How the Dodgers went from Brooklyn's darling to Los Angeles' colossus

CNN
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When New York Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres faces the first pitch of the 2024 World Series on Friday, he will have traveled about 2,500 miles to get there.

However, there was a time when any Yankees player could have gone to the Dodgers on the way.

Long before the likes of Shohei Ohtani, Clayton Kershaw or even Fernando Valenzuela, real estate tycoon Charles Byrne placed an ad in the New York Clipper looking for “intelligent men, not hard-nosed cornerstones who happen to have some skill as a player.” but whose habits and behavior make them unsuitable for thorough teamwork.”

It was 1883 and Byrne founded a baseball team – one that later became known as the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Baseball teams competed in Brooklyn as early as 1849, but Byrne was serious about the endeavor.

After convincing his brother-in-law Joseph Doyle and casino owner Ferdinand “Gus” Abell to help him finance a team, Byrne spent $32,000 (nearly $1 million today) building Washington Park, so named because there was a stone house in the area used by General George Washington during the Battle of Long Island in the Revolutionary War.

The team, initially known as the “Grays” due to the color of their uniform, joined the minor league Interstate Base Ball Association and began playing at a decent but unspectacular level.

But when the first-place Camden Merritts disbanded midway through the Grays' first season in 1883, Byrne snapped up the franchise's best players for big salaries and won the pennant outright.

It was a trick Byrne would repeat many times. After the Grays joined the American Association in 1885 – a major league alongside the National League at the time – they took advantage of the Cleveland Blues' misfortunes and took over their manager and a number of their players when the franchise dissolved. The New York Times called it “the greatest sensation ever made in baseball.”

In 1887, it was the original New York Mets' turn to be plundered – Byrne bought the entire team for $25,000 (nearly $830,000 in 2024 dollars) and retained the best players. He next set his sights on the St. Louis Browns, paying $19,000 (about $630,000 today) for three of their biggest stars.

In 1890, the franchise – now known as the Bridegrooms because six of its players married during or after the 1888 season – made its first appearance in the National League and again won the pennant on the first try with a record of 86.43.

Over the next 30 years, Brooklyn would win the NL pennant four more times. This would also make the team known by a different name. As fans began dodging the electric trolleys that had become a primary form of transportation in the county, the team was nicknamed the “Trolley Dodgers” and later simply “Dodgers.”

But with no more pennants in the two decades after 1920 and on-field malaise increasing, the Dodgers' reputation morphed from winning machine to lovable loser.

In 1939, sports cartoonist Willard Mullin asked a taxi driver how the Dodgers were doing. “Dem Bums are bums,” he replied, and Mullin’s subsequent “Brooklyn Bum” cartoon, which portrayed circus clown Emmett Kelly’s tramp “Weary Willie” as the personification of the failing team, defined the fallow period.

However, the following decade saw an upswing. After winning the pennant in 1941, the Dodgers won six pennants in a decade between 1947 and 1956, fueled by players like Jackie Robinson, the first black player in the modern major leagues.

In 1955, the Dodgers finally got revenge on their city rivals and became world champions for the first time. They fell to the Yankees in each of their last five World Series appearances.

Heading to La-La Land

The franchise was as successful off the field as it was on it – between 1952 and 1956, the Dodgers were the only team in the National League that actually made money.

Owner Walter O'Malley had his sights set on a new stadium to replace the 45-year-old Ebbets Field and approached city planner and official Robert Moses with a proposal to build one at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush, where the Barclays Center – Home of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets and the WNBA's New York Liberty – now sits.

Concerned about traffic congestion in downtown Brooklyn, Moses recommended that the Dodgers move to Queens, near where Shea Stadium was eventually built. O'Malley couldn't imagine the Brooklyn Dodgers moving to Queens, so he set out to move the team to Los Angeles instead.

Encouraged by the financial success of the Braves' move from Boston to Milwaukee in 1953, O'Malley saw Los Angeles, where there was no major league franchise, as the perfect location for a stadium and a new chapter in the Dodgers' history.

Not everyone agreed. Speaking to The New York Times in 2007, former Dodgers general manager Buzzie Bavasi recalled that a move was being voted on within the franchise's front office. It ended 8-1 against O'Malley and the matter was decided.

After convincing New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham to move to San Francisco to maintain the rivalry, O'Malley and the Dodgers announced the move on October 7, 1957. Six months later, the Los Angeles Dodgers played their first game ever, beating the San Francisco Giants 6-5 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

In subsequent years, Brooklyn won just one major championship in any sport – the Liberty's WNBA title, which the team won on Sunday. The Dodgers, meanwhile, have won another 13 NL pennants and six World Series titles.

Although the entire country now lies between them, the Dodgers and Yankees have maintained their rivalry, meeting in the World Series four more times before 2024, with each franchise winning twice.

While Ohtani vs. Aaron Judge may feel like a world of Pee Wee Reese vs. Joe DiMaggio, the Dodgers' goal this time will be the same as when the teams first met 83 years ago – to win. The Yankees are coming with them home with his tail between his legs.

These days, home is just a whole lot further away.