page_title: Los Angeles Dodgers
section_title: Move to Los Angeles
hierarchical_section_title: Los Angeles Dodgers / Team history / Move to Los Angeles
caption_attribution_description: English: Giant posters of Dodger greats posted on the exterior of the Dodger Stadium
context_page_description: The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles, California. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball as a member club of the National League West division. Established in 1883 in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the team relocated to Los Angeles before the 1958 season. They played four seasons at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum before moving to Dodger Stadium, their current home, in 1962.
  The Dodgers have won six World Series championships and twenty three National League pennants. Eleven NL MVP award winners have played for the Dodgers, winning a total of fourteen MVP Awards; eight Cy Young Award winners have also pitched for the Dodgers, winning a total of twelve Cy Young Awards. The team has eighteen Rookie of the Year Award winners, more than twice as many as the second place New York Yankees 8. The Dodgers have had four consecutive Rookies of the Year from 1979 to 1982 and five in a row from 1992 to 1996.
context_section_description: Real estate investor Walter O'Malley acquired majority ownership of the Dodgers in 1950, when he bought the 25 percent share of co-owner Branch Rickey and became allied with the widow of the another equal partner, Mrs. John L. Smith. Before long, he was working to buy new land in Brooklyn to build a more accessible and profitable ballpark than the aging Ebbets Field. Beloved as it was, Ebbets Field was no longer well-served by its aging infrastructure and the Dodgers could no longer sell out the park even in the heat of a pennant race, despite largely dominating the National League from 1946 to 1957.
  O'Malley wanted to build a new, state of the art stadium in Brooklyn. But City Planner Robert Moses and New York politicians refused to grant him the eminent domain authority required to build pursuant to O'Malley's plans. To put pressure on the city, during the 1955 season, O'Malley announced that the team would play seven regular season games and one exhibition game at Jersey City's Roosevelt Stadium in 1956. Moses and the City considered this an empty threat, and did not believe O'Malley would go through with moving the team from New York City.
  After teams began to travel to and from games by air instead of train, it became possible to include locations in the far west. Los Angeles officials attended the 1956 World Series looking to the Washington Senators to move to the West Coast. When O'Malley heard that LA was looking for a club, he sent word to the Los Angeles officials that he was interested in talking. LA offered him what New York would not: a chance to buy land suitable for building a ballpark, and own that ballpark, giving him complete control over all revenue streams. When the news came out, NYC Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr. and Moses made an offer to build a ballpark on the World's Fair Grounds in Queens that would be shared by the Giants and Dodgers. However, O'Malley was interested in his park only under his conditions, and the plans for a new stadium in Brooklyn seemed like a pipe dream. O'Malley decided to move the Dodgers to California, convincing Giants owner Horace Stoneham to move to San Francisco instead of Minneapolis to keep the Giants-Dodgers rivalry alive on the West Coast.
  The Dodgers played their final game at Ebbets Field on September 24, 1957, which the Dodgers won 2–0 over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
  New York remained a one-team town with the New York Yankees until 1962, when Joan Payson founded the New York Mets and brought National League baseball back to the city. The blue background used by the Dodgers, was adopted by the Mets, honoring their New York NL forebears with a blend of Dodgers blue and Giants orange.
caption: Former Dodger greats who played in both Brooklyn and Los Angeles adorn the exterior of Dodger Stadium.
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