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Monday, January 31, 2005 |
Answering The Curse Of Gaven
At U.S.S. Mariner, DMZ pens a poison hate letter to Walter O'Malley over what he calls the "Curse of Gaven":
*Oops. Yes, that's perfectly right, 77 games, not 154.
It’s almost too bad that the Dodgers have done well since they moved from Brooklyn in one of the more craven line items in the ledger of treachery by baseball teams. A New York sportswriter covering the Dodgers named Mike Gaven fell ill at the ball park and later died. Gaven said “Well, at least I covered the Dodgers when they were a great team. They’ll never be that great again.” Dick Young wrote an eloquent piece for the New York Daily News that ran the day Gaven died, in which he talked about how the team, having turned on their home, turned also on the sportswriters long close to the team favoring the sycophantic Los Angeles press “who are writing the kind of stories that will sell tickets where tickets are being sold", and Young’s opinion that it was those small wounds that brought down and killed Gaven.My initial, bombastic reaction at reading this:
- O'Malley isn't the evil ogre he was portrayed to be. I don't deny the effect of what he did to Brooklyn, but at the same time, you can look up the attendance figures as well as I can; they drew a million six in 1949 in a ballpark with a capacity of 32,000 a game (theoretical capacity over a 154-game season, 2.5M*) and never again came close. Moving the club was a necessity; the neighborhood was becoming dirty and decrepit. People simply stopped coming to the games.
- With regards to the team favoring the local Los Angeles press, what, exactly, did he expect? Of course the Dodgers were interested in using the press to help them sell "tickets where tickets were being sold". Is it any different in Seattle now?
- Certainly, somebody would have come out west, and given the way things were, it was likely to be at least one of the New York NL teams. Both had aging stadiums in declining neighborhoods. Unlike the clubs with newer stadiums designed for automobile traffic, neither could pocket parking revenues in addition to the gate.
- O'Malley, who pretty much felt he could do anything he wanted to after the 1955 title and 1956 pennant, was aghast that Brooklyn wouldn't pony up (and badly misunderstood his ability to get things done within the borough). Moving certainly wasn't a first resort; he had in mind expansion elsewhere in Brooklyn, but building his franchise came first, before even the fans.
- Finally: this is merely an opinion, but given how conservative baseball has been, I think it has at least the ring of truth to it: Seattle does not have a major league team unless the Dodgers and Giants -- or name two other teams -- first get started in California. They were the logical precedent to all else that followed.
*Oops. Yes, that's perfectly right, 77 games, not 154.
Comments:
they drew a million six in 1949 in a ballpark with a capacity of 32,000 a game (theoretical capacity over a 154-game season, 4.9M)Theoretical capacity for 77 home games, 2.464 million.
Mostly a good post...but over a 154 game season, the Dodgers would only have 77 home games, and so their max attendance would be 2.464 million. It still is bad (I don't know what average attendances were back then, but you would think they would want at least 60% of their stadium full). I don't think any team even today has 4.9 million capacity.
Quoting absolute stats makes your case sound stronger than it is, since we're used to modern teams drawing a million easily. The Dodgers *relative to their competition* still drew well up until 1957, the last year before the move. They were 1st as late as 1952, and they were 2nd in 53, 55, and 56.
w/r/t favoring the press and what I expected -- are we to accept all slights and bad behavior because we expect the worst of human nature? They should have at least treated those reporters and their fans with some respect in the last year and not been petty. You should go read up on this stuff: they did things like refuse to let NY press travel with the team on road trips, so they NY guys had to find local stringers. It didn't gain them anything, it was just to be jerks.
Why do that? Why not leave with some class.
And that Seattle wouldn't have a team -- I don't understand exactly why you think making this point because I'm in Seattle somehow undermines my point that the Dodgers acted badly in leaving, but it's simply crazy. Do you really believe that today there would be no baseball in any of the 2nd, 5th, 8th, 12th, 13th, 15th, 15th, 17th, or 22nd-largest markets in baseball just because the Dodgers and Giants didn't move? If nothing else, the PCL was strong and doing very well, and would have continued to grow until it made a merger inevitible.
w/r/t favoring the press and what I expected -- are we to accept all slights and bad behavior because we expect the worst of human nature? They should have at least treated those reporters and their fans with some respect in the last year and not been petty. You should go read up on this stuff: they did things like refuse to let NY press travel with the team on road trips, so they NY guys had to find local stringers. It didn't gain them anything, it was just to be jerks.
Why do that? Why not leave with some class.
And that Seattle wouldn't have a team -- I don't understand exactly why you think making this point because I'm in Seattle somehow undermines my point that the Dodgers acted badly in leaving, but it's simply crazy. Do you really believe that today there would be no baseball in any of the 2nd, 5th, 8th, 12th, 13th, 15th, 15th, 17th, or 22nd-largest markets in baseball just because the Dodgers and Giants didn't move? If nothing else, the PCL was strong and doing very well, and would have continued to grow until it made a merger inevitible.
DMZ -- are you suggesting the team forbade NY journalists from traveling with the team because they were being petty? I mean, I plead ignorance in some way, but was this or was this not putting the team out extra resources or hassle to do something like this?
I just got done reading the section of Glenn Stout's book on the end of that era; I didn't get the impression that O'Malley was interested in screwing even the press over such things, but maybe I overlooked something. As to your point about attendance -- well, fair enough, they hadn't finished in the bottom half in attendance since 1928, but the reality also included greener, more automotively enhanced pastures outside Ebbets. Further, 1957 attendance was down 37% from 1949. 1956 attendance was down 26% from that same year. Maybe the Dodgers were having the same issues as the rest of the league, but O'Malley saw a way to leapfrog his competition and took it.
I just got done reading the section of Glenn Stout's book on the end of that era; I didn't get the impression that O'Malley was interested in screwing even the press over such things, but maybe I overlooked something. As to your point about attendance -- well, fair enough, they hadn't finished in the bottom half in attendance since 1928, but the reality also included greener, more automotively enhanced pastures outside Ebbets. Further, 1957 attendance was down 37% from 1949. 1956 attendance was down 26% from that same year. Maybe the Dodgers were having the same issues as the rest of the league, but O'Malley saw a way to leapfrog his competition and took it.
One more point: as to the issue with the PCL logically continuing, I would say it would most likely have been crushed all the same, only the details would have come out differently. My comments have nothing to do with you (DMZ) personally being in Seattle, only that some team had to first show baseball could be commercially successful on the West Coast. Maybe it wouldn't have been the Dodgers, but O'Malley's personality and influence made it somewhat inevitable once Brooklyn could no longer house his plans.
"as to the issue with the PCL logically continuing, I would say it would most likely have been crushed all the same"
I don't know about that. At that time the PCL was as close to a third major league as there's ever been. And it was darn near official at one point, with the league becoming "AAAA" in 1952.
I don't know about that. At that time the PCL was as close to a third major league as there's ever been. And it was darn near official at one point, with the league becoming "AAAA" in 1952.
Very good point, Al. And I don't mean to imply that there was an entity around at that point called "Brooklyn" -- in fact, it was a mere neighborhood among the boroughs of New York, which held the keys to the whole operation. But I do believe that major league ball doesn't make it to the west coast unless the Dodgers or some other team moves. Maybe the AAAA PCL would have continued on, but the Dodgers' move came at a propitious time.
What's less often commented upon by Dodger fans is just how sorry the Giants had become; they were regularly lagging the NL in attendance by the time they moved. It's often said that the Giants did O'Malley a favor by moving with him to the west coast, but I wonder just how true that was; my suspicion is that they couldn't get out of Gotham fast enough.
What's less often commented upon by Dodger fans is just how sorry the Giants had become; they were regularly lagging the NL in attendance by the time they moved. It's often said that the Giants did O'Malley a favor by moving with him to the west coast, but I wonder just how true that was; my suspicion is that they couldn't get out of Gotham fast enough.
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