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Jerald Podair. City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles.

2017; Oxford University Press; Volume: 122; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ahr/122.5.1648

1937-5239

Jon C. Teaford,

American Sports and Literature

In the United States, a major-league team is a prerequisite for big-city status. Baseball, football, and basketball are not simply games; they are elements necessary to a city’s rise to greatness. In City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles, Jerald Podair recounts Los Angeles’s acquisition of the Dodgers baseball team and the city’s consequent emergence as a much-vaunted big leaguer. It is not a simple story of triumph. Tracing the obstacles that Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley confronted in building a new stadium, Podair illuminates the troubling fissures in Los Angeles culture and politics during the late 1950s. His book is more than sports history. It skillfully weaves the strands of baseball, business, urban aspirations, taxpayer anxiety, and ethnic divisions into a detailed account that reveals much about the midcentury California metropolis. Throughout the book, Podair offers a more sympathetic portrait of O’Malley than that presented by many previous commentators. According to Podair, O’Malley was a businessman concerned about profits, but he did not coldheartedly conspire to abandon the Dodgers’ Brooklyn home. He wished to stay in New York, but he was absolutely committed to building a new, privately owned ballpark. Dedicated to total control over his team, O’Malley did not want to rent space in a municipally owned stadium. Instead, any new playing field had to be O’Malley’s creation and property. Unfortunately for the team owner, New York’s public officials—most notably construction czar Robert Moses—would not commit public funds to advance O’Malley’s private interest. Yet, without public aid, O’Malley could not afford to build his stadium.