Reply #38: That was the funny thing in Brooklyn

[Oeditpus Rex]

O'Malley had been lobbying for a new ball yard for years, and saying for a year that he'd move the Dodgers if he didn't get one. It was hardly a secret.

But then, the relationship between Brooklyn and the Dodgers, by all accounts, transcended that of the typical relationship between a city and its ball club. When Gil Hodges was in a slump in 1950 (I think), half the priests in "The City of Churches" prayed for him.

This is from sportsecyclopedia.com:

Brooklyn was used to heartbreaks, but it would never quite get over this, because in years past there was always next year. Now there would no longer be a next year. The Dodgers were to Brooklyn like the Packers are to Green Bay. Brooklyn had lost its main identity, and the borough has never recovered.