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Stu Bykofsky: A half-century of Dodger hate
TODAY, MOST OF you hate the Dodgers. Maybe you disliked them, off and on, during the season.
Some Philadelphians, nursing a half-century grudge, hate them every single day. We want the Phillies to kill the Los Angeles Dodgers even more than you do.
The haters whose passion can be quenched only by spilling Dodger Blue blood are people like me, trees that grew in Brooklyn. Fifty years ago, we bawled as our beloved Dodgers went west for cash, celebrity and a new ballpark.
Back-stabbers. Vipers. Benedict Arnolds. Judases. Those are the printable names we call them.
They are so far removed from the borough that birthed, loved and defined them, they dare not use the affectionate nickname fans hung on them: Bums. Brooklynites did it and Philly boobirds get it.
They didn't take Bums with them to LA. By all that's holy they shouldn't have been allowed to take the Dodger name. Most younger LA fans don't know it, but their team was known as the Trolley Dodgers.
I hate the Los Angeles Dodgers.
They went from being the beloved Bums — who lived in Brooklyn's working-class neighborhoods — to the starlet-chasing, surfboard-waxing, sunshine-soaking, Porsche-driving, Armani-wearing, champagne-slurping, Los Angeles Dodgers.
Traitors.
"They used to be my heroes, particularly when Don Drysdale was with them," says Brooklyn expatriate George Bochetto. "They definitely stabbed Brooklyn. There's a lot us old Brooklynites that remember the pain well."
The Center City lawyer never liked the Yankees, natch, and couldn't resist a swipe: "Joe Torre managing the LA Dodgers is worse than the lipstick Barack Obama tried to put on the pig Sarah Palin."
Wait! One hate topic at a time.
Torre came up in the comments of another transplant, Carol Hallstrom, who handles community relations at the local U.S. Citizenship and Immigration office.
She saw "charm and irony" that, "given his long career with the Yankees, [Torre] finds himself on the West Coast with the adversaries of his former team."
Hallstrom will cheer the Fightin's tonight "for reasons that have as much to do with my affection for the Phillies as my disdain for the Dodgers."
It was the Brooklyn Dodgers that had the balls and strikes to shatter the color barrier with the inspiring Jackie Robinson, who became an American hero. The Brooklyn Dodgers opened the door for him and the African-Americans who followed him. Robinson "changed the culture" and made Barack Obama possible, says Brooklyn boy Billy Cunningham, who was a (gasp) Yankees fan who felt the wrath of his Flatbush friends.
Billy's father was a Yankees fan who moved from the Bronx. Team attachments, like religious faith, get handed from father to son.
Even he felt betrayed.
"I was devastated," says Billy C. "It was part of my life, going to Ebbets Field on my bike, standing outside the rightfield wall," hoping someone would hit one out.
Before I get out, one kind word for an LA Dodger, if not the LA Dodgers. Pitcher Drysdale was Bochetto's hero, Sandy Koufax was mine. Not just for what the Hall of Fame southpaw did on the field, but for what it meant when he once refused to take the field. The Jewish Dodger ace refused to pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. When he risked wrath by putting who he was over what he did, he made me proud.
I won't feel proud if the Los Angeles Dodgers are handed their pilate'd Hollywood butts in this series. I'll feel something even better: avenged!
Let's go Phillies! *
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/byko.
Some Philadelphians, nursing a half-century grudge, hate them every single day. We want the Phillies to kill the Los Angeles Dodgers even more than you do.
The haters whose passion can be quenched only by spilling Dodger Blue blood are people like me, trees that grew in Brooklyn. Fifty years ago, we bawled as our beloved Dodgers went west for cash, celebrity and a new ballpark.
Back-stabbers. Vipers. Benedict Arnolds. Judases. Those are the printable names we call them.
They are so far removed from the borough that birthed, loved and defined them, they dare not use the affectionate nickname fans hung on them: Bums. Brooklynites did it and Philly boobirds get it.
They didn't take Bums with them to LA. By all that's holy they shouldn't have been allowed to take the Dodger name. Most younger LA fans don't know it, but their team was known as the Trolley Dodgers.
I hate the Los Angeles Dodgers.
They went from being the beloved Bums — who lived in Brooklyn's working-class neighborhoods — to the starlet-chasing, surfboard-waxing, sunshine-soaking, Porsche-driving, Armani-wearing, champagne-slurping, Los Angeles Dodgers.
Traitors.
"They used to be my heroes, particularly when Don Drysdale was with them," says Brooklyn expatriate George Bochetto. "They definitely stabbed Brooklyn. There's a lot us old Brooklynites that remember the pain well."
The Center City lawyer never liked the Yankees, natch, and couldn't resist a swipe: "Joe Torre managing the LA Dodgers is worse than the lipstick Barack Obama tried to put on the pig Sarah Palin."
Wait! One hate topic at a time.
Torre came up in the comments of another transplant, Carol Hallstrom, who handles community relations at the local U.S. Citizenship and Immigration office.
She saw "charm and irony" that, "given his long career with the Yankees, [Torre] finds himself on the West Coast with the adversaries of his former team."
Hallstrom will cheer the Fightin's tonight "for reasons that have as much to do with my affection for the Phillies as my disdain for the Dodgers."
It was the Brooklyn Dodgers that had the balls and strikes to shatter the color barrier with the inspiring Jackie Robinson, who became an American hero. The Brooklyn Dodgers opened the door for him and the African-Americans who followed him. Robinson "changed the culture" and made Barack Obama possible, says Brooklyn boy Billy Cunningham, who was a (gasp) Yankees fan who felt the wrath of his Flatbush friends.
Billy's father was a Yankees fan who moved from the Bronx. Team attachments, like religious faith, get handed from father to son.
Even he felt betrayed.
"I was devastated," says Billy C. "It was part of my life, going to Ebbets Field on my bike, standing outside the rightfield wall," hoping someone would hit one out.
Before I get out, one kind word for an LA Dodger, if not the LA Dodgers. Pitcher Drysdale was Bochetto's hero, Sandy Koufax was mine. Not just for what the Hall of Fame southpaw did on the field, but for what it meant when he once refused to take the field. The Jewish Dodger ace refused to pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. When he risked wrath by putting who he was over what he did, he made me proud.
I won't feel proud if the Los Angeles Dodgers are handed their pilate'd Hollywood butts in this series. I'll feel something even better: avenged!
Let's go Phillies! *
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/byko.