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Abstract
The Brooklyn Dodgers have come to signify, to many Americans, a bygone era when the baseball team was an integral part of the local community. This essay examines the ‘public memory’ of the Dodgers as portrayed in the 1995 film Blue in the Face. It is contended that remembrance of the Dodgers, particularly the sadness caused by the team's shift to California in 1958 and the subsequent demolition of its home-ground Ebbets Field, is used both to evoke a sense of community lost and support a bohemian version of contemporary urban community seemingly endorsed in the film's fictional narrative. It is concluded that the film successfully evokes an emotive image of the Dodgers through use of documentary footage and monologues. Yet, by uncritically accepting the ‘public memory’ of the Dodgers, Blue in the Face advances a case for contemporary communal relations based on retrospective hope for a return to a past that never really was.
Notes
1 CitationAuster, ‘Auggie Wren's Christmas Story’.
2 CitationRowe, Civic Realism, 128–9.
3 CitationMumford, The Culture of Cities; CitationKoolhaas, Delirious New York.
4 CitationJacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
5 CitationMiller, Lewis Mumford: A Life, 218.
6 CitationBrown, ‘“We Don't Go By Numbers”’, 128.
7 CitationAuster, Smoke and Blue in the Face: Two Films, 14. See related discussion in CitationBrooker, Modernity and Metropolis, 130.
8 A number of films made during the Brooklyn Dodger's heyday featured the team – on occasion using real players – within their storylines. For example, It Happened in Flatbush (1942), Whistling in Brooklyn (1943) and Roogie's Bump (1954).
9 CitationRiess, City Games, 35.
10 CitationMcGee, The Greatest Ballpark Ever, 6.
11 Ibid., 5.
12 CitationWard and Burns, Baseball, 339–44.
13 McGee, The Greatest Ballpark Ever, 245.
14 CitationKahn, The Boys of Summer, 203.
15 CitationMeany and McCullough, ‘Dodger Fans’.
16 CitationWard and Burns, Baseball, 321.
17 McGee, The Greatest Ballpark Ever, 287.
18 CitationBarzun, ‘On Baseball’, 437.
19 CitationSullivan, The Diamond in the Bronx, 17.
20 McGee, The Greatest Ballpark Ever, 61–2.
21 CitationNeilson, ‘Baseball’, 45.
22 Neilson, ‘Baseball’, 47.
23 CitationWard and Burns, Baseball, 348.
24 Auster, Smoke and Blue in the Face: Two Films, 160; Brooker, Modernity and Metropolis, 132.
25 CitationTygiel, Baseball's Great Experiment.
26 CitationPrince, Brooklyn's Dodgers, 97–9, 144–5. For an alternative account that defends O'Malley's decision to move the Dodgers to Los Angeles, see CitationSullivan, The Dodgers Move West.
27 Prince, Brooklyn's Dodgers, 92–101.
28 Ibid., 92.
29 CitationRampersad, Jackie Robinson: A Biography, 460–1.
30 Auster, Smoke and Blue in the Face: Two Films, 19.
31 The opening scene of Smoke (1995) features a debate between the cigar store regulars over the declining fortunes of the New York Mets. The Queens borough based Mets entered the National League in 1962, only four years after the departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The good natured criticism of former players Mookie Wilson and Amos Otis evokes memories of earlier generations of Brooklynites discussing ‘Our Bums’ or ‘Dem Bums’.
32 CitationRoberts, ‘A Myth Grows in Brooklyn’, 8–10.
33 Ibid., 12–15.
34 This point is elaborated in Frederic Roberts' (1995) insightful critique of Roger Kahn's arguably over-praised The Boys of Summer.
35 CitationBodnar, Remaking America, 13.
36 Ibid., 15.
37 Ibid., 14.
38 Ibid.
39 Prince, Brooklyn's Dodgers, 102.
40 Ibid., 105.
41 CitationGolenbock, Bums, 525–8.
42 Prince, Brooklyn's Dodgers, 109.
43 CitationRoberts, ‘A Myth Grows in Brooklyn’, 8–9.
44 Prince, Brooklyn's Dodgers, 109.
45 CitationCramer, Joe DiMaggio, 89.
46 Prince, Brooklyn's Dodgers, 106–7.
47 Golenbock, Bums, 170–82.
48 Ibid., 187.
49 In a further appearance Mr Bey comments, ‘My favourite thing about Brooklyn is that every nationality in the world lives in Brooklyn. The least favourite thing is that all these nationalities have not been able to get along.’ This seemingly contradicts his previous statement, but interestingly shows that the directors afford the interviewees an improvisational license, which interrupts – if not disrupts – the dominant fictional narrative of an ethnically harmonious Brooklyn.
50 Prince, Brooklyn's Dodgers, 25.
51 Ibid., 29.
52 Rampersad, Jackie Robinson: A Biography, 340–1.
53 Prince, Brooklyn's Dodgers, 24–8.
54 Brown, ‘“We Don't Go By Numbers”’, 145.
55 Ibid., 146.
56 Reference is made to the disparity between Brooklyn districts in CitationTierney, ‘Brooklyn Could Have Been a Contender’, 409.
57 CitationWang, ‘Preface’, vii.