Musings: Dodgers win — but not here
Brooklyn Dodgers' Jackie Robinson safely steals home plate under the tag of New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra as pinch-hitter Frank Kellert looks on in the eighth inning of the World Series opener at New York's Yankee Stadium, Sept. 28, 1955. Credit: AP/John Rooney
The Dodgers win the World Series in Los Angeles, so there is no joy in New York, at Yankee Stadium and, alas, Brooklyn and Long Island. Here’s why:
The person to blame for the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn in 1957 for Los Angeles is Robert Moses — not the players, not the manager, and not even owner Walter O’Malley.
O’Malley wanted a new stadium to be built in Brooklyn, but Moses refused to grant his request. Moses wanted the stadium to be built in Queens so the Dodgers fans on Long Island moving to the suburbs could have easy access to the stadium with their automobiles.
Moses was the most powerful man in the New York metropolitan area, and whatever he wanted he got. Meetings were held with Moses, O’Malley and Mayor Robert F. Wagner. The mayor, though, was practically powerless, just a puppet whom Moses manipulated.
Each side refused to yield. How could the Brooklyn Dodgers play in a stadium located in Queens?
Finally, O’Malley told Moses that if he couldn’t build his stadium in Brooklyn, he’d take his team to California, where a state-of-the-art facility would be built. Moses couldn’t care less, and Wagner just let it all happen without intervention.
At the end of the 1957 baseball season, the Dodgers moved to L.A. The New York Giants, whose home was Manhattan’s Polo Grounds, made a similar westward trek and landed in San Francisco.
So the mayor of the largest city in the nation allowed two great National League baseball teams to pick themselves up and move across the country. What mayor in any city would let that happen without a fight? It happened because Moses was omnipotent.
I was 11 years old and a devastated Brooklyn Dodgers fan in 1957. So now the Dodgers are world champions — on the other side of the nation.
I still ache over this. Moses took away my team — our team — from what truly was their Promised Land.
— Robert Gelenter, Plainview
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