| Category: | Books |
| Genre: | Biographies & Memoirs |
| Author: | Michael Shapiro |
Review: The Last Good Season: Brooklyn, the Dodgers, and their final pennant race together
by Jonathan Leshanski
March 16, 2003
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The Last Good Season: Brooklyn, the Dodgers, and their final pennant race together
By Michael Shapiro
published by Doubleday
p. 342
The Last Good Season tells the story of the 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers, but provides much more. It gives us the story behind the scenes in the battle between Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley and the powerful urban czar Robert Moses over a new stadium. It also shows the role this battle played in Brooklyn, specifically, and New York City in general.
Contrary to the belief that O’Malley acted with nothing but greed when he moved the Dodger franchise to Los Angeles, the book details O’Malley’s attempts to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn and to continue being a part of the heart and soul of Brooklyn.
Today baseball fans, particularly those who visited Ebbets Field, morn the loss of what was one of the great stadiums of the Game. Built in 1913, it was a tribute to the game and the fans, with touches like terra cotta walls, an 80 foot rotunda of Italian marble, and a tiled mosaic of a baseball on the rotunda floor. It was grand and spectacular for its time, but it only seated 25,000 when built. By 1956 it had 30,000+ seats, but that made it cramped and crowded. If it were still around, no doubt it would be a landmark and likely would have found another purpose.
Brooklyn was undergoing a huge change both on and off the field in the 1950s. Off the field, the neighborhoods were changing and being transformed. This change was being compelled both by huge waves of immigration into the borough, and by the movement of the previous residents to greener pastures such as Long Island, where the US Government was guaranteeing cheap loans on homes since World War II ended.
On the field, the Dodgers were coming off their World Series Championship in 1955. They were a successful team, perhaps one of the greatest teams of all time, winning the pennant in ‘47, and ‘49, losing by a game in ‘51, and winning again in ‘52 and ‘53, before finally winning it all in ‘55. In 1956, though, things were changing. The Brooklyn Dodgers were growing old and younger teams were challenging their dominance.
It was a year of one of the greatest battles on the field as a three-way pennant race between the Dodgers, Milwaukee Braves, and Cincinnati Reds came down to the last day of the season. Off the field the battle was just as real, as O’Malley fought for concessions and a location for a new ballpark.
It’s a battle that would be inconceivable today. O’Malley was willing to build the stadium with his own money, unlike modern franchises who expect the municipality to build a ballpark for them. He did, however, need the land, and he could not afford both the land and a stadium. By today’s standards, it was a reasonable request, and Brooklyn and the City both wanted it to happen. However, Robert Moses, perhaps the most powerful man in New York, did not want to give anything to O’Malley.
Moses had his own plan, and that did not include a stadium in Brooklyn. His long term plans had a monstrosity of a stadium in Flushing, Queens. The stadium of course is Shea, named for the man who was instrumental in bringing National League baseball back to New York. It was the last offer that Walter O’Malley was given, but even then it came at a price steeper than what he wanted to pay.
While New York and Robert Moses demanded concessions from Walter O’Malley, Los Angeles was giving them. Los Angeles was trying hard to woo a Major League team, any Major league team, to their metropolis. For a realist, it’s hard to imagine that O’Malley and the Dodgers could have stayed, and perhaps that was due in part to tactical mistakes that O’Malley made in his negotiations.
Still, when O’Malley and the Dodgers departed Brooklyn, they left the city stunned, and a little less proud. This is a wound that today has not fully healed. Older fans still talk of the Duke, Pee Wee, Robinson, Erskine, Newcomb and others.
Michael Shapiro tells a compelling story, not just about the on-field challenges of a truly great team, but of the highs and the lows of playing for a team during the battle for a pennant. And during all of this, a bigger battle is being waged, and lost, behind the scenes. In the end, O’Malley, the Dodgers and Los Angeles came up winners, and Brooklyn and the fans came up on the short end of the stick.
It’s a fascinating story, and one which should be heard by all fans of the game who’ve ever wondered about its history. It is the story of how baseball changed forever and how the nation’s pastime truly began to embrace the whole nation, not just half the country.
This is a good read which will fascinate more than just the fans of the Dodgers or those who remember old time baseball in NY. Give this book 3 out of 4 balls because of its wonderful depth and its revealing look at a baseball story which never made the papers.
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Our Rating System is based on a four ball system as follows:
One Ball: Average. It has something to say but is nothing special.
Two Balls: Something men usually have - also means its a cut above average, and worth reading/owning.
Three balls: Stands out from its peers and is highly recommended.
Four Balls: More than just what two men have when hanging out together, it means it is an exceptional book that truly earns a walk - straight to the local book store to get a copy.
