Even now, in any case these years, Norman Siegel is conflicted. He was born in Brooklyn, raised in Brooklyn, and he firmly believes his childhood ardour for the Brooklyn Dodgers set him on a course to changing into a civil rights legal professional.
Now it’s the Los Angeles Dodgers who’ll be enjoying the New York Yankees in Recreation 1 of the World Sequence Friday evening, this after knocking off the Mets within the Nationwide League Championship Sequence. And it so occurs that Siegel, who turns 81 in November, transferred his loyalties to the enlargement Mets in 1962, 5 years after the Dodgers moved to the west coast.
Ought to a loyal Mets fan root for the Yankees within the World Sequence? Alternatively, how can a local of Brooklyn root for the crew that deserted Ebbets Subject?
This would be the twelfth time the Dodgers and Yankees have met within the World Sequence, and it’s the fifth assembly for the reason that Dodgers relocated to Los Angeles. To achieve some perspective that may solely be supplied by a real Brooklynite, I spoke with Siegel. I spoke with Abby Tedesco, 90, who participated within the massive celebration in entrance of the Lodge Bossert on Montague Road that October afternoon in 1955 when the Brooklyn Dodgers toppled the Yankees in Recreation 7 of the World Sequence for his or her solely pre-Los Angeles championship. I spoke with Shaine Kay, age 51. Not but born when the Dodgers moved away, even he has emotions on the matter.
Norman Siegel had sports activities in his blood. His father, Benjamin Siegel, had performed some semi-pro basketball again within the day, and he was a hearty Dodgers fan. Benjamin Siegel was a union foreman for Supreme Printing Co., on Varick Road in Greenwich Village, which meant day by day journeys into Manhattan, however he nonetheless discovered time for journeys to Ebbets Subject, typically with Norman at his aspect.
Norman Siegel was a positive pupil at New Utrecht Excessive College and later at Brooklyn Faculty and NYU College of Regulation, nevertheless it’s nothing in contrast with the training he obtained at Ebbets Subject. Going to Brooklyn Dodgers video games, he mentioned, “sensitized me to the idea of racial equality, which led me to turn into a civil rights lawyer. And I’ve been doing that now for 54 years.
“Ebbets Subject was my first publicity to individuals who had been Black in important quantity,” Siegel mentioned. “Sitting with Black individuals within the bleachers helped make me be snug rooting for a crew that was racially blended.”
The Dodgers made historical past in 1947 when their normal supervisor, Department Rickey, broke baseball’s longstanding shade line by selling Jackie Robinson to the massive leagues. Quickly different Black gamers would come alongside. Roy Campanella. Don Newcombe. Joe Black. Siegel noticed all of them.
“For 75 cents you possibly can sit within the bleachers,” Siegel mentioned. “We didn’t high-five anybody in these days, however at any time when anybody on the Dodgers did one thing, whether or not it was Jackie or Pee Wee Reese or Duke Snider, we’d rise up and applaud. Typically I might have a look at the opposite individuals, they had been Black and White. So whether or not it was Preacher Roe or Don Newcombe pitching, we often had 4 Whites and 5 Blacks or 5 Blacks and 4 Whites, or one thing like that, however we had been all collectively. It was we will overcome.”
“I celebrated in ’55, after all, after we lastly beat these rattling Yankees,” Siegel mentioned. “And I used to be devastated in ’57.”
Norman Siegel with a photograph of a number of Brooklyn Dodgers greats (Courtesy picture)
Along with his regulation diploma, and with what he discovered rising up at Ebbets Subject, Siegel went south to work for the ACLU’s Voting Rights Challenge. In 1985 he was named govt director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Now dwelling within the Higher West Facet in Manhattan, he’s on the board of administrators of the Jackie Robinson Basis. He’s a New Yorker, by and thru, and the Dodgers have now been Los Angeles’ crew for nearly seven many years.
So … Dodgers or Yankees within the World Sequence?
“Individuals have been asking me what I’m going to do,” Siegel mentioned. “I’ll know for positive when the the primary recreation begins.
“However after I see that uniform, with ‘Dodgers’ throughout the entrance, it wins me over.”
Abby Tedesco has no conflicts about which crew she plans to assist within the World Sequence.
It’ll be the Dodgers.
It’s a Brooklyn factor.
Abby resides in Lido Seashore on Lengthy Island now and has a summer time place within the Berkshires the place her household runs an animal sanctuary, however to speak to this spry, upbeat girl about rising up in East Flatbush is to speak about these many completely happy treks to Ebbets Subject to observe the Dodgers.
Abby’s largest takeaways? She particularly loved the slaphappy band of Ebbets Subject musicians generally known as the “Dodgers Sym-Phony,” and as a teen she’d marvel as the amount of peanut shells that collected on the bottom through the recreation. “We’d be consuming peanuts all day, and what a multitude we’d go away,” Abby mentioned. “I don’t understand how they received all of them picked up.”
Abby Tedesco with a photograph of the memorable 1955 Dodgers. (Courtesy picture)
However it was Abby’s father, Moe Moskowitz, who wore the Dodger pants in the home. “He wasn’t only a Dodger fan, he was a loopy Dodger fan,” Abby mentioned. “If he was watching a recreation the Dodgers may have an 8-0 lead within the eighth inning and he’d be saying, ‘It’s too shut! It’s too shut!’ Typically he’d get so nervous he’d flip the sport off and examine it within the paper within the morning.”
Moe Moskowitz was in women’ corsets. “My father managed a series of 15 shops owned by my uncle,” Abby mentioned. “The corporate was referred to as Corsetorium. They used to say, ‘After all it’s Corsetorium!’”
Dashing about from corset store to corset store stored Moe busy, however not too busy to take the household to Dodgers video games. The household residence at East 54th Road and Lenox Street was solely a few miles from Ebbets Subject.
“Jackie Robinson lived not too removed from the place we lived,” Abby mentioned. “My father would pile all the children within the automobile and we’d drive previous there on a regular basis to see if we may spot him out entrance and wave hiya. We by no means did see him, however we’d hold going.”
When the Dodgers toppled the Yankees within the 1955 World Sequence, Moe once more piled all the children within the automobile. This time the vacation spot was the Lodge Bossert.
“He knew the Dodgers could be celebrating there, and he wished us to be a part of it,” Abby mentioned. “And we simply stood there, watching everybody come out and in of the resort. That was thrilling.”
What wasn’t so thrilling within the Moskowitz home was what occurred two years later, when the Dodgers introduced the transfer to Los Angeles. Moe was all labored up — much more so than if the Dodgers had an 8-0 lead within the eighth inning — however he received over it. “He went from being a loopy Dodgers fan to being a loopy Mets fan,” Abby mentioned.
Moe Moskowitz handed away in 1992. He lived to see the Mets win two World Sequence championships, twice as many as had been gained by the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Abby isn’t as massive a baseball fan as her father was, however, sure, she rooted for the Mets to beat the Dodgers within the NLCS.
She’ll be rooting for the Dodgers — the Los Angeles Dodgers — to beat the Yankees within the World Sequence.
“Despite the fact that they beat us, I need them to beat these rattling Yankees,” Abby mentioned.
After which there’s Brooklyn native Shaine Kay, too younger to have even stepped inside Ebbets Subject. Furthermore, he admits he hasn’t been a lot of a baseball fan “since I used to be little.” And but there’s a Brooklyn Dodgers beat to this coronary heart, partly due to the connection he had together with his grandfather, the late William Kelleher, but additionally due to that point he met Dodgers icon Duke Snider — the Duke of Flatbush himself! — at an autograph present.
“My grandfather was an enormous Dodger fan, and my uncle — his brother — was a New York Giants fan,” Kay mentioned. “I heard all of the tales concerning the rivalry that they had, and them cursing one another out on the dinner desk.”
Like many Brooklyn Dodgers followers, Kelleher ultimately transferred his loyalties to the Mets. Kay, then again, had blended loyalties: He grew to become a Yankees fan as a toddler however maintained a passion for former Dodgers shortstop Pee Wee Reese by the tales his grandfather would inform him.
Kelleher died in 1988. Kay drifted away from baseball. He ultimately moved to Lengthy Island, after which someday he ventured right into a flea market that was promoting odd sports activities souvenirs. Wouldn’t or not it’s swell, he advised himself, if there occurred to be a Brooklyn Dodgers jersey with Pee Wee Reese’s No. 1 on the again?
What he discovered was a Brooklyn Dodgers jersey with Duke Snider’s No. 4 on the again.
“The place was going out of enterprise, so I received it filth low cost,” Kay mentioned. “A couple of week later, my pal calls me up and says, ‘Get right down to the comics retailer and produce your jersey.’ I mentioned, ‘What are you speaking about?’ He says, ‘Duke! Duke! He’s on the comedian e book retailer and he’s signing autographs.’ I mentioned, ‘Who?’ And he says, ‘Just like the jersey you simply purchased, fool! No. 4, Duke Snider, is signing autographs.’”
Shaine Kay together with his #4 Duke Snider Dodgers jersey. (Courtesy picture)
Kay gathered his Duke Snider jersey and went to the shop, paid $20 to get in line, and offered himself to the Corridor of Fame Dodgers heart fielder. That’s when anyone stepped in and advised Kay that Snider was solely signing baseball playing cards or baseballs that had been bought on the retailer.
They are saying Duke Snider had nice vary when he patrolled heart area for the Dodgers. He confirmed it once more that day on the comedian e book retailer, going manner out of his manner on behalf of Shaine Kay.
“I used to be going to say, alright, I’m leaving, give me my 20 bucks again,” Kay mentioned. “After which Duke Snider says to me, I used to be possibly 15 on the time, he says, ‘Any child who is aware of who the hell I’m, not to mention owns my jersey, I’m signing his shirt.’ And he took a Dodger blue sharpie out of his personal pocket and signed it.”
So, Kay’s rooting for the Dodgers within the World Sequence, proper? In reminiscence of his grandfather! In reminiscence of Duke Snider!
“I’m rooting for the Yankees, primarily as a result of they’re a New York crew,” he mentioned. “However I like the truth that it’s Dodgers-Yankees, once more, similar to it was once.
“However after I go,” Kay mentioned, referring to the day he dies, “that Duke Snider jersey goes within the field with me. The remainder of my jersey assortment, they will cut up it up. However the Duke’s going with me.”
(Prime picture of the 1954 Brooklyn Dodgers: Hulton Archive / Getty Photos)
