|
|
| Re: Polo grounds shuttle was to be connected to Lenox Line (1182081) | |||
 |
|||
| Home > SubChat | |||
|
[ Read Responses | Post a New Response | Return to the Index ] |
|
||
|
Re: Polo grounds shuttle was to be connected to Lenox Line |
|
|
Posted by MATHA531 on Sat Oct 20 11:51:30 2012, in response to Re: Polo grounds shuttle was to be connected to Lenox Line, posted by Fisk ave Jim on Sat Oct 20 11:13:33 2012. ....actually Robert Moses made his position quite clear in a Sports Illustrated articvle in August 1957...you can find it on line by doing a google search on Walter O'Malley and Robert Moes.Moses goes through the whole problem of what he considered to be the Atlantic/Flatbush location, blames the Brooklyn fans for not attending the games (this is always interesting...through 1956 Brooklyn attendance led the National League and fell to third, quite undertandbly, in 1957 but was still always over 1,000,000 wjocj at tjhat time was considered the bellweather...draw 1,000,000 or more and attendance was fine...draw less and you were in trouble). Of course Dodger attendance always had to be understood in the context of the fact every home game (and 2/3 of the road games excluding the 11 in New York) were available on free like in free television (cable did not exist. O'Malley had looked into the possiblity of switching Brooklym ga,es tp [au tv but the technology was still more than a decade away). Moses then goes into how it would have cost the city $10,000,000 to prop up a private enterprise by condemning the land at Atlantic/Flatbush. He then goes on to the virtues of the stadium (eventually to be Shea Stadium) at Flushing Meadow. You can read the article and draw your own conclusions. But besides this, as noted, we lived then and still to a large degree, live in a Manhattan centric city and why should taxpayers in the Bronx, Staten Island and Manhattan support an enterprise for the betterment of the borough of Brooklyn. The only ally O'Malley had on the Bord of Estimate was the Brooklyn Borugh President who, by the end, had realized it was a hopeless cause. Where the questions come in is what would have happened if O'Malley dos not have the LA offewr in his pocket and I will give the devil his due to a small degree. I don't think Walter set out to move the team. Walter was trying to get as good a deal as possible in Brooklyn but, I do believe, once he had the LA offer, the team was probably gone short of kissing his feet and giving in to his every wish which in hind sight was probbly impossible. The example of the Barcley Center shows there would have been law suits up the gazoots on the eminent domain question. Could they have been won? Maybe but was Walter willing to wqait 10 years to resolve the issue. He had sold Ebbets Field and made it quite clear the Dodgers would not be playing there past 1960 no matter what. Of course, besides the usual bad guys we all know now such as Moses, Wagner and as I noted Admiral Yamomoto, add to that Warren Giles President of the National League and Ford C. Frick, Commissioner of baseball and a closet Yankee fan. When the National League in May 1957 at a meeting in Chicago voted to allow the transfer of the two NYC NL franchise, Giles responded in his best Marie Antoinette masnner, "Who needs New York?" Mr. Frick, charged with supposedloy acting in the best interests of baseball, responded when asked about the kids (like me) who were big Dodger fans, responded, "Le4t them eat cake...no it was let them root for the Yankees." But I digress. The Dodgers should have been moved at the time to the location of Shea Stadium, the 1964 World Fair would have been awesome and they should still be playing there today. |
|
|
|