Strictly for die-hard sports fans. I was hoping for a kind of period piece (1956, the year I was born) with baseball on the side. But nope. Still baseball affectionados will salivate over this one.

The kind of book that leaves you wanting more--more info on that 1956 season, more about this team, more about the civic leaders who neglected & wooed the Dodgers, more about the fans and the neighborhoods they came from. Shapiro does a good job here--keeping the narrative short enough to be an easy read, but complete enough to sell this as a story to be concerned about from a number of different perspectives. Deserving of a less-structured, fact- & anecdote-filled follow-up. Shapiro obviously has the material to do so.

As a long time Dodger fan I really enjoyed starting the new baseball season exploring this slice of history before my time (slightly).

I really should have enjoyed this book, and I did parts of it. Despite the obvious title, I think I was looking for a broader view.

This book covered all the bases: good baseball stories: players, games played, fans. Good politics: Robert Moses and his devious plans; good history: how the Dodgers became the Dodgers, the business of baseball; and good sociology: the team in Brooklyn and what it meant to neighborhoods and the city at large. I have a large baseball library and this one is one of the best ~ right up there with Men at Work and Wait Til Next Year.

A very interesting book that is part sports, part history, part sociology. It chronicles the 1956 season of the Brooklyn Dodgers, a team that made it to the Series as defending champions, yet also a team that was in the throes of a political and economic drama that would see the team move to Los Angeles for the 1958 season. The narrative does bounce around between the different plot lines. One chapter will talk about the team, often putting emphasis on one player and their history and contribution to the Dodgers. The next chapter might focus on random Brooklynites to give a feel for the demographic changes happening in the borough. Another chapter will focus on the battle between Dodger owner Walter O'Malley and New York City rebuilder Robert Moses over O'Malley's desire for a new ballpark to replace aging Ebbets Field. O'Malley is often seen as the villain in the baseball leaving Brooklyn story, but here he comes across as someone who did all he could to keep the team there, yet also as someone who saw the team as purely a business, and perhaps didn't understand what the team meant to Brooklyn once they left. Sometimes the bouncing narratives make the story a bit hard to follow, and the events are not always told in exact chronological order. But the book adds some new and interesting perspectives on what is probably the most famous team relocation saga in sports history.

An excellent baseball and Dodgers book. The book has as its focus the 1956 season but it covers the post-war Dodgers and does an very good job of the events leading to the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn for LA.
A nice mix of interviews and recorded information. One of the best books written about this time.

A real gem of a book that I came across this year.
Shapiro gives some really nice up close profiles of the players, what type of men they really were. A very personal and human view of the players and the owner Walter O’Mally- who was no Branch Rickey. He clearly shows the powerful hand of New York’s “power broker”, Robert Mosses, and reminds us that NOTHING got built in NYC without his approval. He also covers in depth the way Brooklyn was changing in the 1950’s. I picked up this book for my father in law (the Brooklyn Dodgers were his team when he was growing up), but I decided to read it first.
If you love Brooklyn, the Dodgers, or baseball, then read this book.

A well-written and -conceived, throughly-researched, and involving description, not just of the Brooklyn Dodgers' final season and how Brooklyn lost the Dodgers, but of the political, technological, cultural, and socio-economic changes which took place in the mid-to-late-1950s that affect Brooklyn, the New York Metro area, New York State, and the country to this day.

Warning: if you love Brooklyn, the true Dodgers (what the heck are they dodging in L.A.? no one walks out there), New York City and/or state, you may occasionally want to throw the book across the room in anger and frustration. Don't blame the messenger; Shapiro's simply reporting what happened. I suggest you go spit on Robert Moses's grave instead.

The final season of the Dodgers in Brooklyn. A lot of background on how the stadium issues and population of Brooklyn changed as the Dodgers moved to greener pastures on LA. Enjoyed the book immensely.

Very interesting book. It clarifies that Robert Moses was the person who forced O'Malley's hand in moving the Dodgers to LA. I think O'Malley truly wanted to stay in Brooklyn but Moses, did everything in his power, to prevent the new stadium. The portions that described what was going on in Brooklyn, socioeconomically was very interesting. It truly was the Last Good Season, as Robinson was slowing, Reese and others were getting older and unfortunately Roy Campanella's car crash was in the near future.

A great recounting of the Golden Age of New York City baseball, the Giants, Dodgers and Yankees all had a place in New Yorkers' hearts. The heyday of the Dodgers before moving to LA. The players were a intergral part of the neighborhood.