debut of Jackie Robinson and concludes with the team's flight to Los Angeles.
The glory days of NY baseball were in the fifties. You had three teams in the market and both natural and territorial rivalries evolved. Of course, the Dodgers and the Yankees met a number of times in the World Series. As denizens of the National League, the Dodgers and the despised New York Giants to the north became bitter enemies, both on the field and more so in the stands. That hatred miraculously was transferred when they both jumped to the West Coast. It continues to thrive in pure venom to this day. But, I digress...
When I was starting out as a baseball fan in New York, your team choice generally was predicated on where you lived. Sometimes, there was a family tradition that was adhered, but, more often than not, it was location, location, location. The Yankees' fan base was in the Bronx, New Jersey, Manhattan, and Westchester. I am not sure what neighborhoods the Giants drew upon, but I am guessing combinations of the same areas, given that the Polo Grounds was a Willie Mays throw across the Harlem River from Yankee Stadium.
As for the Dodgers, they had Brooklyn all to themselves.
The borough was blue collar. A melting pot of virtually every nationality that ever migrated to America. And never did one team so closely identify itself not with a city, but a true neighborhood. The players actually lived in the area and, frequently, you'd find them walking to Ebbets Field amongst the fans. Where else but in Brooklyn would Catholic masses be said for Gil Hodges to hit his way out of a horrible slump.
It is all so majestically captured in this two hour documentary that I could actually taste the hot dog that I didn't have for dinner that night. I realized that I have been a baseball fan all my life, but never have I ever invested the type of unwavering passion that these folks did for their Blue Crew. it was baseball serendipity. Moments that will never be duplicated again. You can see and hear this from the fans interviewed. They all still possess gaping holes in their souls as a result of Walter O'Malley's move of the team to Los Angeles. This show presents with you whole new perspectives of that issue. While it's certainly easy to label O'Malley as the villain in the drama, it's also crystal that he wanted to stay in New York. He saw the neighborhood changing and knew that the team needed to be relocated. He wanted another spot in Brooklyn. Robert Moses, who was singlehandedly creating the 1960s skyline of New York, wanted them only to be in Flushing Meadows, very near where the Mets wound up. Stalemate. The true genius is LA Councilwoman Rosalind Wyman, who made the random call to Walter O'Malley and offered up Los Angeles as a possible home for the Dodgers. She had no idea the goldmine that she would be excavating that very day.
The only missing piece of this documentary puzzle is broadcaster Vin Scully, who was inexplicably not interviewed. For Pete Reiser's sake, the guy was manning the broadcast booth for five of the ten years profiled. At a screening, when asked why he was not in it, Scully simply replied, "They didn't ask me." Yet, bizarrely, Charlie Steiner is frequently shown as a former Brooklyn Dodger fan from Long Island. Okay, Steiner, now broadcasting for the Dodgers on the radio side, sits only about ten feet away from Vin in the press box. Whoops.
The love that Brooklyn had for its Dodgers is summed up by one fan's joke.
If you're in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and O'Malley and there are only two bullets in your gun, who do you shoot?
The answer from a Brooklyn Dodger fan? O'Malley twice.
Dinner last night: Back from Dallas for a spinach and romaine salad.
2 comments:
Apparently, according to an NY radio station that discussed (and loved, as I did) the show, Scully was approached and declined to take part in the show. I agree -- he would have been invaluable in offering some perspective. No broadcaster today is more identified with one team, and no one knows more Dodger history than our fellow Fordham alum.
I think the radio station was mistaken. Army Archerd of Variety spoke to Scully at a function and he's the one who printed that Scully was not asked.
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