New York Aboard for Series Sans Dodgers

In Flatbush at least, the memory of the Brooklyn Dodgers remains beyond forgetting. As well it should. Who would want to forget the glories that were Jackie, Pee Wee, Campy and the Duke, frolicking in that splendid shrine and bandbox, Ebbets Field?

But not until three years ago did an improbable Flatbush dream take tangible form. Gov. George Pataki, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Brooklyn borough President Howard Golden crossed party lines and jointly appointed a committee to “bring our Dodgers home.” By this time, it had become clear that Peter O’Malley was no match for his predecessors as Dodger president and that the franchise in Los Angeles was becoming a quagmire.

The media, sensibly skeptical of politicians grabbing ink, insisted on treating the committee as a joke. Bring the Dodgers back to Brooklyn? That would happen when Camelot reappeared, with King Arthur, Lancelot and a radiant Guinevere helping to revive the British economy.

Gov. Pataki appointed me to serve on the committee and I can now report that this was no joke. Not at all. From the start, the work was deadly earnest.

We began by trying to calculate costs. Under baseball law the Mets and the Yankees own the territory that is Brooklyn and each would demand hefty compensation. The replanted Dodger team would need a playing field. I lobbied for Coney Island, so that we could have a new major league ballpark beside the sea.

Finally there was the sine qua non: actually buying the franchise from the O’Malleys, a onetime middle-class Brooklyn family, whose baseball buccaneering made them multimillionaires. The very preliminary number suggested for restoring the Dodgers to Brooklyn: A billion dollars, give or take some change.

I remember noting a little nervously that none of my credit cards went quite that high. Better businessmen than I began soliciting and suddenly the billion was not so wild a dream. (Although, in the end, Rupert Murdoch got the team for a mere pittance, $311 million).

The Brooklyn Union Company, a natural gas utilities conglomerate, pledged $35 million up front as good faith money. Real estate companies promised hundreds of millions more.

Hugh Carey, a former Democratic governor of New York, was dispatched to call O’Malley and begin negotiating. His report was disheartening to Brooklyn. O’Malley said that the rumored sale of the Dodgers to Murdoch was already one done deal. No, he had no interest in other offers, higher bids, but thanks for calling Governor Carey; it’s always nice to hear your resonant voice.

That was that. No more committee, no Camelot, no Brooklyn Dodgers. To this day I wonder. Was the Murdoch deal really done, or were other considerations at play?

Bringing the Dodgers back to Brooklyn would have torn up the elaborate mythology that O’Malley spin masters created. The claim that politicians forced the Dodgers out of Brooklyn would have come under hard scrutiny. A nasty word, “greed,” might have been spoken. The idea that the O’Malley family appreciated Jackie Robinson, or even understood meaningful baseball integration, could also have been reexamined. No black managers or even black third base coaches for the O’Malley Dodgers.

Forget Brooklyn. Best to take Rupert’s money and run. That probably is what was agreed in O’Malley family councils. Or so I believe.

*

With a Subway Series about to erupt, Greater New York now is as happy with its ballclubs, as it has been for almost 50 years. Under tough Joe Torre, whose eyes mist at important moments, the Yankees have become a baseball jewel. Local sportswriters have stopped griping about George Steinbrenner, in favor of celebrating a Yankee front office that seems to make all the right moves.

Bill Veeck, who disliked Steinbrenner, once conceded that the Yankees’ acquisition of Reggie Jackson, for more than $600,000 in 1976, was the best free-agent transaction up to that time. Veeck’s words and Jackson’s bat reverberated through this year’s David Justice deal after Justice’s home run powered the Yankees past Seattle the other night in that rousing American League championship series.

For some time, the Mets seemed oddball, run as they were by Fred Wilpon, a real estate operator, and Nelson Doubleday, a reformed publisher. No more. This was the team that had the sense to sign Mike Piazza, arguably the greatest hitting catcher in the annals; anchor the infield with those sturdy pros, Robin Ventura and Todd Zeile, and paste together a remarkable no-name outfield--Timo Perez, Jay Payton and Benny Agbayani.

The St. Louis Cardinals outmatched the Atlanta Braves in the divisional series. In winning the National League pennant, the Mets did the same to the Cardinals.

Around New York, opinion makers in the media, baseball folk and civilians are growing giddy and making sounds of passion. The subway series is back! The subway series is back! Everything is as it was before.

Ease back a bit. Steady, folks. Beware of rapture of the brain.

The three big-league teams that flourished in New York, circa 1900-1957, evolved from long, distinct traditions. With the storied John McGraw and Christy Mathewson, the Giants were the first major New York team, certainly beginning in 1905 when Mathewson pitched three shutouts in the World Series. In one World Series.

The Yankees stepped forward dramatically on Oct. 11, 1923, during the second game of the Series that year. In the Polo Grounds one afternoon the great newspaperman Heywood Broun asked McGraw if, in a tight spot, he might intentionally walk Babe Ruth.

McGraw said, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We pitch to better hitters than Ruth in the National League.”

Presently, Ruth hit one 460-foot fly to center, two home runs and the Yankees won, 4-2. McGraw’s fame, Broun wrote, “deserves to be recorded along with the man who said, ‘Lay on Macduff.’ ” (Those were just about the last words of Macbeth.)

Back in the 20th century, Ruth doomed the old “scientific game,” bunt, steal, hit-and-run. After that with Ruth, Lou Gehrig and later Joe DiMaggio swinging for the bleachers, the Yankees came to dominate New York.

The Dodgers challenged seriously in 1947, the year Branch Rickey signed Robinson to a major league contract, ending more than 60 years of baseball segregation. But after some remarkable baseball, the Yankees won that World Series in seven games.

From 1947 through 1956, New York teams won the Series no fewer than nine times. Come October in New York, the air grew crisp, the sky turned marble blue and the World Series began. Seven times in that decade, the World Series was played entirely in New York, either the Dodgers or the Giants coming up against the Yankees. New Yorkers decided that the Declaration of Independence guaranteed them life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and an annual local World Series.

Brooklyn won its only Series in 1955 when Johnny Podres shut out the Yankees in Game 7. A year later, the Yankees won again when Don Larsen pitched a perfect game and the Yankees bombed Don Newcombe and rolled in another seventh game, 9-0.

Across these years intra-urban rivalries intensified. Who was the best center fielder, Willie, Mickey or the Duke? The top catcher, Yogi Berra or Roy Campanella? The better shortstop, Pee Wee Reese or Phil Rizzuto? The more gifted sportscaster, Mel Allen of the Yankees or Red Barber of the Dodgers? The more majestic managerial brain, Casey Stengel of the Yankees, Leo Durocher of the Giants or Charlie Dressen and later Walt Alston of the Dodgers?

People argued such matters on street corners, in supermarkets, in saloons, sometimes with heat.

After the Dodgers broke the barrier, the Giants integrated fairly quickly, in 1949, and when Willie Mays joined the team in 1951, then no one rooted for generic Greater New York baseball. It seemed emotionally impossible to root for more than one of the three teams. Each had its own personality and this variety became the sharp spice of rivalry.

I don’t believe that tradition can be implanted, like an artificial hip. This Subway Series pits Bernie Williams and Jay Payton in center, Derek Jeter and Mike Bordick at shortstop. Not exactly rich and classic matchups.

Realistically, Subway Series 2000 is a beginning. To equal the old rivalries, New York would need many Subway Series over many years.

But now, no one, not even a politician, talks about moving the Dodgers back to Brooklyn. Bring up that idea in the bars on Flatbush Avenue and this is about what you’ll hear: “Who needs ‘em back. We got the Mets. We got a Subway Series without them. Who needs California crumbs that was too dumb to keep terrific guys like Piazza, Zeile and Johnny Franco?”

Revenge has been slow coming to Flatbush Avenue. As with rare Bordeaux, the aging process may make it all the more exquisite.

GAME 1

Missing Piece

The Yankees spent much of the summer pursuing the Cubs’ Sammy Sosa, but postseason veteran David Justice turned out to be the perfect fit. D13

Down the Tube

The playoffs’ TV ratings have continued to drop, and now comes a World Series that might be of little interest to anyone outside New York. D13

Brush-Back Pitch

Yankee Manager Joe Torre chided the media for focusing on the repercussions of Roger Clemens’ beaning of Mike Piazza during the regular season. D13