BROOKLYNITES STILL MAD AT O’MALLEY FOR DODGERS EXIT Along with Dick Williams, former Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley was voted for membership into the Baseball Hall of Fame. While members of the Veterans Committee and many fans may be happy with the selection, there’s still some in Brooklyn who’re bummed:

WCBS-TV via the AP learns that even 50 years later, fans in the NYC borough are still mad at O’Malley for moving the team from Ebbets Field to the sunny shores of Los Angeles. Upon hearing of O’Malley election, Borough president Marty Markowitz said he was “flabbergasted”.Markowitz, who was 12 years old when the Dodgers headed west, feels there should be no honor bestowed on the man who took away Brooklyn’s baseball birthright:

“For O’Malley, the bottom line was that it was his team to do what he wanted with, and he did it at the expense of breaking our hearts, at the expense of ripping out the hearts of the most enthusiastic fans in baseball.”However, some disagree with the scorn shoveled on the Dodgers’ owner. Historian John Thorn argues, “O’Malley’s role as the ‘Johnny Appleseed’ of baseball weighs heavily in his favor, compared to the injury done to the people of Brooklyn.”

Thorn continues that the 1957 relocation “made the ‘National Pastime’ truly national, rather than the provincial affair that it had been, with only two teams as far west as the Mississippi river and the rest of them in the east.”

O’Malley passed away in 1979, so he didn’t get to see the rise of Tommy Lasorda, or bask in the brilliant ownership of Fox or the McCourts. For shame.