Dodgers!

In the 1880s, a Brooklyn baseball manager plotted to steal pitching signs and alert batters with a hidden electrical wire. In 1951, the Brooklyn Dodgers were robbed of a pennant via a sign-stealing scheme involving a center field office, a telescope and a button connected to the bullpen phone. In 2017, the Los Angeles Dodgers were robbed of a World Series championship via a sign-stealing system involving a TV camera, a monitor, a trash can and a bat. History has often repeated itself around the Dodgers franchise. From their beginnings as the Brooklyn Atlantics to their move from Flatbush to L.A. and into the 21st Century, the Dodgers have seen heartbreaking losses and stirring triumphs, broken the color barrier, turned the game into a true coast-to-coast sport and produced many Hall of Famers, This is their story.

Jim Alexander is a sports columnist for the Southern California News Group, which includes the Los Angeles Daily News and Orange County Register, and has covered sports in Southern California for more than four decades, including the Dodgers as a beat for 12 seasons and frequent columns about them in the years since.

Jim Alexander
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 412
Bibliographic Info: 29 photos, appendices, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2022
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8806-0
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4577-3
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments ix
Author’s Note xiii
Preface 1
Prologue: “­Thirty-two years is more than enough” 3
1. “The impossible has happened!” 7
2. A Team Grows in Brooklyn 17
3. From Daffiness to “Wait’ll Next Year” 28
4. Beginning of the End … or End of the Beginning 43
5. Moon Shots 54
6. Welcome to The Ravine… 68
7. …Sandy and Big D Will See You Out 76
8. The Holdout, the Retirement and the Streak 87
9. The Mouth That Roared 97
10. Building Toward a Championship—Slowly 110
11. Changes 122
12. “Next year” 135
13. Fernandomania 144
14. Out with the Old 148
15. Necessities 157
16. Master of the House 164
17. Confounding the “Experts” 173
18. End of an Era 182
19. Conflicting Priorities 193
20. The Bob Daly Years 204
21. Underfunded Frank 218
22. K Is for Kershaw 229
23. Mannywood 239
24. A Fight He Couldn’t Win 247
25. The New Guys 258
26. A Philosophical 180 270
27. The Voices 284
28. “We wuz robbed” 292
29. Home Runs at the Wrong Times 305
30. Weirdest. Season. Ever. 322
31. The Magic Number: 2.7 330
32. Making Themselves at Home … in Texas 339
Epilogue: 2021 352
Appendix I: Hall of Famers with Dodgers Ties 361
Appendix II: The Championships 364
Chapter Notes 369
Bibliography 385
Index 387

• “A very interesting read…With its long story arc, starting from the very beginning of the Dodgers existence, this book is a good read for anyone wanting a solid overview of the team and its history.”—The Inside Game

• “The work speaks for itself—a friendly, well-composed and trusted piece of curated history worthy of its own place on the shelf among the Dodgers’ history books of yore.”—Tom Hoffarth, Farther Off the Wall blog