Failure™ Magazine

Stay It Ain’t So

Could New York have done more to keep the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants?

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under Sports

Take me back to 1956-57. Did Dodgers fans recognize that their team was going to move?
I think most Dodgers fans had a fatalistic attitude. They recognized that O’Malley was going to go where he could make more money and that they were going to lose their team. In April 1957 they started the Keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn committee, but for the most part they treated it like any other season. Attendance didn’t spike in that last year. I don’t think they felt it would make any difference.

Which team was missed more, the Giants or Dodgers?
The answer is the Dodgers. Being that they were the Brooklyn Dodgers they were more closely associated with their fans than other teams. They were the only thing that presented Brooklyn—by itself—on a national stage. But this is not to underestimate how much the Giants were missed.

Tell me about O’Malley’s dream park. Did he really envision a domed stadium in Brooklyn back in the early 1950s?
Definitely. O’Malley was very forward looking and he envisioned things that other people in the game didn’t. He understood the value of a domed stadium, because he was concerned about the amount of money he lost from rained out ballgames. But as wise as O’Malley was about modern baseball facilities, maybe if he got the stadium he wanted—a domed stadium—that would have backfired, because there hasn’t been a domed stadium that has been an attractive place for baseball. On the other hand, a dome in Brooklyn might have been considered so revolutionary that it would have been considered a wonder of the world.

See also: Going, Going, Gone: For fans of defunct baseball teams, the future ain’t what it used to be.

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