Customer Reviews

After Many a Summer: The Passing of the Giants and Dodgers and a Golden Age in New York Baseball

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This book provides a welcome corrective to the fashionable - but wildly misconceived- notion that if anyone is to blame for the still lamented move of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles it is planning czar Robert Moses and not team owner Walter O'Malley. It also has the merit of restoring the Giants - often the lost chapter in the history of New York baseball - to their rightful place at the heart of some of the most dramatic moments in the last decade of the three team city (the 1951 pennant playoff victory, the 1954 World Series sweep) as well as the chain of events that led to that era's abrupt demise with the departure of both of the city's National League teams to the West Coast.

After Many a Summer is a carefully researched and detailed account of the events leading up to the Dodgers and Giants departure from New York. Murphy leaves no stone unturned as he presents a balanced and intelligent explanation of why none of the many plans to keep the National League in NY failed. Murphy reaches certain conclusions on key issues, such as O'Malley's veracity and Robert Moses's motivations, and this reader found them very convincing, as they are based on scores of reliable sources, interviews, and the public record. The author is clearly a lover of the game, and this very well written book isn't only about business and politics. In order to put the story into context, Murphy describes the history of New York baseball, the relocation of the Braves, Browns, and Athletics, and the key games and players of the 1950s.

After many a Summer is a meticulously, well researched book. Considering Robert Moses has no public relations department working on his image and believe me his image needs it. Mr. Murphy made some very significant points. What instantly gave me the impression that Mr. Murphy was speaking in fact and not conjecture was that every fact in the book the public was privy to at the time, Mr. Murphy reported correctly. From someone who lived through those times and absorbed just about everything printed back then on the Brooklyn Dodgers and the "terrible" decision to move. Mr. Murphy brought it all back and I could find not one inconsistency from his writing to my memory of events. This leads me to believe every other related "behind the scenes" event is also true. I read forever Blue and I'm not going to fault the author on his misconceptions, he was allowed to look at "all documents" supposedly, then again, he was given these materials by "interested parties", so he wouldn't know if things (documents/facts) pertinent to the story were simply destroyed decades or minutes before starting. Mr. Murphy had to dig into the facts covered by 50 + years of half truths and he had to do it with no "inside" help.
Remember Forever blue is the "official" O'malley version of events endorsed by the family. Mr. Murphy was simply writing a book about what happened. He did his best in uncovering the "real honest truth". From reading the book I found Mr. Murphy's place of residence placed no preconceived notion in his mind and none found it's way into the book.He didn't mislead anyone about where he lived either, again, he chose to go with the truth. I found After many a Summer a great factual read and "smacks" of the truth.

The book was interesting. One thing that was not mentioned in this book or anywhere else for that matter. The city of New York made a good offer to keep the Dodgers in New York. They offered the Dodgers a new stadium in Queens which became the home of the Mets.The Dodgers turned down the offer and went out west to LA. The city of New York didn"t offer the Giants anything. If they had made the same offer to the Giants, would the Giants still be in New York today? And isn't the real reason for the bad attendance at the Giant games the last few years in New York was because the city of New York built High Rise Projects across the street from the The Polo Grounds and people were afraid to go there?

The Dodgers and Giants left New York City some fifty years ago, and it's taken that long for someone to write a detailed, cogent explanation of what happened behind the scenes. Robert Murphy's research is stunning in its detail. I'd go so far as to say that Robert Caro would be impressed, and I can't give out a higher compliment than that. The sad truth is that most of the people who would have enjoyed this book the most are no longer with us, but those diehard Brooklyn Dodger and New York Giant fans who have been arguing over whether Walter O'Malley was the evil perpetrator or Robert Moses the evil one finally will get their answer: both of them should rot in hell. And Horace Stoneham should lie right next to them. A wonderful book, Robert.

I have next to no interest in books about baseball (which is twice as much interest as I have in books about football, basketball, soccer, skiing, NASCAR and the rest). As a native of the Bronx, raised by a Manhattan-born father as a Giants' fan and converted at an early age to the one true faith of the New York Yankees, I have a particular bias against the endless whining and whingeing emanating from Brooklyn ever since the Bums (so aptly named) packed up and left their decrepit, low-rent digs on Empire Blvd. (nee Malbone Street, site of the worst subway disaster in the city's history) for the elysian sunshine of Chavez Ravine.

That being said, I was entirely engrossed and deeply impressed by Robert Murphy's After Many a Summer. This is a dense book, not in the sense of dull or impenetrable, but in the way that first-rate fiction is--richly nuanced, in constant confrontation with ambiguity and contradiction, putting aside simplistic good-against-evil scenarios in favor of the Rashomon nuances that shade and shape all truth.

Murphy won't settle for stereotypes. The Robert Moses of this book isn't the Snidely J. Whiplash-type villain of Caro's The Powerbroker. Walter O'Malley is neither Brooklyn's answer to Adolf Hitler nor the Christopher Columbus of Major League Baseball's western expansion. Horace Stoneham is no longer merely an enigma or a nonentity. For the first time, I understood (if not approved) of his decision to rip the Giants untimely from their mother's womb. (And was reminded once again of that great line from Jean Renior's Rules of the Game: "The truly terrible thing about this world is that everybody has his reasons.")

In truth, After Many a Summer is a book about baseball in the way that Moby Dick is a book about fishing. In pursuit of his Great White Whale--the how, why, what and who of New York's epic loss of two legendary sports franchises in a single season--Murphy instructs and enligthens us about the history of Brooklyn (his passionate affection for his native borough is obvious but never clouds his judgment ); the evolution/devolution of post-WWII urban American in general and New York City in particular; the intricacies of making public policy and mechanics of running MLB; and the eternal complications wrought by human vices, virtues, subjectivity, idiosyncrasies and emotions.

After Many a Summer is a model of erudition and graceful writing, a combination in increasingly short supply. Whether you love or loathe baseball, this is a book to be savored and enjoyed. I was engaged and entertained throughout. I came away enlightened.

Robert Murphy's inside story about the highly controversial relocation of the Dodgers & Giants from the East to the Left Coast was very well researched and made for a compelling piece of baseball history.

Whenever ownership of a sports franchise packs up & leaves town, usually the owners are villified, along with anyone else associated with the decision making process. The facts of the matter are clear. Both teams were playing in dumps & weren't drawing many fans. Sure, I think Ebbets Field is a national treasure, and even the Polo Grounds has a great deal of historical mystique associated with it.

However, these parks were getting delapidated, and whether anyone wants to admit it or not, the fan base was eroding; at least fans that paid admission to watch Dem Bums or the Giants play ball. No beer, hot dogs & peanut sales don't make owners happy; and who can blame them? Greed should not be blamed for Walter O'Malley & Horace Stoneham's mutual (albeit secretive) decision to tap into the lucrative California market. It made perfect business sense. After all, owning a team is a business; losing money doesn't help sustain the enterprise.

I found it interesting that Robert Moses, who for over a half century has been vilified for his part in facilitating the evacuation of the Dodgers from Flatbush, is being portrayed in a more favorable light. Again, whenever human emotions come into play, bitter accusations become validated, and no one bothers to research the truth; until Murphy's effort.

For a fan of the game and a baseball historian who is fascinated with baseball's rich history---before color televison & huge payrolls---this was an enjoyable book to wade through. It confirms my belief that neither O'Malley or Stoneham deserve to be blamed for a business decision that was really a no-brainer. History has clearly supported that notion.

For anyone reading: Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O'Malley, Baseball's Most Controversial Owner, and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles by Michael D'Antonio; or After Many a Summer: The Passing of the Giants and Dodgers and a Golden Age in New York Baseball by Robert E. Murphy; if you can only read one then D'Antonio's book is the one to read; if you are going to read both read D'Antonio's first.
I found D'Antonio's to be a book reporting facts with very little editorializing, whereas Murphy's book shows a bias from page one with more opinion than fact.
While Walter O'Malley was a controversial figure, D'Antonio deals with his life from a factual basis, whereas Murphy is clearly anti-O'Malley (he lives in Brooklyn).
Both books cover in great detail the facts surrounding the move of the Dodgers and Giants to LA and SF but I found D'Antonio's book to be factual and Murphy's conjecturial.