The Brooklyn Dodgers (NY) (Images of Sports) [Paperback]

Mark Rucker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 2002

If there was ever a place in America where a city and its baseball team were as close as family, it was Brooklyn.ÝThe legacy of this relationship comes down to us in stories of childhoods spent at Ebbets Field and in the stories of Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey, whose courage changed the face of America.ÝBaseball in Brooklyn goes back to the beginning of the sport, when a young city embraced a new game and, like missionaries, carried it to the nation. This book tells the story of that beginning and concludes with the heart-wrenching move of the franchise to the West Coast after the 1957 season. ÝÝBrooklyn Dodgers carries us from the birth of baseball in the streets of Brooklyn through the decades in Flatbush when Ebbets Field was the center of the Brooklyn community. That was a time when the players lived in the neighborhoods not far from the ballpark, side by side with their followers. Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, and Johnny Podres all make appearances in this exciting selection of photographs.ÝA large part of Brooklyn Dodgers is dedicated to those teams of the 1950s and their irrepressible fans. ÝÝ

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Mark Rucker, an author and editor, is president of the picture agency Transcendental Graphics. He was a pictorial researcher for the Ken Burns film Baseball and is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research. He has produced many sports histories, including biographies of Babe Ruth and Ted Williams.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing (April 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 073851005X
• ISBN-13: 978-0738510057
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,649,780 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Team Grows In Brooklyn, October 1, 2008

By 

J. H. Minde "Everything I need is right here" (Boca Raton, Florida and Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: The Brooklyn Dodgers (NY) (Images of Sports) (Paperback)

I expected THE BROOKLYN DODGERS: IMAGES OF SPORT to be a coffee table- sized edition. It's actually a rather slim trade paperback. Regardless of my deflated expectations, this little book by Mark Rucker is a great addition to any Brooklyn Dodger fan's library.

The book is crammed with photographs, most of very high quality, and associated commentaries on Brooklyn Dodger (and proto-Dodger) teams dating back to the 1840s, when Brooklyn appeared in a semi-pro national championship. To judge from the photos and woodcuts of the early era, baseball, if not yet the National Pastime, was Brooklyn's Pastime.

Legends about Abner Doubleday aside, baseball was born in Brooklyn. Brooklyn sold the first tickets to games, invented the batting helmet, the warning track, the box score, the curve ball, the wrist snap, had the first televised games, and a host of other innovations. To be fair, some of these innovations, like yellow baseballs and games on ice (!) didn't exactly catch on.

It had some of the greatest talent the game has ever seen. If Brooklyn's team struggled along in many seasons, it was only because players like Dazzy Vance or Zack Wheat stood alone as gifted stars on otherwise moderately talented or simply mediocre teams. (Rucker doesn't say whether he is related to the great Dodger pitcher of the Thirties, Nap Rucker.) It would be left to the Yankees to develop their pool of talent into an overwhelming juggernaut of perennially winning teams, at least until the Dodgers' best years in the 1950s.

Rucker introduces us to a veritable army of Dodger players, some of who are memorable, like Wee Willie "Hit 'em where they ain't" Keeler, Jim Creighton, Dave Foutz, John Ward Montgomery, and Frenchy Bordagaray; some of whom are forgotten, like Jigger Staatz, H.B Polhemus, and Frank Kitson; some of whom are world-class talents, like Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella and Gil Hodges; and some of whom are better known for their association with other teams, like Casey Stengel and Babe Ruth. Each captioned photograph gives us a snippet of information on the represented player, his record, and his fate. Team photos are revealing as to the evolution and professionalization of the sport. The earliest antebellum tintypes might have been taken by Matthew Brady. The mustachio'd Gay Nineties players all fit the 'Casey At The Bat' stereotype. The Dodgers went through a bewildering array of changes of name and livery until settling on the blue on white script so closely identified with the Borough of Brooklyn (and still used by the Los Angeles club today).

Many earlier photos have not survived the years. As a result, the bulk of photographs in the book concern the latter-day Dodgers of the Forties and Fifties. Some of the pictures are familiar, but many are not. All are priceless.

Each page of this book is a small gift, to be treasured for its pleasure.

3.0 out of 5 stars OK Book, February 8, 2011

By 

Rock Maven - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Brooklyn Dodgers (NY) (Images of Sports) (Paperback)

There are many better books out there about the Dodgers. This one, despite some great photos, contains some factual errors, and the text is sparse particularly as it relates to almost everybody's favorite Dodger teams of the early 50s until they split for LA. Ahh...the Duke, Gil, PeeWee, Campy, the Redding Rifle, Newk, Jackie...it was nice to "see" them again.