Dodgers New Orleans connection

[Flatbush Flock]

I read today that Brooklyn trained in New Orleans in the early 1920s, and had a farm team in New Orleans during World War 2

[CaliforniaCajun]

Of course, there was a big Giant connection as well with Mel Ott hailing from Gretna, LA. Every time I go there on business I pass by Mel Ott Park.

[Jean Lafitte]

The Pelicans were a famous minor league baseball club in New Orleans that spent a few seasons as a minor league affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers. This is the best connection I know between the Brooklyn Dodgers and my hometown, New Orleans.



The other connection is that New Orleans and Brooklyn, to me, at least, seem to have similar "heart, spirit and devotion" to their teams. I know that the Saints are a football team, and that the Brooklyn Dodgers were a baseball team, but the unflagging devotion to an underdog team from an underdog fan base is a universal theme that appeals to me greatly. Finally, I know how Brooklyn must have felt when they lost their team . . . I've lost my city, and I may well lose my football team.

:ughh

[CaliforniaCajun]

The Pelicans were a famous minor league baseball club in New Orleans that spent a few seasons as a minor league affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers. This is the best connection I know between the Brooklyn Dodgers and my hometown, New Orleans.



The other connection is that New Orleans and Brooklyn, to me, at least, seem to have similar "heart, spirit and devotion" to their teams. I know that the Saints are a football team, and that the Brooklyn Dodgers were a baseball team, but the unflagging devotion to an underdog team from an underdog fan base is a universal theme that appeals to me greatly. Finally, I know how Brooklyn must have felt when they lost their team . . . I've lost my city, and I may well lose my football team.

:ughh

I've lived in South Louisiana 33 years and I think Saints have tested the loyalty of their fans more than the Dodgers tested their fans while in Brooklyn. They went 20 years before they had their first winning season. When they finally got their act together, they had a vanilla offense that kept them out of a Super Bowl.

In a sport with total national TV revenue sharing and salary cap, the Saints have no excuse to leave. If they think they are more deserving of a state subsidy than hurricane victims they are severely deluded.

The only way a pro sports franchise successfully operates in the grand scheme of things is as a good corporate neighbor in its community. Leaving at the worst possible time in New Orleans' history is the ultimate betrayal.

[donzblock]

I've lived in South Louisiana 33 years and I think Saints have tested the loyalty of their fans more than the Dodgers tested their fans while in Brooklyn. They went 20 years before they had their first winning season. When they finally got their act together, they had a vanilla offense that kept them out of a Super Bowl.

In a sport with total national TV revenue sharing and salary cap, the Saints have no excuse to leave. If they think they are more deserving of a state subsidy than hurricane victims they are severely deluded.

The only way a pro sports franchise successfully operates in the grand scheme of things is as a good corporate neighbor in its community. Leaving at the worst possible time in New Orleans' history is the ultimate betrayal.
That Mr. Bentsen (sp?) may be a bigger slimeball than OM.

[The Real McCoy]

They both make the group photo.

However, Bensen, believe it or not, actually knows slightly more about football (he finally got that it's four downs and ten yards for a first down) than his successor, John Mecom, an absentee owner from Texas, who hired a pal, an ex-astronuat, as his original GM.

What is it about Texans and the way they staff their administrations with hooples?

[Bklyn Boy since 1936]

Photo taken from Hunt Auction.
Description: Brooklyn Dodgers vs. New Orleans Pelicans die cut advertising display piece c.1941. Die cut cardboard display retains its easel backstand with colorful baseball graphics on the front.

[DODGER DEB]

Photo taken from Hunt Auction.
Description: Brooklyn Dodgers vs. New Orleans Pelicans die cut advertising display piece c.1941. Die cut cardboard display retains its easel backstand with colorful baseball graphics on the front.

Very nice piece, BB36!

Thanks for posting it.

c.

[strummer]

The really big and easily recognizeable connection bewteen Brooklyn and New Orleans is the very simlar way residents of each area pronounce (or mispronounce) certain words. -- (Toity-terd street, comes to mind)

[Melottfan]

New Orleans was a farm club of Brooklyn from 1943-1944. Brooklyn did train in New Orleans in 1921. Two players who made their mark in baseball, Hank Deberry and "Dazzy" Vance played with the Pelicans in 1921. Vance went one step further and made the HOF in 1955.

Being from the Cresent City and living in Memphis, I don't care for the shennigans of Tom Benson, who can move the team for all I care. My heart goes to my friends who lost a great deal when Katrina hit.

[runningshoes]

That's awsome.

I love stuff like that. :clapping

[VIBaseball]

The really big and easily recognizeable connection bewteen Brooklyn and New Orleans is the very simlar way residents of each area pronounce (or mispronounce) certain words. -- (Toity-terd street, comes to mind)

In the prologue to A Confederacy of Dunces, author John Kennedy Toole quoted A.J. Liebling's The Earl of Louisiana:

"There is a New Orleans City accent...associated with downtown New Orleans, particularly with the German and Irish Third Ward, that is hard to distinguish from the accent of Hoboken, Jersey City, and Astoria, Long Island, where the Al Smith inflection, extinct in Manhattan, has taken refuge. The reason, as you might expect, is that the same stocks that brought the accent to New Orleans imposed it on Manhattan."

Other Brooklyn Dodgers from the Crescent City:

Rod Dedeaux (1935; best known as the longtime coach at USC)
Charlie Gilbert (1940)
Fats Dantonio (1944-45)

[VIBaseball]

Rod Dedeaux really was a college coaching legend, as this USC obituary points out:

http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/11952.html

Apparently he moved away from New Orleans to L.A. as a youngster, though. I found that in his debut, on September 28, 1935, the paid crowd at Ebbets Field was a mere 184. It was the tail end of a mediocre season under Casey Stengel (70-83). The year's total attendance of 470,517 was good for 4th in the league. Sounds like the Depression was still keeping crowds down.

"Fats" Dantonio was anything but (5'8", 165 lbs.) Here's a link to a page talking about him and Charlie Gilbert from the book Baseball in New Orleans, with a picture of Charlie:

http://books.google.com/books?id=7FlvDCghEh4C&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=Fats+Dantonio&source=bl&ots=nVM6LWKbxM&sig=9ZJdXFrds7y97XeQeVWJzRjx_28&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result

[strummer]

Another college coaching legend connected tothe Dodgers was Glenn Mickens who pitched in the early 50s. He too was in California, but I am not sure which school.

[VIBaseball]

This is a fun story from New Orleans magazine about an old Dodgers farmhand from the Crescent City named Mel Rue. He played in the '40s and '50s. You'll see other Dodger-related names such as Branch Rickey, scout Wid Matthews, and coach Jake Pitler.

http://www.myneworleans.com/New-Orleans-Magazine/December-2008/Mel-Rue/