Before moving to Los Angeles, the Dodgers resided in Brooklyn under a series of different names from 1883 to 1957.
The franchise was known as the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers in 1911 and 1912, referencing fans who would dodge the electric trolleys streaming down Eastern Parkway and Bedford Avenue in the neighborhoods of Flatbush and Crown Heights.
Affably known as “Dem Bums,” the Dodgers only began to achieve MLB success in their later years thanks to the influx of stars like Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Don Newcombe, and Roy Campanella in the late 1940s.
Why did the beloved franchise relocate? Ultimately, the issue boiled down to a stadium dispute between former owner Walter O’Malley and New York City zoning czar Robert Moses.
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O’Malley purchased a minority stake in the team in 1950 and slowly began pushing for a new stadium. The Dodgers played at the 34,000-seat and dilapidated – but charming – Ebbets Field from 1913 to 1956.
He proposed a new domed 55,000 seater stadium where the current Barclays Center is – built in 2012 to house the Brooklyn Nets – but failed to get approval from Moses. New York Giants (baseball) owner Horace Stoneham was angling to move his team to the Midwest after seeing the success of the recently relocated Milwaukee Braves.
“I finally decided the only way the Dodgers could beat the Braves would be to make more money than the Braves,” O’Malley said of the relocation.
Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley (R) with former outfielder Carl Erskine (
Image:
Getty Images)
Moses offered O’Malley a joint stadium site in Flushing, Queens with Stoneham’s Giants where Shea Stadium – the future home of the New York Mets – would ultimately lie. The Dodgers owner said no and convinced Stoneham to move his team to California with him, thus preserving the New York City rivalry on the opposite coast.
Moses took O’Malley’s vision as an empty threat and refused to cave to the domed stadium proposal. O’Malley received the requisite votes from his fellow MLB owners in 1957 and swiftly relocated his club – the Giants followed suit. New Yorkers who were not Yankees fans were heartbroken: two of the league’s most beloved clubs left the same city in the same year. The Mets would join the league as an expansion franchise in 1962.
O’Malley was hated in Brooklyn for many years. A Brooklyn fan was once asked, “If Stalin, Hitler, and O’Malley are in a room and you only have two bullets, who do you shoot?” The answer: “O’Malley, twice.”
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