As a born and bred Brooklynite losing the Dodgers to the left was devastating to the entire Brooklyn community which never really recovered. Whenever anyone brings up their betrayal my blood just boils. Yeah, teams move and owners (and players) nowadays show little to no loyalty to communities. But the Dodgers move was never because they were a money losing franchise. On the contrary, they just wanted to make more. O'Malley wanted a new stadium, and when the city seemed to drag its feet and then offered Queens as a site he simply packed his bags. Good riddance. I have a good time now watching the Dodgers lose. I enjoy how they've gotten the Puig and the "come late, leave early" fans they deserve. I especially enjoyed watching the Mets crush them in 5 last year. After all these years I still wish them nothing but the worst. Hold a grudge long? Not me.
The Dodgers moved to LA after the 1957 season. I was 12 (born in Brooklyn but raised in the Bronx) and living near Yankee Stadium and hating the Yankees. But I had been to LA twice in the 1950s (my grandmother lived in Pacific Ocean Park) and the guys who moved west were still Hodges, Furillo, Snider, Campanella (albeit he never played due to his terrible car accident), Erskine, Newcome, Reese, etc. I wasn't about to give up my team, my favorites. No one is left from the Dodgers that moved west in '58 except Vin Scully, Don Newcombe (who still works for the team), and Tommy Lasorda. The O'Malleys moved on long ago and some of Walter O'Malley's descendants now own the San Diego Padres.
Someone mentioned Eminent Domain which is intended for purchase of property by government for public purposes. But as is often the case the purchases are really made for business or other interests. A few years back I had a lawyer friend in Malibu whose father had been a very successful criminal lawyer. She told me that Los Angeles had used eminent domain to buy his property in downtown LA. According to her, it apparently was not developed for many years and is now the site of the Catholic Church's Cathedral in Los Angeles.
And then there's Vin Scully. I, of course, remember him on WMGM in NY doing the Brooklyn Dodger games in the 50s (with Warm-Up Time, the pre-game show starring Marty Glickman and, of all people, Gussie Moran, the tennis player). I know that Vin became a legend in LA (at Dodger Stadium early on because you could hear his voice announcing the game since so many people were using transistor radios). But, living most of my life in NY, Virginia, and Connecticut, I obviously didn't hear him that often except for when he, as I recall, did NBC baseball with Joe Garagiola. But then in the late 1990s, I had a friend working for the Dodgers and on a visit to LA and Dodger Stadium got to meet Vinny in my friend's office behind the press box. Finally, having moved to New Mexico in 2013, I get to see almost every Dodger game on TV, and have heard plenty of Vin Scully broadcasts. Interestingly, although he is certainly still one of the greats, he can drive you crazy with his unending stories about the players and the past. Over the years I've learned where almost every player in a Dodger game was born, how tall they are, how much they weigh, where they went to high school, where they went to college, their wife's name, their mother's name, and on ad infinitum. Vinny will come up with some amazing stories and details (my wife makes me turn off the sound at times when he simply goes overboard with details). One of my "favorite" Scully stories concerned St. Louis manager Mike Matheny and how he met his wife somehow because of bird poop that landed on his hat (I may have the details wrong, but you can hear him tell the details on YouTube). One time when Rene Rivera (now of the Mets) was playing for the Padres, Scully couldn't stop talking about his twins. It got to the point that when Rene Rivera comes up, we immediately joke about his twins. And those are just two of seemingly hundreds and hundreds of stories that Scully tells on Dodger broadcasts. If you've ever seen a Dodger broadcast from LA, you'll be familiar with his famous statement: "It's time for Dodger baseball" at the opening of the game.
Finally, just wanted to note that this talk about the Dodgers seems appropriate in this thread since Diamond DeShields' father, Delino, played for the Dodgers (and came over in one of the worst trades in Dodger history--he was traded to the Dodgers for Pedro Martinez in November 1993, a day that will live in infamy).
And here I am, a few years younger, with Vinny in 1998 (I believe) at Dodger Stadium.
