The history of the Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball (MLB) team begins in the 19th century when the team was based in Brooklyn, New York.
Brooklyn Dodgers history
The franchise now known as the Dodgers was originally formed in 1883 as a member of the minor league Inter-State Association of Professional Baseball Clubs. It moved to the American Association the following year and eventually to the National League in 1890. The team went by a number of press-bestowed nicknames including the Brooklyn Atlantics, Brooklyn Grays, Brooklyn Bridegrooms, Brooklyn Grooms, Brooklyn Superbas, and Brooklyn Robins before the team settled on Brooklyn Dodgers (from Trolley Dodgers) in the World War 1 era. During the Brooklyn era, the team won the AA championship in 1889 and National League championships 12 times (1890, 1899, 1900, 1916, 1920, 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955 1956) and won their first World Series championship in .
The Brooklyn Dodgers had several Hall of Fame players on their rosters during this era including Roy Campanella, Leo Durocher, Burleigh Grimes, Willie Keeler, Pee Wee Reese, Wilbert Robinson, Duke Snider, Dazzy Vance, Zack Wheat and Jackie Robinson. Robinson, the first African American to officially break the Baseball color line, made his debut as a Dodger in 1947 and won the first Rookie of the Year award.
The Brooklyn Dodgers played their final game at Ebbets Field on September 24, 1957, which the Dodgers won 2–0 over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Alston years For 23 years, beginning in 1954, the Dodgers had been managed by Walter Alston, who was known as a quiet and reserved man. Alston's tenure is the third-longest in baseball history for a manager with a single team, after Connie Mack and John McGraw. On April 18, 1958, the Los Angeles Dodgers played their first game in the city, defeating the (formerly New York) San Francisco Giants, 6–5, before 78,672 fans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
The process of building Walter O'Malley's dream stadium soon began in semi-rural Chavez Ravine, in the hills just north of downtown L.A. The decision caused political controversy as the residents of the ravine, a predominantly poor Hispanic population, resisted the eminent domain removal of their homes (land which had been previously condemned for a public housing project, Elysian Park Heights) and garnered public attention. Despite the controversy, O'Malley and the city government proceeded with the stadium construction. The resistance of the residents against their removal was known as the Battle of Chavez Ravine.
During stadium construction, the Dodgers played their home games from 1958 to 1961 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, a combination football and track-and-field stadium that had been built in 1923, and then expanded to host the 1932 Summer Olympics. The Coliseum's dimensions were not optimal for baseball, and the best way to fit a baseball diamond into the oval-shaped stadium was to lay the third-base line parallel to the short axis of the oval, and the first-base parallel to the long axis. This resulted in a left-field fence that was only from home plate. A high screen was erected to prevent home runs from becoming too trivial to hit. Still, the 1958 season saw 182 home runs hit to left field in the home games, whereas just three were hit to center field, and only eight to right field. The Dodgers outfielder Wally Moon, newly acquired for the 1959 season, was known for launching lazy fly balls over or onto the screen, which earned the moniker "Moon shots", contributing to his National League triples lead in 1959.
In 1959, the season ended in a tie between the Dodgers and the Milwaukee Braves. The Dodgers won the tie-breaking playoff. 1959 also saw a team other than the Yankees win the A.L. pennant, one of only two such years in the 16-year stretch from 1949 through 1964. As a result of the Dodgers' move to Los Angeles, this was the first World Series since 1948 to have no games in New York City. In an eventful World Series, the Dodgers defeated the "Go-Go" White Sox in six games, cementing the bond between the baseball team and its new Southern California fans.
Commemorating their 50th year in Los Angeles, the Dodgers would play one more game in the Memorial Coliseum on March 29, 2008 – an exhibition game to benefit a cancer research charity. The crowd size of 115,300, the most-attended game in baseball history[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-mar-30-sp-coliseum30-story.html], saw the Dodgers lose to the Boston Red Sox by a score of 7–4. Due to intervening renovations, the Coliseum's left field corner was shortened to only , calling for a taller left-field fence of . Kevin Cash of the Red Sox and James Loney of the Dodgers did hit home runs over that fence, but there were few total home runs in the game.
Despite the passage of 60-plus years since departing from Brooklyn, many in the borough, and the nation, continue efforts to encourage a move back east. Many of these efforts take the shape of letter writing campaigns, online petitions and nostalgic articles. Brooklyn Dodgers merchandise is still popular among fans as well. Major League Baseball estimates $9 million in sales every year. The Baseball Hall of Fame reports that Brooklyn photos and broadcasts are the museum's second biggest sellers behind the Yankees, eBay lists close to 1,000 items a day relating to the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the Library of Congress has over 100 books on Brooklyn Dodger teams, third only to the Yankees and Red Sox.
There were occasional attempts to move the Dodgers back to Brooklyn. State Senator Thomas J. Bartosiewicz tried hard to persuade them in the early 1980s, but was rebuffed. A stronger chance was in 1998, when the O'Malley family sold the team to Rupert Murdoch's Fox company. In the course of bidding, a committee convened by the City and State of New York (including Roger Kahn, author of Boys of Summer) made an offer to the club which was turned down, despite being larger than the eventual sale price.
Construction for Dodger Stadium was completed before Opening Day in 1962. With its simple lines and setting amid hills and palm trees, the ballpark quickly became an icon of the Dodgers and their new California lifestyle. O'Malley wanted to ensure all seats had a view of the field, achieving this with cantilevered grandstands.
The core of the team's success in the 1960s was the dominant pitching tandem of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, who combined to win 4 of the 5 Cy Young Awards from 1962 to 1966, during a time in which only one award was given to the top pitcher from either of the two major leagues. Top pitching also came from Claude Osteen, an aging Johnny Podres, and reliever Ron Perranoski. The hitting attack, on the other hand, was not impressive, and much of the offensive spark came from the exploits of speedy shortstop Maury Wills, who led the league in stolen bases every year from 1960 to 1965, and set a modern record with 104 thefts in 1962. The Dodgers' strategy was once described as follows: "Wills hits a single, steals second, and takes third on a grounder. A sacrifice fly brings him home. Koufax or Drysdale pitches a shutout, and the Dodgers win 1–0." Although few games followed this model exactly, the Dodgers nevertheless tallied a high proportion of wins in a low-scoring manner that relied on their pitching and defense rather than their offense – with the exception of a few seasons. For example, in 1962, Tommy Davis led the Major Leagues with 153 RBI, and he led the National League in batting average and in hits. Seasons of over 150 RBI are quite rare by a player in modern-day pro baseball. Davis led the league in batting twice for the Dodgers.
The 1962 pennant race ended in a tie, and the Dodgers were defeated by the archrival Giants in the tie-breaking playoff, but the Dodgers proceeded to win the pennant in three of the next four years. The 1963 World Series was a four-game sweep of the Yankees, in which the Dodgers were so dominant that the vaunted Bronx Bombers never even took a lead against Koufax, Podres, and Drysdale. After an injury-plagued 1964, the Dodgers bounced back to win the 1965 World Series in a seven games against the Minnesota Twins. Game one happened to fall on the Yom Kippur holiday, and Koufax (who is Jewish) refused to pitch on that day, a decision for which he was widely praised. The Dodgers rebounded from losing the first two games, with Koufax pitching shutouts in Games five and seven (with only two days rest in between) to win the crown and the World Series MVP Award.
The Dodgers again won the pennant in 1966, but the team was running out of gas, and it was swept in the World Series by the upstart Baltimore Orioles. Koufax retired that winter, with his career cut short by arthritis in the elbow of his pitching arm, and Maury Wills was traded away. Don Drysdale continued to be effective, setting a record with six consecutive shutouts in 1968, but he finished with just a 14–12 record due to the Dodgers' poor hitting that year.
While the Dodgers were sub-par for several seasons thereafter, a new core of young talent was developing in their farm system. They won another pennant in 1974, and although they were quickly dismissed by the dynastic Oakland Athletics in the World Series, it was a sign of good things to come. Steve Garvey was named the National League MVP in , while Mike Marshall won the National League Cy Young Award. Marshall also set a Major League record for most appearances by a relief pitcher in 1974, appearing in 106 games, a record that still stands as of 2020.
The late 1970s: The early Lasorda years
Alston, after winning 7 pennants and 4 World Series titles over his career, retired 4 games before the end of the 1976 season, passing the position to Tommy Lasorda, a 49-year-old former minor-league pitcher who had been the team's top coach under Alston, and before that had been manager of the Dodgers' top minor league team. He was known for being colorful and gregarious cheerleader in contrast to Alston's taciturn demeanor. He quickly became a larger-than-life personality, associating with Frank Sinatra and other celebrities, with a penchant for eating Italian food in large volumes. He became well known for sayings such as, "If you cut me, I bleed Dodger blue", and for referring to God as "the Great Dodger in the sky". Although some considered his persona to be a schtick and found it wearing, his enthusiasm won him a reputation as an "ambassador for baseball", and made a lasting impression of the Dodgers from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.
Another transition had recently occurred, higher up in the Dodgers management. Walter O'Malley passed control of the team to his son Peter, who would continue to oversee the Dodgers on his family's behalf through 1998.
New blood had also been injected into the team on the field. The core of the team was now the infield, composed of Steve Garvey (1B), Davey Lopes (2B), Bill Russell (SS), Ron Cey (3B), and Steve Yeager (C). These five remained in the starting lineup together from 1973 to 1981, longer than any other infield fivesome in baseball history. The pitching staff remained strong, anchored by Don Sutton and Tommy John. The Dodgers won NL West titles in both 1977 and 1978, and defeated the Philadelphia Phillies both years in the National League Championship Series, only to be defeated in the World Series both years by the Yankees. In 1980, they swept a three-game series from the Houston Astros in the final weekend of the regular season (including a famous save by Don Sutton) and were in a first place tie in the National League West, but lost to the Astros 7–1 in the one-game playoff.
The Dodgers also had a string four consecutive players take home Rookie of the Year awards from 1979 to 1982: Rick Sutcliffe won in 1979, Steve Howe in 1980, Fernando Valenzeula in 1981, and Steve Sax in 1982.