Posted on 05/28/2007 11:00:20 PM PDT by TBP
The vote was unanimous, and so Walter O'Malley of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Horace Stoneham of the New York Giants had permission to move their ballclubs to the West Coast. The date was May 28, 1957, 50 years ago today, and to some the idea was unthinkable. New York without National League baseball? Without the Giants of John McGraw and the Dodgers of Jackie Robinson? Without the most intense rivalry in all sports? It seemed like a dream, a nightmare to many. But although O'Malley and Stoneham claimed it was far from definite that their teams would move -- after all, they still had four months of bills to pay in what later would be called the Big Apple -- the deed essentially was done. And that September it became official. O'Malley, the Dodgers' devious boss, was responsible. For years he had demanded that New York build him a huge stadium in Brooklyn to replace decaying, 33,000-seat Ebbets Field, making impossible demands of Mayor Robert Wagner and parks commissioner Robert Moses. Finally, Moses agreed to let him have "a nice parcel of land" in Queens. "But then they won't be the Brooklyn Dodgers," said O'Malley, shedding crocodile tears. In truth, O'Malley had no intention of staying, even though the Dodgers were the second-most profitable team in the league behind the Milwaukee Braves, who had cashed in big after abandoning Boston. The vast Los Angeles area had only one major professional sports team, the NFL's Rams, and was sure to be a baseball hotbed.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Brooklyn should be given a chance to get back in MLB.
Move the Mets to Brooklyn?
Too late, they’re already getting a new stadium in Queens, right next to Shea.
I still can’t get over the fact that the Yankees are building a new stadium. Yankess Stadium should be declared a national monument. And I live in Philly!
Yeah, Brooklyn got the shaft when the Dodgers left, but it was inevitable...SOMEONE was going to jump to the lucrative, untapped California baseball market. Too bad it wasn’t the Phillies.....
Tehy’re building a new ballpark, Citi Field, on the parking lot of Shea. It’s a replica of Ebbets Field with a retractable roof. I’d like to see a third team in New York. I think it reduces he overwhelming advantage of that market. (It would still be an advantage, just one that you can overcome if you work at it.)
Move the Marlins there?
Citi Field, as I noted above.
BTW, the parcel where Shea and Citi Field sit is the "nice parcel of land" in Queens that Robert Moses offered O'Malley. And the site in Brooklyn that O'Malley had his eye on, at Atlantic and Flatbush, is slated to be the site of a enw basketball arena for teh New Jersey Nets.
Well, either the A's of the Phils were going. Had it been the Phils who moved, Baltimore would probably not have gotten into the AL. The Browns had previously flirted with moving to LA. Who knows?
BTW, when the leagues were first expanding, O'Malley threatened to use territorial rights to keep the American League out of LA. But the Yankees stepped forward and said that if he tried, they would invoke thier rights and keep the National League out of New York. O'Malley backed down.
And it was O'Malley who recruited Ray Kroc of McDonald's to buy the San Diego Padres and keep them from moving to Washington.
Is it something like the English girls game 'rounders'?
Girls can throw pretty hard.
Three MLB teams in New York? I’d like to get an NFL team for LA first.
Two-hour drive to the Chargers’ games (if the traffic’s good, which it never is)...
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