Look Dodger Fans ~ I Think I Belong In Brooklyn
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by LASportsblog
For more from Nate or other LA Sports Blog Writers visit LASportsblog.bravehost.com or LAFanblog.blogspot.com
By: Nathaniel Gordon
E-Mail: LAsportsblog@gmal.com
Look Los Angeles, I've been messed up in the head for the last week. Ever since I watched the documentary "Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghost of Flatbush" I haven't been able to get this weird feeling out of my heart. I have an unexplainable connection to Brooklyn, the gritty borough that now houses millions use to be a quaint group of neighborhoods on the western tip of Long Island; the first of three borough followed by Queens and Long Island respectively to the east. In 1913, on a single city block in the middle of Brooklyn Mr. Ebbets built his vision: a stadium for the team he loved and worked for from a ticket taker all the way up the ladder to owner. It was small, but it was his, and it was Brooklyn's. People flowed in on trolleys to see their 'Bums' in action - they were called Bums for losing through the late 20s and 30s - and when they made the World Series right before WWII it was the icing on the cake. Brooklyn lost to the New York Yankees in 7 games.
After the war Brooklyn became even more special, as a borough and as a baseball club. Remember Brooklyn is the only 'neighborhood' inside of a city to host it's own professional sports team, and the borough was blowing up. People came home to Brooklyn post-war and were eager to live happy and passionate lives. Living in this tiny area with apartments and homes stacked on top of each other, the Dodgers were a natural thing for the area to get behind. The kids played stickball in the streets and as one Brooklyn fan who grew up in the borough in the 40s and 50s described it: "When the Dodgers played you could walk all the way to the end of street and not miss a pitch because everyone was on their stoop listening on the radio." The community was tight knit and the players were beloved members and residents of Brooklyn. From Gil Hodges to Duke Synder they weren't just Brooklyn's Bums, they were the Boys of Summer. Destined to consistently make short work of the Giants, but also destined to be routinely sorted out by the Yankees in the World Series.
I guess the point of this little history lesson is I feel linked to this time period, and this team like I have never felt linked to anything else. It's nearly unfathomable that a 20-year native Californian who has never come within 1000 miles of Brooklyn would feel so strongly about what has become such a decrepit area. That is the magic of the Bums, what they meant to their fans, and what they still mean to them today. To be a Dodger fan isn't just about liking a baseball team, being a Dodger fan means you bleed Brooklyn Blue. Being a Dodger fan means that you will always 'Wait Til Next Year' regardless on how tough the previous year was. Being a Dodger fan means that you truly in the bottom of your heart love everything about Dodger Baseball. I have that love, I don't know why, I don't even care for baseball very much, but I got more love for the Dodgers then Shawn Kemp has for destroying Big Macs. This is why I get chills when I think about Walter Moses, the transportation commish for NY from the '20s through the 50s, building the super highways to the suburbs in Long Island allowing the people to leave and pursue the new 'American Dream'. How Moses, after building the path for the people to leave Brooklyn, refused to allow Walter O'Malley to build a new Dodger Stadium at the corners of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues in downtown Brooklyn, a location that was the transportation, cultural and commercial center of the city. Moses had decided that Dodger Stadium would go in Flushing Meadows in Queens on the sight of the World's Fair. This was clearly unacceptable, Dodger Stadium can't be in Queens! These are the Brooklyn Dodgers, Brooklyn lives and dies on the Dodgers, unfortunately the people who lived on the Dodgers had moved to Long Island leaving the team and the borough to inevitably die, unless the team moves.
Walter O'Malley doesn't want the team to die, he's a New Yorker and loves his team, but things were looking grim. Ebbets field which was once the site of legendary players, events and an unmatched atmosphere was now a dump. Too small to hold the crowds, falling apart on a daily basis and smelling like a humid overused portie-potty the stadium still only had it's original 700 parking spots, a far cry from the spaces needed for a team with a displaced yet passionate fan base. It was so much trouble to come to Ebbets Field that eventually the original fans who had moved to the suburbs stopped bothering to fight the traffic and parking hell in Brooklyn. The times had changed, and the Dodgers were stuck in 40s. By the end of the 50s a change had to be made, and it couldn't be made in Brooklyn, Moses and O'Malley were at a deadlock. Moses was sure that he could force the Dodgers to Queens, and O'Malley refused to commit that mortal sin in his own hometown. So O'Malley committed the sin the only place it could be digested and recovered from, 3000 miles away in Los Angeles.
O'Malley found his ideal paradise in Chavez Ravine at the crossing of the 110 and 5 freeways just east of Downtown Los Angeles. Here, he could build the shrine he felt his team deserved for a fan base baseball hungry in Los Angeles. The rest is history.
So here we are, 60 years after Mr. Rickey signed that lovable 38 year-old rookie named Jackie Robinson. 52 years since the Boys of Summer and Johnny Padres defeated the hated New York Yankees for the 1st time in 15 World Series. Nearly 50 years since Walter O'Malley gave up on the borough that had died to save the team that still lives on to this day. As I'm writing this I'm watching the highlights of Monday's Dodger/Astros (LA Won) game and My Boys of Summer all seem to be falling into place. Russel Martin doing his best Roy Campanella catching Chad Billingsly who's throwing heat like Don Newcomb. James Loney at first covering the bag like Gil Hodges and Matt Kemp running down fly balls in the outfield like Duke Synder. Don't forget the consistent Rafa Furcal posing as a Latin Pee Wee Reese. All the Boys are here, it's time for the ghost to come to life.
I sometimes wonder if I had a past life; a life where I played stickball on Flatbush Ave. until the street lights came on. A life where I interviewed Jackie Robinson just 20 minutes before a Giants game as a part of the Knothole Gang. I think it's possible, who knows - I do know this Los Angeles, if you don't love Brooklyn, and the Bums that they sacrificed for us... then you don't really love the Dodgers. If Brooklyn taught us anything it's that a fan isn't a fan... and a team isn't a team without that bond... that passionate love for your team.
E-Mail: LASportsblog@gmail.com
