The Last Good Season Brooklyn the Dodgers and Their Final Pennant Race Together (Audible Audio Edition) Michael Shapiro Brian Sutherland Audible Studios Books
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In the best-selling tradition of The Boys of Summer and Wait 'Til Next Year, The Last Good Season is the poignant and dramatic story of the Brooklyn Dodgers' last pennant and the forces that led to their heartbreaking departure to Los Angeles.
The 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers were one of baseball's most storied teams, featuring such immortals as Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, and Roy Campanella. The love between team and borough was equally storied, an iron bond of loyalty forged through years of adversity and sometimes legendary ineptitude. Coming off their first World Series triumph ever in 1955, against the hated Yankees, the Dodgers would defend their crown against the Milwaukee Braves and the Cincinnati Reds in a six-month neck-and-neck contest until the last day of the playoffs, one of the most thrilling pennant races in history.
But as The Last Good Season so richly relates, all was not well under the surface. The Dodgers were an aging team at the tail end of its greatness, and Brooklyn was a place caught up in rapid and profound urban change. From a cradle of white ethnicity, it was being transformed into a racial patchwork, including Puerto Ricans and blacks from the South who flocked to Ebbets Field to watch the Dodgers' black stars. The institutions that defined the borough - the Brooklyn Eagle, the Brooklyn Navy Yard - had vanished, and only the Dodgers remained. And when their shrewd, dollar-squeezing owner, Walter O'Malley, began casting his eyes elsewhere in the absence of any viable plan to replace the aging Ebbets Field and any support from the all-powerful urban czar Robert Moses, the days of the Dodgers in Brooklyn were clearly numbered.
Michael Shapiro, a Brooklyn native, has interviewed many of the surviving participants and observers of the 1956 season, and undertaken immense archival research to bring its public and hidden drama to life. Like David Halberstam's The Summer of '49, The Last Good Season combines an exciting baseball story, a genuine sense of nostalgia, and hard-nosed reporting and social thinking to reveal, in a new light, a time and place we only thought we understood.
The Last Good Season Brooklyn the Dodgers and Their Final Pennant Race Together (Audible Audio Edition) Michael Shapiro Brian Sutherland Audible Studios Books
I was eleven years old and broken hearted when the Dodgers left Brooklyn. Like most other Dodger fans Walter O'Malley became the focus of my anger over the loss of my team. I recall effigies of him hanging from lampposts all over Brooklyn and since those days I have harbored a hatred for O'Malley for depriving Brooklyn of its beloved Bums. I was wrong. The true villain in the move to Los Angeles was Robert Moses, a public official who was, among other things, the New York City Planning Commissioner. Giving credit where it's due, Moses did do many things for New York City and the borough of Brooklyn, building playgrounds, bridges, parkways, housing, parks, and more. But he also caused the Dodgers to leave. It turns out that the much despised O'Malley fought hard to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn and accessible to their Brooklyn fans. His efforts were consistently stymied by Moses, who wanted to build a stadium in Queens. It's not that simplistic and for the particulars of the battle between the two men it's best to read the book. O'Malley eventually got his new ballpark but it was in Los Angeles. Moses eventually got his ballpark in Queens -- Shea Stadium, home of the Mets. Many Dodgers fans continued their loyalty to the LA team, others abandoned baseball altogether, and a rare few switched their allegiance to the hated Yankees. In each case, however, Walter O'Malley was an anathema. The beloved Bums went from a blue collar team to a Hollywood team. But I digress. This book not only gives insights into all the intrigue that went on that led to the Dodgers move, it also touches upon the some of the players and fans. This is not the best of reviews and may do little to entice you to read this book; however, if you were a Brooklyn Dodger fan and have demonized Walter O'Malley for their move to LA, this book just might exonerate him to a large degree. Great book. Page turner. And I agree with the reviewer who sad that upon finishing the book they felt sad that it was done.Product details
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The Last Good Season Brooklyn the Dodgers and Their Final Pennant Race Together (Audible Audio Edition) Michael Shapiro Brian Sutherland Audible Studios Books Reviews
I listened to the games from Ebbets field since I was old enough to know... Red Barber was a voice of my years of sports and Vin Scully took his place with my Dodgers... Red went to the Yankees, and I didn't lol... I did tho listen to Bob Edwards especially on Friday Mornings... what a nice memory to have... this book has me in tears.. reliving that time of leaving Flatbush... but in 63 I was at the All Star game in Cleveland and got to see Duke Snider... Sandy and others... then eventually when in LA I was at Chivas Ravine... got to see them then. Vic Davalillo was a rookie for Cleveland and then he was with the Dodgers, and retired from the org.
As I turned the last page of this book I felt sad - sad that this great read was over and I was leaving my friends and their neighborhoods. Michael Shapiro has hit a home run with his look back at the 1956 Brooklyn Dodger season while also weaving in homespun stories of the Borough, its neighborhoods and residents. His blend of personal stories of the citizens of Brooklyn, the Dodgers themselves and the exciting, down to the last day of the season pennant race was a beautiful walk through 1956 and made me feel like I was right there experiencing the time as well as sitting inside of Ebbets Field watching Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider and the rest of the Dodgers and National League. A great nostalgic book about a superb time. team and town. I will be reading it again I'm sure.
A good look at the 1956 seaon and the O'Malley - Moses battle.
Michael Shapiro’s The Last Good Season looks at 1956 the year after the Brooklyn Dodgers won their only World Series. With the same cast of characters, the Dodgers spent most of the season chasing the Milwaukee Braves, edging them for the pennant by just one game. Ted Kluszewski’s Cincinnati Reds finished only two games back.
Facing (naturally) the Yankees once again in the Fall Classic, they ran into Don Larsen’s unlikely perfect game and saw league MVP and Cy Young Award winner, Don Newcombe, hammered in the game seven loss.
This book interweaves three stories First, the actual on-field play of the boys of summer.
It’s also the story of the changes in Brooklyn, as the ethnic makeup was undergoing a transformation. And that change played a part in the third story that of Walter O’Malley’s attempt to get a new stadium, leading to the move to Los Angeles.
Though getting a bit long in the tooth (Jackie Robinson would be sold, then retire after the Series), the offense dominated National League pitching, while Don Newcombe and Clem Labine started and finished wins. Perhaps because so much has been written about these fifties Brooklyn Dodgers, the actual baseball part doesn’t make up quite as much of the book as expected. There’s still plenty there, but it’s not as big a part of the whole as the title leads one to believe.
There are long passages looking at the experiences of Brooklynites and the changes going on in the borough. I found these to be the least interesting parts of the book.
There is much about O’Malley’s attempt to build a new stadium in Brooklyn, and about powerful New York City official Robert Moses’ lack of interest in helping O’Malley on the latter’s terms. Whether or not O’Malley’s domed stadium and site selection was actually feasible, Robert Moses wasn’t interested in facilitating the project. In the end, he tried to push the Dodgers into a site in Flushing, which a few years later came to host Shea Stadium.
Every book seems to take sides. While Shapiro isn’t particularly sympathetic to O’Malley, he clearly states, “In the end, Robert Moses is the bad guy in this story.” I happen to be in the camp that there is much blame to be assigned to both sides. But O’Malley wanted to improve his business, couldn’t get what he wanted, and went somewhere else where he could get it. That’s a simplified view, but that doesn’t make it any less accurate.
I think that this is a pretty good book about the second-to-last season of the Brooklyn Dodgers, with quite a bit of information on the power struggle for a new ballpark. One interesting tidbit is that Los Angeles officials were in Ebbets Field, wooing Clark Griffith of the Washington Senators when O’Malley sent a note down, saying he wanted to talk to them. The Senators, of course, moved to Minneapolis and became the Twins.
I give it four stars, with its strength being the O’Malley – Moses tussle.
I was eleven years old and broken hearted when the Dodgers left Brooklyn. Like most other Dodger fans Walter O'Malley became the focus of my anger over the loss of my team. I recall effigies of him hanging from lampposts all over Brooklyn and since those days I have harbored a hatred for O'Malley for depriving Brooklyn of its beloved Bums. I was wrong. The true villain in the move to Los Angeles was Robert Moses, a public official who was, among other things, the New York City Planning Commissioner. Giving credit where it's due, Moses did do many things for New York City and the borough of Brooklyn, building playgrounds, bridges, parkways, housing, parks, and more. But he also caused the Dodgers to leave. It turns out that the much despised O'Malley fought hard to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn and accessible to their Brooklyn fans. His efforts were consistently stymied by Moses, who wanted to build a stadium in Queens. It's not that simplistic and for the particulars of the battle between the two men it's best to read the book. O'Malley eventually got his new ballpark but it was in Los Angeles. Moses eventually got his ballpark in Queens -- Shea Stadium, home of the Mets. Many Dodgers fans continued their loyalty to the LA team, others abandoned baseball altogether, and a rare few switched their allegiance to the hated Yankees. In each case, however, Walter O'Malley was an anathema. The beloved Bums went from a blue collar team to a Hollywood team. But I digress. This book not only gives insights into all the intrigue that went on that led to the Dodgers move, it also touches upon the some of the players and fans. This is not the best of reviews and may do little to entice you to read this book; however, if you were a Brooklyn Dodger fan and have demonized Walter O'Malley for their move to LA, this book just might exonerate him to a large degree. Great book. Page turner. And I agree with the reviewer who sad that upon finishing the book they felt sad that it was done.
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