Dodgers: 120 Years of Dodgers Baseball »

Klaus Wolff, MD

Professor and Chairman Emeritus

Department of Dermatology

Medical University of Vienna

Chief Emeritus, Dermatology Service

General Hospital of Vienna

Vienna, Austria

Richard Allen Johnson, MD

Clinical Instructor and Associate in Dermatology

Massachusetts General Hospital

Harvard Medical School

Boston, MA

Dodgers. The word conjures different things to different people, but its distinction—and notoriety—is universal. In the annals of baseball, the history of few other teams can compare to the rich legacy of the Dodgers. Their constituency includes fans from Bensonhurst to Burbank. Their colorful past—“dem bums,” Jackie Robinson and the boys of summer, Walter O’Malley, Sandy Koufax, Tommy Lasorda, “bleeding Dodger blue”—has enlivened baseball in innumerable, immeasurable ways. And their legacy, casting a 120-year shadow, remains essential to the very nature of the game.
In a compelling, insightfully written narrative and more than two hundred unforgettable photographs, many never before seen, The Dodgers: 120 Years of Dodgers Baseball tells the team's story in its entirety, from its birth in Brooklyn in 1884 and its early glories, to the heart-wrenching move to Los Angeles in 1958, to the present day. The Dodgers' evolution, and particularly their willingness to embrace change even when it was a wildly unpopular choice, is also, writes Glenn Stout in his introduction, “an inherently American story that follows a familiar path, a story of immigration, assimilation, migration, and change.” In one of the only books to look at the team as a unified whole, we see how the Dodgers helped create modern baseball in Brooklyn, how they ushered the game into its contemporary form with the signing of Jackie Robinson in 1945, and how they have borne witness to the metamorphosis of baseball from an amateur game played by gentlemen into a multibillion-dollar business. It's all here, a century and more of history-making baseball. In these pages, readers will experience some of the game's finest moments, greatest plays, and most unforgettable players, including

• the birth of the “Trolley Dodgers” in an unlikely borough • a legendary series of stirring pennant races in the late 1940s and 1950s • Jackie Robinson and the integration of baseball • the notorious move from East Coast to West at the hands of the much-maligned Walter O’Malley • the reemergence of the Dodgers-Giants rivalry in California • the game's most dynamic pitching duo, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale • Kirk Gibson’s dramatic home run in the 1988 World Series
• and lively essays by such heralded Dodger chroniclers as Dave Anderson, Jane Leavy, Bill Plaschke, Dick Young, and others

Publishers Weekly

Stout and Johnson, who teamed to write Red Sox Century and Yankees Century, now examine one of baseball's oldest professional teams, the Dodgers, who have enjoyed a long and colorful history on both American coasts. Before the team signed Jackie Robinson, the first African-American player in the majors, the players were a collection of eccentrics, known more for their failures than their successes. But as the authors take recount the team's history in both Brooklyn and Los Angeles, readers learn how the Dodgers became the "Boys of Summer," the antidote to the predictable Yankees (who always seemed to win). They enjoyed a fanatically loyal fan base that was eternally optimistic. This book, which has a family album feel, employs Stout's lively writing and Johnson's exciting, rarely seen images to walk readers down a memory lane peopled with some of the most famous names in the game: Robinson, Koufax, Reese, Snider, Campanella and Drysdale. Essays by noted sportswriters (including Dave Anderson and Jane Leavy) appear intermittently throughout the book's chronological order, giving readers insight into such memorable moments as Sandy Koufax's four no-hitters and Kirk Gibson's improbable home run against the Oakland Athletics in 1988. And number-crunchers will thrill at the numerous tables noting Dodger leaders and award winners. B&w photos. (Sept. 17) Forecast: Tie-ins to the Dodgers' 120th anniversary will bump sales. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.