Dodgers: Ghosts of Flatbush -- minus Scully

LOL How can you talk crap on the Brooklyn Dodgers of the late 40s and early 50s? Some of my family's favorite stories are about those teams, like this one...

1955, Dodgers vs. Cincinnati Reds. My father, uncle and grandfather are at the game.
Junior Gilliam hits a foul that literally lands in my grandfather's lap. This is before the days of crazy security, so my grandfather takes the boys down to the clubhouse, where they are greeted by the attendant.
Grandfather tells him about the ball and asks if he might be able to get Junior to sign it. The attendant says, "I'll see what I can do."
Five minutes. Ten minutes. 20 minutes. 30 minutes go by.
Finally, 45 minutes later, the attendant comes out. My grandfather's incensed, but still polite, which, if you knew Samuel Gold, is a stretch.
The attendant says, "Sorry, sir, the players were in a team-only meeting, and couldn't be disturbed. But it ended ten minutes ago."
"Sorry, Jim couldn't sign the ball."
The clubhouse attendant hands the ball to my grandfather and his two distraught children.
"But here's this..."
And he hands my father a ball signed by the entire 1955 Dodger team. Jackie, Pee Wee, Duke, Gil, Junior, Sandy, Carl Furillo, Don Newcombe, Johnny Podres, Walt Alston, etc.

Eight years later, my father's other brother, seven at the time, played ball with it and ruined it.

I wish this were the inspiration for the Sandlot, but it wasn't...just a great story...

 

New York baseball of the 50s isn't overrated. I mean ... the Dodgers and Giants accounted for six straight pennants on the NL side and the Yankees accounted for five straight on the AL side.

But I am so God awful tired of reading about how baseball in NY during that era is the God's balls. I hate how every era preceding it and every era after pales in comparison. I hate the perception that other teams of the era (early 50s Phillies, the Milwaukee Braves, the Cleveland Indians, the late 50s White Sox) were so allegedly inferior even though they really weren't. I hate the fact that Ken Burns' Baseball fellated the era in the guise of history, almost totally ignoring other massive factors of the game that were equally important at the time (franchise movement, which begot expansion, with begot myriad other things)

And as far as the Dodgers themselves being overrated, let's face it, they were the Atlanta Braves of their era, winning pennants in '47, '49, '52, '53, '55 and '56, while winning the World Series only in '55. I don't know if that makes them overrated, I don't necessarily think so, but I think it at least opens the door to the claim.

 

Very good.

 

Mr. Scully's "Gee whiz, nobody called" might be legitimate, but it's worth noting that Vin can be a complete diva.

 

The Dodgers of the 50s are not overated because not only did they play in 6 World Series in 10 years, they were so much a part of the community in Brooklyn.

To understand what baseball in New York was like at that time, read Kahn's "The Era, 1947-57: When the Yankees, the Giants and the Dodgers Ruled the World"

To understand what the Brooklyn Dodgers meant, read Thomas Oliphant's "Praying for Gil Hodges"

 

BINGO.

 

Man, I love HBO.

As far as Lasorda, he seems more L.A. Dodgers than Brooklyn.

Can't explain the Scully one. I'm sure he'd have some decent stories to tell.

 

Maybe somebody at HBO realized Lasorda is a fraud who would do nothing but talk about himself and how he got screwed out of a major league career because the rules at the time required the Dodgers to keep some wild lefty "bonus baby" pitcher on the 25-man in 1955.

Some kid named Koufax took Lasorda's roster spot and robbed the great man (in his opinion) of his career.