Why can't New Yorkerscome to grips that the Dodgers left Brooklyn?

Question

Mr. Walter O'Malley is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Mr. O’Malley was a smart Businessman who did what he had to do, so was Stoneham. Brooklyn was changing for the worst in 1957. Walter saw this. I would have moved the team as well. Robert Moses is the person Brooklyn Dodgers followers must blame as he drove Mr. O’Malley to move. Baseball is a Business. Brooklyn, move on!

Answer 1

Nobody cares about the Dodgers they all love the yankees and there 26 WS wins

Answer 2

Speaking as a Brooklyn native, I get the anger that many old school Brooklynites have for O'Malley. Yeah, he helped bring baseball to the West Coast, but he primarily did it because New York City wouldn't give the Dodgers a new stadium to replace Ebbets Field. The Brooklyn Dodgers were a big deal in Brooklyn just like the baseball Giants were a big deal in Manhattan. By the way, while I'm a happy Yankees fan, I probably would have been a Dodgers fan had the Dodgers been in Brooklyn when I was alive.

Answer 3

So if your girlfriend or wife left you for a richer guy you'd be ok with it? Heck, she's just looking after her own interests. Somehow, I think your emotions would override the logic and you would not be so accepting of it.

Same in baseball. The team owners who only had a financial interest in the team made the best decision for themselves (a decision they had every right to make and I do not question.) However, the fans only have an emotional interest in the team. Having your team just up and leave is heartbreaking and some have never gotten over the heartbreak.

New York baseball in the 50s is one of the most romanticized eras in the history of the game - the Boys of Summer; Mantle, Mays & Snider; the Shot Heard 'Round the World, and so on and so on. People who were not even alive at the time or who never lived in New York still say they want the Dodgers and Giants back in NY because it represents a return to more simple and more optimistic times.

Answer 4

Yeah, and can we imagine the stats if they still had Ebbets Field?  348 feet to left, 389 feet to center, and 297 feet down the right-field line, with alleys of 360 to left and 315 to right.

Not that I'm a huge fan of NYC baseball fans (but given the history, one would expect a decent number of them to be relatively intelligent), but think of the history that *could* have been made in NYC.  Hershiser and the '88 Dodgers w/ Gibby's homer.  Bonds (like him or not) hitting 73 homers as a NY Giant.  You think Fernandomania was big on the West Coast, try doing it with the NY media covering it.  Same for Nomo.  Look at all the Dodgers Rookie-of-the-Years -- Sutcliffe, Howe, Valenzuela, Sax (in a row) -- Karros, Piazza, Mondesi, Nomo, Hollandsworth (in a row).  NYC media would have made a LOT more out of that than happened in LA.

So, not to say that they shouldn't get over it, what's done is done, and all that . . . but sometimes the "might-have-beens" get stuck in your head.

Answer 5

I'm a Yankees fan, so it doesn't really affect me, and i understand that the change was needed but I don't know, it was cool, I'm an all around New York fan so it was nice to have 2 teams to fall back on and root for when the Yankees weren't on.

Answer 6

I'm wondering if you are throwing out the phrases you do so that you can answer your own question?

Plain and simple I would say that it was a love affair that Brooklyn had with their team, and that it ended in a way that the fans felt like they were blindsided.  Imagine it as though you were in love with some girl and then without any warning she breaks the thing off and moves away.  Never to return to you.  If you thought that it was true love then it's pretty hard to have to hear from somebody else that they know she did it all because she was simply conducting business.  How utterly used you'd feel.  Like maybe you were a chump.  But again, if for you it had been true love, it's a little more likely that you'd never want to let those memories go.  They're all you'd have left.

Answer 7

New York, New York

..."city so nice, they named it twice"

Walter O'Malley was the scumbag who turned his back on New York City, and moved "the people's team" to Lost Angeles.

I personally consider it a slap in the face to NYC that MLB allowed this bozo into the HOF when Gil Hodges "the big Dodger in the sky" still isn't there.

Answer 8

I wish The Dodgers and The Giants were Still in NY.

Answer 9

The first example of an owner holding a city hostage. O'Malley demanded a better stadium and when the city refused, he moved. Much like the Sonics of today. Ebbets Field was a bit of a mess and Brooklyn should've paid for renovation at least. I see the point in the fans being angry. Walter O'Malley is the easy target and has the most blame to take from them.

Answer 10

LIke the Bronx isnt bad now the nets want to play in brookly put the team back where it belongs lets go back to the good old days Mantle Snider and Mays. The city so nice they named it twice and gave it 3 baseball teams