My generation sucks

[55 chmps]

Now, I'm not one to complain, or anything like that, but it's really hard to be 14 yearz old and have an infatuation with the Brooklyn Dodgers when no one knows that there was baseball in Brooklyn. Now I would lyk to know, this is directed to the younger people, if any one has this problem and I'd like to discuss it with you. Thanx a bunch

[runningshoes]

That's ok. The Dodgers need a guy like you around to keep the team alive. Your at an age where you can become a leading authority on the team's history and carry on the legacy of the folks here.

[56 chmps]

Tell me about it considering ur my cousin and we r the only 2 people who are 14 and know something about baseball history its get old when we have to go to our relatives to talk to them about baseball and we still no more so yes i agree our generation does SUC!!!!!!

[Gotham]

It is sad. I am not picking on the posters here, but your spelling is atrocious. I think E-Mail is hurting our kids more than we knew.

[Elvis]

He spelled Brooklyn right. Thatz al thet cownts.

[runningshoes]

Originally Posted by Gotham

It is sad. I am not picking on the posters here, but your spelling is atrocious. I think E-Mail is hurting our kids more than we knew.

They know how to spell. That's the way kids write these days. They're creating their own grammar.

Originally Posted by runningshoes53

They know how to spell. That's the way kids write these days. They're creating their own grammar.

It is the same in Dutch. Children use abreviations in normal language, that they use with MSN or SMS as well. IMO it is a devaluation of your language.

But nevertheless I think it is a good thing that a 14 year old loves the Brooklyn Dodgers.

[donzblock]

Originally Posted by runningshoes53

They know how to spell. That's the way kids write these days. They're creating their own grammar.

No, they do not know how to spell. As for "creating their own grammar," that is a euphemism for "being ungrammatical." And the title of this thread reminds me of the Japanese version of an ad for an American vacuum cleaner: "Nothing sux like Electrolux."

Should a 14-year-old be overly concerned about the fact that it is difficult for him to be infatuated with the Brooklyn Dodgers? Since 55 chmps clearly understands his predicament, he should be able to deal with his pain painlessly. I suspect he will be able to indulge himself even if he does not know anybody who shares his interests. I collect hardcovers published by Ballantine from 1952 to 1961. There is only one other person in this universe with a similar affliction, and he does not like to talk about it. In addition, this hobby is quite dangerous; two other Ballantine collectors I knew died young. Nevertheless, my enthusiasm remains at fever pitch.

[Gotham]

In addition, this hobby is quite dangerous; two other Ballantine collectors I knew died young. Nevertheless, my enthusiasm remains at fever pitch.[/quote]


This reminds me of the Curse of the Mummies Tomb. Which, come to think of it, might be a Ballantine title itself. Maybe the old books are producing a killer spore!! Burn your books, quickly!!!!!

[56 chmps]

Originally Posted by Gotham

It is sad. I am not picking on the posters here, but your spelling is atrocious. I think E-Mail is hurting our kids more than we knew.

O i m soooooo sry 4 u Gotham. I will type bttr just 4 u bud. But u missd the pnt of the thread . Thats a dam shame.

[chiefpaddy]

55 chmps. Every movement starts with one or two people. Get yourself a Brooklyn Dodger cap and shirt, start wearing them, people start asking questions and there you go. One of the great things about baseball is it's history,and the Brooklyn Dodgers are part of that great history.

[Bluesteve32]

Originally Posted by Gotham

It is sad. I am not picking on the posters here, but your spelling is atrocious. I think E-Mail is hurting our kids more than we knew.

I have noticed that many of the younger people have a tendacy to use chatroom spelling on the message boards. Some of the "kidz" don't understand the proper etiquette. Cut them a break as most kids wou't even see movies made before they were born, much less black and white movies. I have kids about 10 year ago who never heard of John Wayne.

[Gotham]

Originally Posted by 56 chmps

O i m soooooo sry 4 u Gotham. I will type bttr just 4 u bud. But u missd the pnt of the thread . Thats a dam shame.

Great, a smart mouthed kid. How refreshing.

[55 chmps]

Originally Posted by chiefpaddy

55 chmps. Every movement starts with one or two people. Get yourself a Brooklyn Dodger cap and shirt, start wearing them, people start asking questions and there you go. One of the great things about baseball is it's history,and the Brooklyn Dodgers are part of that great history.

I mean that's a good idea chiefpaddy, but the problem is no one gives a damn if you have a Brooklyn emblem on your shirt or hat. The only question I do get about my Dodger stuff is usually from Yankee fans and it's usually "Is that a Red Sox hat?" They don't know anything about this stuff. That's what i'm tryin to get across.

[Bluesteve32]

Originally Posted by 56 chmps

O i m soooooo sry 4 u Gotham. I will type bttr just 4 u bud. But u missd the pnt of the thread . Thats a dam shame.

Perhaps, but when you don't use the King's English, your credibility is compromised.

I am glad you guys are understanding the nostalgia and history of the game and the Brooklyn Dodgers. However, you must understand that many expect the proper (a spelling or typo here and there is understandable) English is the norm. We have several younger posters that hold their own, but they post in standard English.

Don't be scared off by some, good luck in learning about the past of this wonderful game.

[Elvis]

They know how to spell, otherwise, the hard words would've been misspelled, not the easy ones.

I think some of you have forgotten what it was like being 15.

[chiefpaddy]

Originally Posted by 55 chmps

I mean that's a good idea chiefpaddy, but the problem is no one gives a damn if you have a Brooklyn emblem on your shirt or hat. The only question I do get about my Dodger stuff is usually from Yankee fans and it's usually "Is that a Red Sox hat?" They don't know anything about this stuff. That's what i'm tryin to get across.

Keep enjoying your passion and don't lose faith. It's young folks like you, who will keep alive the memory of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

[ColtscorrAL]

My son's 15. The first hat he got when he was a baby was a Brooklyn Dodgers hat. When he wanted to know who these Brooklyn Dodgers were, I let him read my books. He still refers to BUMS when he wants some info. It's nice to know some kids, my sons age, enjoy the history of Baseball.

[MATHA531]

The problem with your generation is they are constantly being fed lies on what happened in 1957 and why the Dodgers no longer play in Brooklyn. They are told that Walter O'Malley (better known as the slime ball) was a wonderful human being who wanted to give Brooklyn a state of the art baseball stadium but a greedy miserable politician named Robert Moses prevented him from doing so and because Ebbets Field was crumbling, he was in danger of losing money and so was forced to move the franchise to Los Angeles as Brooklyn could no longer support major league baseball. Nothing is further from the truth.

Here are the facts that you should be aware of and never forget.

1. In the 11 year period from 1947 to 1957, the Brooklyn Dodgers were the 2nd biggest money maker in baseball.

2. Even in their lame duck year of 1957, they drew over a million to Ebbets Field which was considered at that time the barrier between good attendance and excellent attendance. Only the Milwaukee Braves were outdrawing them and we all know in retrospect that was a fluke.

a. This despite the fact that every single home game (and 2/3 of the road games) were on free television.

b. This despite the fact they had many promotions such as Ladies Day every Saturday where women were admitted to Ebbets Field for 50¢, knothole game promotions with cub scout packs and other young people organizations in Brooklyn, promotions with the Borden milk company where you sent in a bunch of Elsie Borden wrappers and got 2 free general admission tickets etc. None of these counted in paid attendance.

3. The slime ball expected the City of New York to break New York State law and condemn property of a private organization, in this case the Pennsylvania Railroad Company which owned the Long Island Rail Road at the time, and hand it over to him. NYS law would not permit the condemnation of private property for use by another private organiztion. While Robert Moses was hardly a knight in shining armour, in this case he was clearly right. He (the City) would either have had to pay a very inflated price or it would have been tied up in the courts for a decade. Incidentally, there are rumours the slime ball owned Pennsylvania Rail Road stock whose value obviously would have increased tremendously. Draw your own conclusions. Incidentally it would have been necessary to build a spur from the Brooklyn Queens Expressway to the ball part. Who was going to pay for that?

4. Ebbets Field was younger than Wrigley Field and Fenway Park among other ball parks of that era. It was not crumbling...last time I checked both Wrigley and Fenway were still going strong.

5. The slime ball's plan to finance his state of the art ball park was to take the games off free television and put them on pay television; despte the fact the technology did not exist at the time.

6. In 1957, baseball was supposedly a civic responsibility. Almost every owner was making far less than the slime ball yet they didn't pull this garbage in their cities. Can you imagine true sportsmen like Wrigley, Carpenter and others pulling this garbage even though the teams in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and Cincinnati were making far less money than the slime ball?

7. Baseball always considered Brooklyn a different market than New York. During the 1950's in the 2 team cities, the schedule was always set up so when one team was home, the other was on the road. The Cubs were never home when the White Sox were, the Giants were never home when the Yankees were. But Brooklyn was always home against either the Giants or the Yankees so the Brooklyn territory was a separate city and of course by itself, Brooklyn was then the 3rd biggest city in the country and I think today it is the fourth.

8. The theft of the Brooklyn franchise was the first time a sucessful team making money was transferred and it was also the first time a franchise shift made a 1 team city a 0 team city; the other franchise shifts in the 1950's involving Boston, St. Louis, Philadelphia and New York made 2 team cities but left a team in place as the Braves, Brown, Athletics and Giants leaving still left the Red Sox, Cardinals, Phillies and Yankees in place. And later on, other franchise shifts involving Milwaukee Braves, Seattle, Kansas City and even although it took 37 years Washington had teams arestored. Only Brooklyn and now Montreal permanently lost their baseball franchises. And in the case of the two egregious franchise shifts in the NFL, both Baltimore and Cleveland got their teams back. LA LA land, well the two football teams they lost, the Rams and the Raiders were never really theirs anyway. And don't forget in New York, we lost both of our NFL teams and the only NY team in the NFL is over 350 miles away.

There has become a movement pushed by Peter O'Malley and Vince Scully to get this slime ball into the baseball Hall of Fame and it has become part of this campaign to blame Robert Moses. A 500 page book about Robert Moses, and yes he was a very cruel and power hungry man, was written and perhaps 1 page is devoted to the Brooklyn Dodger history. There was very little Moses could do under NYS law no matter what his public ambitions were.

Understand this and understand this well, there were 3 great villains of the 20th century....Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Walter (Slimeball) O'Malley. They are all resting in the same place namely hell and will for all eternity.

Unfortunately when those of us who know the truth of what this devious slime ball did because of his own personal greed pass on, the true story will be lost to history.

[Elvis]

Originally Posted by MATHA531

The problem with your generation is they are constantly being fed lies on what happened in 1957 and why the Dodgers no longer play in Brooklyn. They are told that Walter O'Malley (better known as the slime ball) was a wonderful human being...

Roy Campanella was one of these "lie feeders" as you call him, who called his friend Walter O'Malley a wonderfull man and that the world would be better off with more like him.

I never met you, and I never met Roy... but Seeing as all I ever saw from him was kindness, generosity and an everlasting smile, while all I ever hear from you is vile bitterness darkness and hatred...

So I'll take Roy's word on O'Malley. Follow the light, not the darkness.

[MATHA531]

Campy was a player, a great player and the slime ball treated him great; especially after his tragic injury. The slime ball's warmness as a human being, and Jackie Robinson of course had a different view point, is not the issue here.

You can call me bitter or whatever. You have never once refuted the facts that were stated here...if my facts are wrong, I would love to be corrected.

The slime ball may have been a very good capitalist, a very good banker but as a sportsman and an owner of a major league franchise, he was a piece of slime. He was making a mint in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn franchise was almost an invitation to print money. He simply wanted more and again if you can refute that with facts, please do so. He may have been a wonderful capitalist; an illustration of it doesn't matter who you hurt as long as you make money but as a sportsman he was a less than zero.

To bring Campy's tragic accident into this is very unfortunate and very unwarranted.

[Elvis]

Originally Posted by MATHA531

Campy was a player, a great player and the slime ball treated him great; especially after his tragic injury. The slime ball's warmness as a human being, and Jackie Robinson of course had a different view point, is not the issue here.

You can call me bitter or whatever. You have never once refuted the facts that were stated here...if my facts are wrong, I would love to be corrected.

The slime ball may have been a very good capitalist, a very good banker but as a sportsman and an owner of a major league franchise, he was a piece of slime. He was making a mint in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn franchise was almost an invitation to print money. He simply wanted more and again if you can refute that with facts, please do so. He may have been a wonderful capitalist; an illustration of it doesn't matter who you hurt as long as you make money but as a sportsman he was a less than zero.

To bring Campy's tragic accident into this is very unfortunate and very unwarranted.

I didn't mention Campy's accident, you did. I mentioned Campy's winning personality and attitude and how he choose to live his life.

"Facts" in and of themselves are meaningless. How we choose to react to "facts" is everything...as Campy proved in his remarkable life.

[MATHA531]

Originally Posted by Elvis9045

"Facts" in and of themselves are meaningless

Exactly what people say when they have nothing to refute the facts!

[EbtsFldGuy]

My vote goes to Matha 531. He has nailed the facts thorougly and cogently.

And Elvis, if you are seriously arguing that the facts are meaningless, you have my sympathy. Reaction to wrong facts is useless.

As to the start of this thread, it is good for teens to delve into this history, because it involves far more than just sports. As Pete Golenbeck wrote in Bums, there is a cruel irony in the Dodgers' history in Brooklyn in one regard. Though Branch Rickey brought Jackie Robinson to the team, and thus changed America for the better in no insignificant way, O'Malley got rid of both Rickey (1950, I think, by buying him out) and Robinson (sold him to the Giants after the 1956 season; Jackie retired then). Also, according to the book, O'Malley took note of the changing racial composition of Brooklyn and of the Ebbets Field patronage. So, the team that broke the racial barrier in baseball, appears to have used race as a factor in its decision to move.

The study of the team's move to LA is a complex mixture of economics, baseball. demographics, power politics, municipal inertia (Mayor Wagner and NYC) and hustle (LA worked hard to get the team), media, finance, seeing the future, and personal uncaring and greed.

There are many good sources to study on the decision to leave Brooklyn and go to the West Coast. Were I in college again, I'd gladly do a senior thesis on the move.

O'Malley belongs in the Business Hall of Fame, if there is one. He has no place, however, in Cooperstown, or in any Humanitarian Hall of Fame.

And finally, kids, do learn to spell and write correctly. The ability to do both well will help you in the real world in ways that you can't now envision.

(Showing some respect to your elders is not a bad habit to cultivate, either. You'll be there one day.)

[Lprof]

Originally Posted by Elvis9045

He spelled Brooklyn right. Thatz al thet cownts.

I must tell you, I have just found this sight, and it is great! I attribute all my adult neuroses to the fact that the Dodgers left Brooklyn when I was 11. Because I have lived in Chicago for a long time, I am now a devout White Sox fan (and lived 55 all over again this fall). But as a kid, I attended BOTH of Carl Erskine's no-hitters, and lived and breathed the Dodgers. There will never, ever be anything like them again. I am looking forward to reading and posting on this sight from now on.