Customer Reviews

Brooklyn Remembered: The 1955 Days of the Dodgers

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Respected baseball writer Maury Allen has provided us with an update on the 11 surviving members of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers' championship team on its 50th anniversary. The book is just over 200 pages long and Allen discusses his visits with the former players and the wives of some of the deceased players. I found several of the stories told in other books on Brooklyn's beloved team, but there were a few stories I hadn't heard before. One involved Gil Hodges who has received more votes than any other player who has not been elected to the Hall of Fame. Supposedly Veterans Committee member Ted Williams has been instrumental in keeping Hodges out not because of his playing ability, but because Hodges was more popular as a manager in Washington than Williams was. Dodgers' executive Buzzie Bavasi felt Jackie Robinson should not have retired as a player when he was traded to the Giants following the 1956 season. He felt Robinson could have become a possible assistant who could one day become the general manager of the Dodgers. That never would have happened with Walter O'Malley owning the team due to the tension that existed between O'Malley and Robinson. Although the 1955 team won Brooklyn's only championship the 1952 and 1953 teams were better than the '55 version. The team was on the way down agewise by 1955 while the 1952 and 1953 team (Roger Kahn's Boys of Summer gang) were in their prime. Author Allen also recounts an incident with manager Walter Alston over some unaccounted soft drinks that hadn't been paid for by the players. Allen wrote a column about what he felt was a petty issue, and Alston invited Allen into his office to discuss it. It resulted in Alston physically attacking Allen. Traveling secretary Lee Scott heard the ruckus and came to Allen's rescue. Several of the members of this team keep their championship ring in a safety deposit box to pass down to succeeding members of their family after they are gone. I find it too bad the ring can't be worn and enjoyed, but they feel the risk of robbery is too great. The book also includes a recap of each of the seven World Series games. No team had ever come back from being down two games to none and won a seven game World Series before. I did find one minor mistake. Allen mentioned that Pirates' slugger Ralph Kiner was traded to the Cubs in 1952 when the correct year is 1953. I'm old enough to remember this team and Kahn's 1953 team as well, and I was happy to read their will be a reunion party for the 1955 team in Brooklyn in the fall of this year, 2005.

This book was a big disappointment, starting with its awkward subtitle. At first reading it looks like "the one-thousand-nine-hundred-and fifty-five days of the Dodgers," as if the team had only lasted that long! "The Days of the 1955 Dodgers" would have been better.

But the big problem with this book isn't the title-- it's Maury Allen's slapdash and dull writing. Hard to believe this guy was a successful sportswriter for so many years. His prose is careless, rambling, repetitious, and lack-luster. There are even some spelling errors-- the kind of thing we've come to expect from 20- and 30-something sportswriters, but that you don't expect to find in a writer of Allen's generation.

What saves the book and makes it worth reading-- and the reason I gave it three stars rather than two-- are the many extensive quotations of surviving Dodger players from the 1955 team, and others associated with the team that season. Thanks to Allen's long-established credentials as a sportswriter, he was able to get "face time" with many former players and team officials who are difficult or impossible for others to interview. Ever try to set up an interview with Yogi Berra or Willie Mays? As they say in Brooklyn, "Fuggeddaboudit!"

This is a pleasant enough read for Brooklyn Dodger lovers, but that wonderful team and that magical year deserve better than they get in this so-so volume.

Maury Allen is a Dean among American sportswriters and a Brooklyn Dodger fan to the marrow. This is his first book on Dem Bums, written in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Brooklyn's historic only World Series victory.

Allen retells all the old baseball legends in this book, particularly the ones that made the Brooklyn Dodgers such a memorable team even in the years when they were not a particularly successful team.

The buildup to the Dodgers' era of glory, beginning with the appointment of Larry McPhail as General Manager in 1939, peaking with the phenomenally unmatched Dodger team of 1953 and the World Series victors of 1955, and ending with the Brooklyn Dodgers' ignominious transformation into the Los Angeles National League Baseball Club at the hands of the rebarbative Walter "If You Got Two Bullets And Got Three Targets Then Shoot Him Twice!" O'Malley in 1958, is punctuated with reminiscences of the (circa 2005 then) eleven surviving 1955 Dodgers and their sometime opponents, men like Stan The Man Musial and Ralph Kiner, men who all agree that playing at Ebbets Field was a unique and unforgettable highlight of their playing careers.

BROOKLYN REMEMBERED: THE 1955 DAYS OF THE DODGERS is a nostalgic visit to the high point of what Roger Kahn calls The Era, a time so sorely missed, even by those of us who weren't there.

AUTHOR MAURY ALLEN TAKES US BACK TO 1955, THE YEAR THE BROOKLYN DODGERS FINALLY WON THE WORLD SERIES. HE INTERVIEWS THE 11 REMAINING PLAYERS AND BRINGS BACK SOME GREAT NOSTALGIA. SOME OF THE SURVING PLAYERS ARE KOUFAX, NEWCOMBE, SNIDER AND GAME SEVEN WINNER PODRES. THE STORIES ARE INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING. I ENJOYED THIS AND RECOMMEND IT FOR ALL DODGER FANS AND FOR BASEBALL FANS WHO WANT TO LEARN ABOUT A SLICE OF BASEBALL HISTORY.

THE BOOK GIVES YOU INSIGHT INTO THE 1955 SEASON AND WHAT WINNING THE WORLD SERIES WAS LIKE, THROUGH THE MEMORIES OF THE SURVIVING ELEVEN MEMBERS OF THAT TEAM AND OTHER FOLKS WHO RECALL THE STRUGGLE AND EUPHORIA OF WINNING THE FALL CLASSIC AT LAST!BBOOKLYN DODGER FANS AND BASEBALL HISTORIANS WILL ENJOY THE STORY OF THAT MAGICAL SEASON!

For those of us still in the Brooklyn area and those who ventured far away, this book takes you back to the care-free days of the "Brooklyn Bombers." Go for it!

Very readable and interesting book if you are a Dodger fan! Those of us who can remember that World Series title, have many good memories recalled by reading this book!