The Last Good Season: Brooklyn, the Dodgers and Their Final Pennant Race Together

Michael Shapiro has done a fabulous job of bringing the 1956 National League pennant race to life. Reading this book makes that season as vivid as if it were this year's season. His telling of the machinations of Walter O'Malley and Robert Moses gives a great look at New York in the Fifties. Although long time Brooklyn residents may disagree, Shapiro points to Moses as the real villain behind the Dodgers' exit from New York. His reasoning is sound and he does a great job of showing O'Malley to be the conniving businessman he was.

Even though I was only five years old when the Dodgers left Brooklyn, I always had a fond spot in my heart for the team. I collected Brookyn Dodger yearbooks over the years. This book, by Michael Shapiro, brought out many interesting facts which I did not know, such as it was only at the end of the season did the Dodgers actually sell out any games. Even though Ebbets Field only held 32,000 I assumed there were several sell outs during the season. Yes,the Dodgers were profitable but O'Malley was a business man and saw (like the Braves) he could make significantly more money. Knowing that area of Brooklyn, that if the stadium was built in 1957 and the teams which would have included Koufax and Drysdale they would have succeeded greatly. Also, the book points out the relationship between Robinson, Campenella and Newcombe. I was not aware of the relationship between the three. I could not believe Newcombe left Ebbets Field, after getting knocked out of the 7th game of the World Series. Yanks start Johnny Knucks against the leagues MVP and Cy Young winner and Newcombe gets knocked out and leaves the Field. I found it incredible that the day after the World Series the team leaves for Japan. I wonder how todays players would react. I wonder why Rachel Robinson declined to be interviewed by the author, I believe she could have added greatly to experiences at Ebbets Field and Brooklyn in the 1950's. I enjoyed the part when Sal Maglie first came to the Dodgers and his reception in the clubhouse. The best part was describing Brookyn in the 1940's and how it was transforming in the 1950's. I read the Boys of Summer many years ago, but this book by Michael Shapiro is clearly superior. I would recommend this book to any baseball fan from that era, especially Brooklyn Dodger fans. Both O'Malley and especially Robert Moses are the real villians here.

Michael Shapiro, a journalism professor at Columbia, grew up hating Walter O'Malley for moving the beloved Dodgers from the borough of Brooklyn to the sprawling wasteland of Los Angeles. Shaprio was only 4 at the time the Dodgers and Giants abandoned their fans for the West Coast and nutured a long and virilent hatred of O'Malley for most of his life. "The Last Good Season: Brooklyn, the Dodgers, and Their Final Pennant Race Together" not only tells of the story of the only season the Brooklyn Dodgers ever played as defending World Champions, but reexamines the economics and urban planning issues that compelled O'Malley to make the big move.The pennant race was a pretty good one, with the Dodgers clinching the the title on the final day of the season after battling off the upstart Cincinnati Reds of Frank Robinson and Wally Post, and the Milwaukee Braves of Henry Aaron, Ed Matthews, and Walter Spahn. The Dodgers indeed became the World Champions, finally defeating their cross-town rivals the New York Yankees when young southpaw Johnny Podres pitched a shutout in the deciding 7th game, but they were also getting old. Jackie Robinson would be playing his final season. The Dodgers would make it back to the World Series but lose again to the Yankees and fall victim to Don Larsen's perfect game.But while the baseball season had plenty of on field drama, behind the scenes O'Malley wanted to build a new domed stadium designed by visionary architect R. Buckminster Fuller of Princeton at Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn. Ebbets field had lots of character, but it was old and it was small. Consequently, O'Malley told Mayor Robert F. Wagner and New York City's powerful urban planner Robert Moses that unless the city helped him build a new stadium for the Dodgers, the team was going to have to move. If you saw the Ken Burns documentary on "Baseball" you may well recall that Ebbets Field was built on a part of Brooklyn known as "Pig Town." O'Malley wanted to build his new stadium on the site of a meat market and needed the city to condemn the property so he could afford to buy it. However, Moses was planning yet another housing project for the same piece of land.Of course, we know that no domed stadium grew in Brooklyn, but it still hard to shift the presumption of guilt from O'Malley to Moses. Shapiro points out that ever since he forced out Branch Rickey from the Dodger ownership in 1950 O'Malley had pushed for a new stadium. But O'Malley looked and talked the part of the villain in this story. The simple explanation, offered by Dodgers vice president Buzzie Bavasi, was that O'Malley "loved money too damn much." However, Shapiro provides ample evidence in "The Last Good Season" that O'Malley loved other things, such as his wife Kay, and that while he cannot be forgiven for the great sin of abandonment, there are mitigating circumstances that should be taken into account. More importantly, Shapiro is able to point to correspondence be

Books relating to specific years have been popular over the past several years with mixed results. Author Michael Shapiro has provided us with an outstanding portrait of an aging Brooklyn Dodgers' team going down to the wire in the 1956 season to eek out a pennant over the Milwaukee Braves during the final days of the season. The book is really two separate stories. One involving a lot of politics between Dodgers' owner Walter O'Malley and Robert Moses, an appointed New York official, over the location of a new playing site for the Dodgers. Moses wanted a site located on the present site of Shea Stadium while O'Malley wanted one nearer to Ebbets Field. Shapiro labels Moses as the villain in the move of the Dodgers while O'Malley needed help in acquiring a new stadium, but was not going to get it. Los Angeles promised him more than New York would even consider, so Walter made the move. The one thing O'Malley and Moses shared in common, according to Shapiro, was an ignorance between the team and its fans. Sometimes I felt overwhelmed with the politics involved between both sides in trying to get the deal each wanted, but Shapiro is very thorough in his research. The book's chapters are divided into each month of the baseball season and what took place during each month. A separate chapter is provided for the last week of the season and the World Series. Interesting stories about players such as Robinson, Campanella, Erskine, Reese, Furillo, Newcombe, Labine, and an early season pickup of Sal "The Barber" Maglie from the Cleveland Indians make for very interesting reading even if you are familiar with the Dodgers of this era from other books. It is ironic that former Giant and Dodger rival, Sal "The Barber" Maglie, was to be very instrumental in bringing the Dodgers home with the 1956 pennant. Interesting details of the deal that sent Maglie to the Dodgers from the Indians are provided. Maglie also authored his only no-hitter during the final week of the '56 season, before being victimized by Don Larsen's perfect game in the 5th game of the Series. For the most part America wanted the Milwaukee Braves to win the '56 pennant just to have a new team in the Series, but the St. Louis Cardinals snuffed out the Braves' hopes in St. Louis while the Dodgers were beating the Pirates in Brooklyn. If you feel you have read enough of the Brooklyn Dodgers in previous books, you owe it to yourself to read about this storied team during their Last Good Season.

I found this book gripping in its remarkable story line. It is indeed much more than a baseball book in its insights into the social history of the time and place. The depictions of the team and its season made thrilling reading even though I knew the end of the tale. I was surprised,resistant, but ultimately convinced by the author's careful marshalling of documentary evidence that O'Malley really wasn't the evildoer that I had always pictured. It's a terrific read and a marvelous book.