A Beef Grows in Brooklyn : Law: The Big Blue Machine in L.A. takes a mighty swing at two bar owners in New York over use of the Dodger name.

Talk about chutzpah.

It’s bad enough that the Dodgers bummed out Brooklyn 32 years ago when they left for Los Angeles. But now the richest club in baseball is reopening those wounds, and Flatbush is steaming mad.

A few weeks ago, see, the Los Angeles club threatened to sue two young fellas who own a little neighborhood bar called The Brooklyn Dodger.

Dodger bigs said they owned the right to that name and warned the owners that if the bar’s name wasn’t changed, the young fellas’d pay through the nose.

Didja hear that, Brooklyn? You gonna take it sittin’ down?

“No way,” says Kevin Boyle, 35, who owns the saloon in the Bay Ridge section with his brother, Brian. “This is like Gen. Sherman coming back to Atlanta 30 years after the fire and deciding to kick over a few more stones.”

It’s also an epic mismatch. The Boyles say they cannot afford a costly legal battle with the Big Blue Machine from Los Angeles. But they have refused to give in, insisting the name belongs to Brooklyn.

“We got mad,” says Brian Boyle, 31, who quit his job as a high school English teacher to help run the bar. “We decided to give these guys a run for their money.”

Have they ever. In the two weeks since the story hit the papers here, the clash between Los Angeles Dodgers Inc. and the Battling Boyles has become a media cause celebre. As we head into the bottom of the third, the boys from La-La Land are still looking for their first hit.

For example, angered by the Dodgers’ threats, more than 1,500 die-hards have signed petitions at the bar accusing the club of arrogance and disrespect. Some have vowed to hold demonstrations when the Dodgers play the New York Mets this summer at Shea Stadium.

Meanwhile, newspaper columnists have had a field day, demanding that the team apologize to fans it abandoned years ago.

For their part, the Dodgers seem irked by the publicity. Club officials from owner Peter O’Malley on down are declining comment, referring all calls to Lawrence Kamin, an attorney who handles the team’s trademark litigation.

Kamin also is reluctant to discuss the matter, saying only that the Dodgers have the law on their side and must protect themselves. He adds, however, that no final decision has been made about whether to proceed against the Boyles.

“You know, this whole thing stinks,” says Alex Medina, a patron of the bar and a lifelong Brooklyn resident. “First the Dodgers abandon us, then they come back and throw their weight around. Why don’t they leave us alone?”

The story began four years ago when the Boyle brothers hit on an enterprising idea. Hoping to capitalize on nostalgia for the old Dodgers team, they decided to open a bar, fill it with eye-popping memorabilia, sell some hamburgers on the side and make a living.

In 1987, the brothers rented a small storefront in Bay Ridge, a mostly Italian, blue-collar neighborhood, and The Brooklyn Dodger was born. For $7, you could have a beer and sandwich, watch the Mets and Yankees on big-screen TV, and schmooze with your pals. During the World Serious, the place was packed.

The proud owners invited O’Malley and other Dodgers officials to have dinner at their saloon, and they even got a letter from the club owner wishing them well. They hung it on the wall, next to photos of Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson and other Dodger greats.

“All we ever wanted was to run a nice little gin mill,” says Brian.

Nobody expected any flak from the Dodgers, who have always wanted to let bygones be bygones when it comes to Brooklyn. After all, many locals still feel betrayed by Walter O’Malley, the cigar-smoking owner who broke Brooklyn’s heart in 1958 when he moved the team to Los Angeles.

In a spirit of generosity, the Dodgers contributed $50,000 to help fund a permanent exhibit about the old team at the Brooklyn Historical Society.

Later this year, club officials will participate in ceremonies renaming a local school after Dodger outfielder Carl Furillo. Although some critics view these gestures as nothing more than war reparations, the team has pledged to get involved in other community events.

“The Dodgers have always cared about Brooklyn,” says trademark attorney Kamin. “This whole thing has been blown out of proportion.”

The first signs of trouble surfaced last year when the Boyles tried to register the name of their bar with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Both men insist that a search of the records turned up no ownership rights to the name “Brooklyn Dodger.”

After they published a notice of their intent to use the name, however, the Los Angeles team protested, saying it owns the title. In April, 1989, the club sent the Boyles a cease-and-desist letter, saying they were using the name illegally and that the team regarded this as “a very serious matter.”

Back at the bar, Kevin Boyle puts it all in biblical terms: “I really believe this is David and Goliath. I mean, how do we threaten L.A. by doing business here? How much could we possibly hurt them?”

Quite a bit, according to the lawsuit the Dodgers have threatened to file. Attorneys for Major League Baseball Properties Inc., a company that markets such Dodgers-related products as food, mugs, clothing, pins and posters, say the firm sold $69 million in goods bearing the Dodgers trademarks in 1989. These activities “have been and will be irreparably damaged” by the Boyles’ saloon, the suit says, because the owners are “deliberately seeking to mislead the public” into thinking the Los Angeles team has sponsored the bar and that it is somehow linked with the baseball club.

“Do they have any idea how absurd that is?” says Brian Boyle, sitting on a stool in the darkened bar. “There’s no confusion between us and the Dodgers.”

As the dispute escalates, hopes for a compromise are fading. Kevin Boyle says the Dodgers at one point offered to lease the Brooklyn trademark to them for $1. But he claims the deal would have tied his hands, giving the Los Angeles club veto power over his advertising and the right to inspect the joint with only two days notice.

“How could we do that?” says Brian Boyle, who last year opened a second Brooklyn Dodger bar near the site of Ebbets Field, the legendary ballpark where the Brooklyn team played from 1913 to 1957. “We can’t turn over control to Los Angeles. This name belongs in Brooklyn.”

The Boyles say their phone has been ringing with offers of help ever since the story broke March 21 in the Daily News. Five attorneys, all Brooklyn Dodgers fans, volunteered free legal help. The brothers also have received notes from senior citizens voicing moral support.

“You know, it’s all kind of hard to figure,” says Marty Adler, a sports buff who heads the Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Fame, a local nostalgia group. “For the Dodgers, this is such small potatoes, and yet it’s become a real black eye. You’d think they’d understand that, after all these years, people in Brooklyn still care.”