Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush 2007
(8.3)
The Brooklyn Dodgers, from Jackie Robinson's breaking baseball's color barrier to their move to Los Angeles, a dozen years later. The Dodgers epitomize the diverse working-class, in contrast with the white uptown Yankees, and come oh-so-close to winning the World Series before it finally happens in 1955. By then, Ebbets Field is crumbling, ticket sales are off, fans have moved to the suburbs, and Robert Moses is blocking Walter O'Malley's plan to build a stadium at the terminus of the Long Island Railroad. When Los Angeles makes O'Malley an offer he can't refuse, an era comes to an end: in 1958 the Dodgers and cross-town-rival Giants go West, leaving the ghosts of Flatbush.
