Many times over the years, Carl Erskine has been asked about the staying power of his Brooklyn Dodgers. He’s always settled on the winner-gone-too-soon theory. But what about the other guys across town? Goldblatt, Andrew (3 June 2003). The Giants and the Dodgers: Four Cities, Two Teams, One Rivalry. McFarland. ISBN 9780786416400– via Google Books. In longer timelines beyond relocation, the different narrative arcs of the teams may have shaped their memories differently. Early in the 20th century, the Giants were a dominant force.

Especially the stadium,” said Mintz, whose group has regular video meetings, and more than 2,500 followers on Facebook. “It’s always, ‘Ebbets Field was this.’ And then the Mets build a duplicate of it basically, and then they sit there and tell you, ‘Well, the green seats (at Citi Field) are for the Polo Grounds.’ The Giants, I think in New York as the years went by, probably considered themselves third-class citizens behind the Yankees and Dodgers.” The team currently known as the Dodgers was formed in 1883 by real estate magnate and baseball enthusiast Charles Byrne, who convinced his brother-in-law Joseph Doyle and casino operator Ferdinand Abell to start the team with him. Byrne arranged to build a grandstand on a lot bounded by Third Street, Fourth Avenue, Fifth Street, and Fifth Avenue, and named it Washington Park in honor of first president George Washington. [4] Although the Dodgers lost the World Series to the Yankees in 1956 during which the Yankees pitcher Don Larsen pitched the only World Series perfect game in baseball history and the only post-season no-hitter for the next 54 years, it hardly seemed to matter. Brooklyn fans had their memory of triumph, and soon that was all they were left with – a victory that was remembered decades later in the Billy Joel single " We Didn't Start the Fire", which included the line, "Brooklyn's got a winning team." In 1899, most of the original old Baltimore Orioles NL stars from the legendary Maryland club which earlier won three consecutive championships in 1894–1895–1896, were moved to the Grays (Bridegrooms)After his removal as club president, Robinson returned to managing, and the club's performance rebounded somewhat. [28]

DeWolf Hopper, maybe. The actor,” Thorn said. “Hopper became famous for reciting ‘Casey at the Bat’ the first time in public, and then did it 10,000 more times. He was a big Broadway star. All the Broadway theater performers attached themselves to the Giants, not the Dodgers.” MacPhail remained with the Dodgers until 1942, when he returned to the Armed Forces for World War II. He later became one of the Yankees' co-owners, bidding unsuccessfully for Barber to join him in the Bronx as announcer.

The Giants didn’t “have what’s building in Brooklyn as far as, ‘Wait’ Til Next Year,'” Langill said. “It really led to a crescendo with the ’55 championship.” While the Dodgers generally enjoyed success during this period, in 1951 they fell victim to one of the largest collapses in the history of baseball. [33] On August 11, 1951, Brooklyn led the National League by an enormous 13 + 1⁄ 2 games over their archrivals, the Giants. While the Dodgers went 26–22 from that time until the end of the season, the Giants went on an absolute tear, winning an amazing 37 of their last 44 games, including their last seven in a row. At the end of the season the Dodgers and the Giants were tied for first place, forcing a three-game playoff for the pennant.

I’ve never thought about this before, but I can’t tell you off the top of my head somebody that’s going to wax nostalgic about the New York Giants, as far as somebody you identify (as),’ Oh, he was the diehard Giants fan,'” Dodgers historian Mark Langill said.

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But being Broadway’s flame was not enough to widely sustain the Giants’ legacy. Empirically, major figures of subsequent generations have written and spoken more about the Dodgers. Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote a book about them. Larry King was a Dodgers fan. Fred Wilpon, the former Mets owner, designed Citi Field as an homage to the Dodgers’ old home, Ebbets Field, not the Giants’ Polo Grounds of Manhattan. Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball". 2006. Archived from the original on October 5, 2008 . Retrieved 2008-09-22. When you say ‘New York,’ it could be New York City, it could be New York State,” Weinberg said. “But when you say ‘Brooklyn,’ it’s a defined, confined geographical area.” Meanwhile, non-stop transcontinental airline travel had become routine during the years since the Second World War. Teams were no longer bound by much slower railroad infrastructure. Because of advances in civil aviation, it became possible to locate teams farther apart – as far west as California – while maintaining the same busy game schedules. The first major-league baseball game to be televised was Brooklyn's 6–1 victory over Cincinnati at Ebbets Field on August 26, 1939. Batting helmets were introduced to Major League Baseball by the Dodgers in 1941.

But to Thorn, the teams were more defined by the sentiment attached to them rather than specific geographic location.Borzi, Pat (June 17, 2005). "The Giants Almost Headed Not Quite So Far West". The New York Times . Retrieved February 12, 2018. The next day, according to Johnson, San Francisco officials met with Stoneham. By then the Dodgers were looking hard at Los Angeles. O'Malley needed the Giants because National League owners, concerned about travel costs, would not approve only one team going across the country. In 1955, by which time the core of the Dodger team was beginning to age, "next year" finally came. The fabled "Boys of Summer" shot down the "Bronx Bombers" in seven games, [34] led by the first-class pitching of young left-hander Johnny Podres, whose key pitch was a changeup known as "pulling down the lampshade" because of the arm motion used right when the ball was released. [35] Podres won two Series games, including the deciding seventh. The turning point of Game 7 was a spectacular double play that began with left fielder Sandy Amorós running down Yogi Berra's long fly ball, then throwing to shortstop Pee Wee Reese, who relayed to first baseman Gil Hodges to double up a surprised Gil McDougald to preserve the Dodger lead. Hank Bauer grounded out and the Dodgers won 2–0.