Brooklyn Dodgers

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Brooklyn Dodgers

Established:	1932 (Moved 1957)
Former Team Names:	Robins 1914-1931 Superbas 1899-1910, 1913 Bridegrooms 1888-1890 & 1896-1898 Grooms 1891-1895 Grays 1885-1887 Atlantics 1884
Ballpark:	Ebbets Field
World Series Titles:	1
Pennants:	7
Division Titles:	0
Wild Cards:	0

1 Francise History
2 Playoff Record
3 Important Players
4 Stadium

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Francise History

Brooklyn was home to many early professional baseball teams, including eight of the sixteen clubs in the National Association of Base Ball Players. The Brooklyn Atlantics were baseball's first champions and first dynasty. The club survived from its founding in 1855 through at least the 1881 season; the club was not invited to join the National League in 1876, and failed to meet the requirements for membership in the American Association in 1882. The first Brooklyn team in the National League was the Hartford Dark Blues, who moved to Brooklyn and took up residence at Union Grounds until the team disbanded in 1877.

The club that eventually became the Dodgers was founded in 1883 and joined the American Association in 1884. They were first known as the "Atlantics" as a reference to the early club, then as the "Grays," and then as the "Bridegrooms" after several of its players were married around the same time in 1888. The club won the AA pennant in 1889 and won the National League pennant in 1890 after joining the league that season, becoming the first of only three teams to win championships in different leagues in consecutive years (followed by the 1948-1949 Minnesota Lakers and the 1949-1950 Cleveland Browns). The team had several down years in the 1890s -- notable only for the memorable nickname "Trolley Dodgers" in reference to the difficulty that the trolley lines caused for fans and players trying to get the ballpark -- before being revitalized by the sale of several players and manager Ned Hanlon to Brooklyn from the Baltimore Orioles. The team won the 1899 and 1900 National League pennants, by then known as the "Brooklyn Superbas" in a reference to the athletic troupe that shared their manager's surname, "Hanlon's Superbas."

By 1900, the Brooklyn club had merged with three teams. They had acquired the New York Metropolitans in 1888 and the Brooklyn Wonders in 1891, ending with a merger with the Baltimore Orioles in 1900 when the league made an effort to consolidate its clubs. Ned Hanlon expressed a desire to buy a majority share in the club and move it (back, effectively) to Baltimore. Lifelong club employee Charlie Ebbets blocked Hanlon by putting himself in debt to purchase the team and keep it in Brooklyn, and making a serious investment in the construction of a new ballpark to replace the dilapidated Washington Park. Ebbets Field opened in 1913 and served as the team's home for 44 years.

The Robins (as they were known at the time) won the National League pennant in 1916 and 1920 before going through a period where they were known as the "Daffiness Boys" for their somewhat distracted, error-ridden style of play during the late 1920s. After the death of Charlie Ebbets and co-owner Ed McKeever within a week of each other in 1925, Wilbert Robinson was named president of the team while he was still serving as field manager, causing him to lose focus on his work on the field. Robinson was eventually removed as president, improving the team's performance on the field somewhat.

Robinson retired in 1931 and was replaced by Max Carey. It was suggested that the team be renamed the "Canaries" after Carey, whose last name was originally Canarius. The Dodger nickname came back to stay this time, however (and good thing, because Carey only lasted two years). The team was also given its nickname "Dem Bums" in this period from cartoonist Willard Mullin. Perhaps the most notable part of the early "Dodger" era came in 1934 when Bill Terry, manager of the rival New York Giants, scoffed, "Is Brooklyn still in the league?" when asked about the Dodgers' chances at that season's pennant. Brooklyn returned the favor late in the 1934 season when the Giants were tied with St. Louis at the very end of the season with their remaining games against Brooklyn. The Dodgers defeated the Giants twice to knock them out of the first-place tie while the Cardinals defeated the Cincinnati Reds twice on the same two days to clinch the pennant.

One of the Dodgers' key front-office moves in this era was the hiring of Leland Stanford "Larry" MacPhail to the position of general manager in 1938. To Brooklyn, MacPhail brought Red Barber, the Dodgers' legendary radio man, with him from Cincinnati. MacPhail left the Dodgers in 1942, but not before breaking the New York clubs' agreement to ban radio broadcasts of baseball games, orchestrating the first televised baseball game in 1939, and introducing batting helmets with the club in 1941.

MacPhail also began the Dodgers' rebuilding movement, handing it over to Branch Rickey, who had some of his own radical ideas. Most notably, in 1946, Rickey signed Negro League player Jackie Robinson to play for the team's International League club. Rickey was a deeply religious man whose motives may have been rooted as much in morals as in business. Robinson made his debut on April 15, 1947 and stayed with the club for the rest of his major league career. Rickey was also responsible for bringing Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe to the club around the same time.

The Dodgers of the 1940s and 1950s resembled the earlier clubs in terms of on-field talent and pennants. Led by Robinson, Newcombe, Campanella, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, and Pee Wee Reese, the Dodgers won the 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953 National League Pennants, losing all five World Series to the New York Yankees. They also narrowly missed the 1951 pennant, collapsing from a fourteen-game lead to a tie for first place in the league and losing a one-game playoff to the Giants, marked famously by Bobby Thomson's home run, the "Shot Heard 'Round the World." (The Giants, of course, lost that year's World Series to the Yankees.) Long-suffering Brooklyn fans finally saw glory when the Dodgers defeated the Yankees in the 1955 World Series for the team's very first championship.

The championship turned out to be the team's last in Brooklyn at the end of the 1950s. Real estate businessman Walter O'Malley acquired majority ownership of the Dodgers in 1950, buying out the shares of Branch Rickey, and sought to build the team a ballpark to replace the aging Ebbets Field, which was at a point where the Dodgers could not sell out games even in the heat of a pennant race. O'Malley wanted to build the new ballpark in Brooklyn, but New York City Construction Coordinator Robert Moses wanted the team to move to Queens and build a ballpark that was not what O'Malley wanted. O'Malley began to think big, and discussed moving to Los Angeles with officials from California in case Moses did not back down. Served largely by the freedom to build a park as he wanted, O'Malley ended up moving the Dodgers out of Brooklyn after the 1957 season.

Older fans of the Dodgers miss the Brooklyn era and still hold a grudge against O'Malley for taking the team to California and for costing them Ebbets Field, even though relatively few fans were actually going to the ballpark toward the end and in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that the club won five World Series and nine pennants since taking up residence in Los Angeles. Additionally, a panel of Brooklyn buyers attempted to buy the team from the O'Malley family in 1998 to move it back to Brooklyn, but the O'Malleys refused and took a lower offer from Rupert Murdoch because they wanted to sell to an owner who was committed to keeping the team in Los Angeles.

For the history of the Dodgers since moving to Los Angeles, see Los Angeles Dodgers.

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