Brooklyn's+Got+a+Winning+Team

Brooklyn's Got a Winning Team! This photo brought to you by: www.newyorkology.com/ archives/images/dodgers.jpg Home of the Brooklyn Dodgers for more than four decades, Ebbets Field was one of the most nostalgic stadiums ever built. Prior to moving into Ebbets Field the Brooklyn Dodgers played at Washington Park, that was very small with wooden grandstands. When Charles Ebbets bought the team in the early 1900s he wanted a steel and concrete ballpark for the Dodgers. However, Ebbets had very little money and needed to find an inexpensive piece of land to construct the stadium. Ebbets found a location to build a ballpark in the slums of Brooklyn. However there was a problem as over 40 people owned the parcels of land that he needed to buy. Therefore in 1905, Ebbets began purchasing land. The Brooklyn Dodgers started in the National League back in 1890 playing in Brooklyn until 1957 when they moved to Los Angeles and have continued to play at Dodger Stadium since. It took the Brooklyn club 8 tries at the World Series before they finally one their first crown against the Yankees in 1955. They went on to face the Yankees several more times in the World Series and they were able to beat them a few times. The Los Angeles Dodgers have 6 World Series titles for their franchise. Great players like Roy Campanella, Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Casey Stengel, Don Sutton, Ron Cey, Mike Piazza, and Davey Lopes have all doned uniforms for the team. Recently the Dodgers have been up and down in the standings and need some new pitching that resembles Fernando Valenzuela to compete again. The Dodgers won the 1949 pennant led by Robinson's .342 average, league-high 37 steals and 124 runs batted in. Hodges had 115 RBI and Furillo 106. The team then endured two seasons of heartbreak. In 1950, they lost the pennant to the Phillies on the last day of the season, and in 1951, they committed their legendary collapse, losing a 13½ game lead and finishing the season in a tie with the hard-charging and hated Durocher-ites from the Polo Grounds. The Giants won the immortal playoff series on Bobby Thomson's ninth inning home run in the third and deciding game.

The only black cloud darkening the franchise's door was the team's historical lack of success in the World Series. Up through 1953 it had lost all seven World Series in which they played. These, plus the difficult endings to the 1950 and 1951 seasons, left Dodgers fans with an empty feeling and a constant cry of "wait until next year." Next year finally came in 1955, when the Dodgers beat the Yankees in seven games for the franchise's only world championship in Brooklyn. It took them seven games, but the victory set off a wild celebration in the New York borough matched only by the V-E Day celebration a decade earlier. Unbeknownst to Brooklyn fans, as they celebrated the 1955 championship and rooted the team on to the 1956 pennant, Walter O'Malley, now the team's owner, was unhappy with the small and antiquated Ebbets Field facility. Even in the best of times, the Dodgers had a tough time selling out the park.

"Dodgers Timeline | Dodgers.com: History." //The Official Site of The Los Angeles Dodgers | Dodgers.com: Homepage//. Web. 03 June 2011. . - I used this timeline to efficeiently write the above paragraphs. I needed a direct timeline to make sure the dates matched up with the times they won. "Los Angeles Dodgers Team History & Encyclopedia - Baseball-Reference.com." //Baseball-Reference.com - Major League Baseball Statistics and History//. Web. 03 June 2011. . - I used this site to name most players. In order to get the correct names and numbers I needed the find them online. "Brooklyn Dodgers (1890-1957)." //The Sports E-Cyclopedia (Est. 2001)-The Ultimate Sports Resource//. Web. 03 June 2011. . This site was used for the photogragh above. Also, any general information and facts can be found here.