The Brooklyn baseball club that would become the Dodgers was first formed in 1883 and joined the American Association the following year. The "Bridegrooms" won the AA pennant in 1889. Upon switching to the National League in 1890, the franchise became the only one in MLB history to win pennants in different leagues in consecutive years. Eight years passed before any more success followed. Several Hall of Fame players were sold to Brooklyn by the soon-to-be-defunct Baltimore Orioles, along with their manager, Ned Hanlon. This catapulted Brooklyn to instant contention, and "Hanlon's Superbas" lived up to their name, winning pennants in 1899 and 1900.

In 1902, Hanlon expressed his desire to buy a controlling interest in the team and move it (back, effectively) to Baltimore . His plan was blocked by a lifelong club employee, Charles Ebbets, who put himself heavily in debt to buy the team and keep it in the borough. Ebbets' ambition did not stop at owning the team. He desired to replace the dilapidated Washington Park with a new ballpark, and again invested heavily to finance the construction of Ebbets Field, which would become the Dodgers home in 1913.

The Move to California

Real estate businessman Walter O'Malley had acquired majority ownership of the team in 1950, when he bought the shares of his co-owner Branch Rickey. Before long, he was working to buy new land in Brooklyn to build a more accessible and better arrayed ballpark than Ebbets Field. Beloved as it was, Ebbets Field had grown old and was not well-served by infrastructure, to the point where the most pennant-competitive team in the National League couldn't sell the park out even in the heat of a pennant race. New York City building czar Robert Moses sought to force O'Malley into using a site in Flushing Meadows, Queens (the future site for Shea Stadium, where today's New York Mets play). Moses' vision involved a city-built, city-owned park, which was greatly at odds with O'Malley's real-estate savvy. When it became clear to O'Malley that he wasn't going to be allowed to buy any suitable land in Brooklyn, he began thinking elsewhere.

When the Los Angeles city fathers attended the 1955 World Series looking to entice a team to move to the City of Angels, they weren't even thinking about the Dodgers. Their original target was the Washington Senators (who would in fact move to Minnesota in 1961). At the same time, O'Malley was looking for a contingency in case Moses and other New York politicians refused to let him build the Brooklyn stadium he wanted. O'Malley sent word to the Los Angeles officials at the Series that he was interested in talking. Los Angeles offered him what New York would not: a chance to buy land suitable for building a new ballpark.

Meanwhile, New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham was having similar difficulty finding a replacement for his antiquated home stadium and the two archrival teams moved out to the West Coast together. On April 18, 1958, the Dodgers played their first game in Los Angeles, defeating the San Francisco Giants, 6-5, before 78,672 fans at the Coliseum.

There has been much controversy over the move of the Dodgers to California, perhaps more than over any other franchise move of that era. Walter O'Malley, in particular, is described as villainous by some and admirable by others. Certainly he demonstrated some measure of selfishness and greed, but the same is also true of the New York City politicians who opposed him. Both sides were quite stubborn and fatally misjudged each other. It should also be noted that Brooklyn had declined in many ways, under various social pressures, and was a much less desirable location for a baseball team than it had been. In fact, both sides in the stadium dispute proposed to remove the Dodgers from Brooklyn (Moses' plan for a team in Flushing Meadows was realized several years later, with little alteration, in the New York Mets). O'Malley also deserves credit as a visionary. Until 1958, St. Louis had generally been the westernmost outpost of Major League Baseball, whereas 12 of baseball's 30 teams now have their homes farther west. O'Malley was primarily concerned with making himself very rich (which he did) and certainly he broke the heart of many a New Yorker, but his move also helped lead the game of baseball to greater prominence and prosperity.

A New Start

The process of building Walter O'Malley's dream stadium soon began in semi-rural Chavez Ravine, in the hills just north of downtown L.A. There was some political controversy, as the residents of the ravine, mostly Hispanic and mostly poor, resisted the eminent domain removal of their homes and gained some public sympathy. Still, O'Malley and the city government were determined and construction proceeded.

In the meantime, the Dodgers played their home games from 1958 to 1961 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, a gargantuan football and track-and-field stadium that had been built to host the 1932 Summer Olympics. The Coliseum's dimensions were not optimal for baseball and the only way to fit a diamond into the oval-shaped stadium was to lay the third-base line along the short axis of the oval, and the first-base line along the long axis (see picture). This resulted in a left-field fence that was only some 250 feet from home plate and a 40-foot screen was erected to prevent home runs from becoming too easy to hit. Still, the 1958 season saw 182 home runs hit to left field in the Coliseum, while only 3 were hit to center field and 8 to right field. Dodgers outfielder Wally Moon, newly acquired for the 1959 season, became adept at launching lazy fly balls over the screen, which became known as "Moon shots."

In 1959, the Dodgers benefitted from a general decline in the National League. No team was dominant and several teams were in the thick of the pennant race until the very end. The season ended in a tie between the Dodgers and the Milwaukee Braves, the Dodgers won the tie-breaking playoff. 1959 also saw a team other than the Yankees win the A.L. pennant, one of only two such years between 1949 and 1964. In a lively World Series, the Dodgers defeated the "Go-Go" White Sox in 6 games, thoroughly cementing the bond between the team and its new California fans.

Present Day

After 1988, the Dodgers did not win another postseason game until 2004. Hershiser, like Valenzuela before him, suffered an arm injury in 1990 due to overwork, which took the edge off his effectiveness for the remainder of his career. From 1992 to 1996, five consecutive Dodgers were named Rookie of the Year: Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo and Todd Hollandsworth. The Dodgers did reach the playoffs in 1995 and 1996. They narrowly missed in 1991 and strike-cancelled 1994. After nearly 20 years at the helm, Lasorda retired in 1996, though he still remains with the Dodgers as an executive vice-president. He was replaced as manager by former Dodgers shortstop Bill Russell.

Nearly a half-century of unusual stability (only two managers 1954-1996, owned by a single family 1950-1998) finally came to an end. In 1998, the O'Malley family sold the Dodgers to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, owner of the Fox Network and 20th Century Fox. Among the new ownership's early moves were trading away popular catcher Piazza and replacing Russell with celebrity manager Davey Johnson. Johnson's volatile tenure ended two years later, replaced by the current manager Jim Tracy. The 2002 season was marked by the emergence of Eric Gagne as one of baseball's top relief pitchers. Gagne won the Cy Young Award in 2003.

In 2004, News Corp. sold the Dodgers to real estate developer Frank McCourt, who hired Paul DePodesta to be general manager. Shortly before the start of the regular season, DePodesta engineered the acquisition of volatile yet talented outfielder Milton Bradley. The Dodgers played an exciting, competitive brand of baseball during the first half of 2004, yet DePodesta felt something else was needed to vault the team into the postseason. To this end, he executed a blockbuster series of mid-season trades, sending away three starting players (including popular catcher and team leader Paul LoDuca) and two key pitchers, while obtaining several new players. While the Dodgers did win the NL West in 2004, they lost in the Division Series to the eventual NL champion St. Louis Cardinals. Only a masterful performance by journeyman Jose Lima kept the Dodgers from being swept out of the playoffs.

The winter of 2004-2005 saw several more popular players exit, including Lima, third baseman Adrian Beltre and slugger Shawn Green. Their replacements included starting pitcher Derek Lowe, outfielder J.D. Drew and hard-hitting second baseman Jeff Kent. In 2005, the Dodgers initially silenced their many doubters by winning 12 of their first 14 games. But then they came back to earth, playing well below .500 baseball.

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