You might have heard tell of a new arena proposed in Brooklyn, NY: the Barclays Center, the brainchild of developer and New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner. Assuming it happens, this would mean the first major league team of any sport in Brooklyn since 1957 when… well, you know.
A story by Evan Weiner in the New York Sun today, “Brooklyn’s O’Malley, Others Paved Way for Ratner”, takes an interesting look at the history of Dodger owner Walter O’Malley’s attempts to procure a new stadium for his team back in the day, then makes the journey to the huge 21st-century sports, shopping, and lifestyle complexes — exactly 50 years later.
Weiner spends an inordinate amount of effort talking about how little the move west of the Dodgers and Giants really meant in the grand scheme of the universe,
“…if you consider that the relocations affected only three cities: New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, the historical significance of the Dodgers and Giants franchise shifts is considerably overrated….”)
making me wonder if that were true, why is he spending so much time talking about it? Once past that bit, though, you realize the point he’s making isn’t so much about O’Malley’s move as about how the 1953 move of the Boston Braves to Milwaukee created a cascade of changes both in the way cities interact with franchises, as well as how that profoundly affected the later team movement — including the Dodgers and Giants.
The part about how the Whalers hockey team moving from Boston to Hartford, Connecticut, in the 70s resulted in the creation of the ESPN behemoth makes for some interesting reading as well. :)
SoSG Orel | 25-Jan-07 at 9:17 am | Permalink
Another nice find, Robert. We seldom see the Dodgers’ Brooklyn-to-Los Angeles move from a contextual, not sentimental, viewpoint.
Perfect headline, too. Relevant yet subtle, hip but not obvious.
(Can you tell I like headlines?)