The BASEBALL RELIQUARY Inc.
THE BASEBALL
RELIQUARY PRESENTS
LEGACIES: BASEBALL FROM
FLATBUSH TO THE CITY OF ANGELS
at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre
Hollywood, California
August 15, 2004
In
1958, Walter O’Malley moved the beloved Dodgers baseball
team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in what proved to be
perhaps the most controversial franchise shift in
professional sports history. The westward move of the
Dodgers was a watershed for major league baseball,
heralding an unprecedented growth in the business
aspects of the national pastime, but also triggering
deep emotional reaction on both coasts. To the borough
of Brooklyn, the Dodgers had come to symbolize the hopes
and aspirations of its citizens, and the team’s
departure was nothing less than a tragedy, a destruction
of a culture, which left a lasting residue of resentment
still felt today. And in Los Angeles, a relatively young
and still evolving city, a contentious and ideological
battle erupted over Chavez Ravine, the Mexican-American
neighborhood designated as the site for the new Dodger
Stadium.
The pre-show
festivities included a performance by Nancy Bea Hefley,
the popular Los Angeles Dodgers organist since 1988. A
native of Bellflower, California, Hefley began playing
the piano at age four, and over the years has amassed a
repertoire consisting of more than two thousand songs.
As the audience entered the theater and took their
seats, Hefley entertained them with a selection of
traditional baseball songs, Broadway hits, and tunes
associated with New York and Los Angeles.
Brooklyn-born
comedian Elayne Boosler, now a resident of Los Angeles,
served as the evening’s master of ceremonies, and her
opening monologue featured an hilarious routine based on
the corporate sponsorships that are beginning to take
over the game and its stadiums. According to Boosler,
major league baseball attempts to sneak in commercials
at every opportunity as if they belong, when they really
don’t. Her solution is to stop fooling and insulting the
viewers; since they’ve got to pay the salaries, sell
everything, put it in our faces, and call the game. In a
rapid-fire delivery, Boosler then proceeds to announce a
few minutes of a game where every call and every player
is tied to corporate sponsorship. [Examples: “. . . his
walk up to the plate is being brought to you by Home
Style Buffet, where you can walk up to the plate as many
times as you like . . .;” “. . . today first base is
being brought to you by Aflac, because everybody needs
an annoying duck as an insurance agent . . .”]
Motley
then sang the Cy Coleman/Carolyn Leigh tune, “The Best
is Yet to Come,” adding between the lyrics that the
Dodgers were at the forefront in signing a bevy of black
ballplayers, not only Robinson, but also Don Newcombe,
Dan Bankhead, and Roy Campanella. These players paved
the way for future generations of black baseball stars
such as Willie Mays and Barry Bonds. “America’s game was
colorized,” proclaimed Motley.
Next up
was comedian Bobby Kelton, a baseball fan known for his
many appearances on The Tonight Show. Wearing a
1955 Brooklyn Dodgers replica jersey, Kelton recalled
his fond memories of going to Ebbets Field in Brooklyn
as a young boy, and talked about the differences between
fans in New York and Los Angeles: “I was at a
Mets-Dodgers game in Los Angeles this year. The Dodgers
had won the first three games of the series, so if they
won the fourth game they would get a sweep. And there
were about a dozen guys walking into the stadium with
brooms in their hands. I was wondering what kind of
person would go to the trouble of bringing a broom from
his house just to have the visual metaphor of a sweep.
Then I saw a Met fan walking into the stadium with a
vacuum cleaner. And I said why do you have that, and he
said because the Mets suck.”
Political activist and folksinger Ross Altman then came
on stage to sing and play on the guitar two original
compositions dedicated to Dodger greats Sandy Koufax and
Jackie Robinson. Writing in traditions ranging from
Woody Guthrie to Tom Paxton, Altman has composed songs
on virtually all political topics over the last 20 years
and has shared the stage with such legends as Arlo
Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Sam Hinton, and Johnny Walker. His
“Sandy K” was written in response to the rumor printed
in one of former Dodger owner Rupert Murdoch’s
newspapers that Sandy Koufax was a homosexual. Altman
opined that Koufax had “stood up to somebody just as
intimidating as Willie Mays when he demanded and got an
apology from Rupert Murdoch.” He introduced his song in
celebration of Jackie Robinson by noting that it was
written in 2003 for a book signing featuring Lester
Rodney, the founding sports editor and columnist for the
Daily Worker, the American Communist Party
newspaper, who played a pivotal role in the campaign to
integrate baseball that culminated with Branch Rickey’s
signing of Robinson.
lines in its examination
of the Dodgers’ move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and
its contemporary reverberations in terms of loss of home
and community and the disappearance of buildings, sites,
and local identity. Her characters are amalgamations of
literary and historic figures, family members, and
people she has met or heard in her travels. Working with
just a microphone and a few chairs as props, Woodbury
gives voice to people who have gone largely unheard, but
who have witnessed and, in their own individual ways,
engaged in the creation of Los Angeles and Brooklyn that
we know today.
Following
the intermission, Michael C Ford,
a legendary voice in the Los Angeles poetry scene, read
a narrative poem written for the occasion, entitled
“From Flatbush to George Bush” [click on title to view
complete text of poem]. Ford received a Pulitzer Prize
nomination for Emergency Exits (1998), his volume
of selected works from 1970 through 1995, and a Grammy
nomination for his 1986 debut vinyl disk, Language
Commando. A baseball fan whose plays have been
staged internationally, including Termite Palace,
a one-act homage to the last wooden stadium in the
Pacific Coast League, Ford often draws from history and
politics in his witty and intelligent writings. He also
hosted a memorable program of baseball poetry sponsored
by the Baseball Reliquary in 2002, which was documented
in the Hen House Studios CD,
The Los Angeles Bards:
Live in Pasadena.
Renowned vocalist Sue Raney, widely
considered one of the finest interpreters of the great
jazz standards, followed Culture Clash on stage with her
musical trio, consisting of Frank Collett on piano, Tom
Warrington on bass, and Raney’s husband, Carmen Fanzone,
on flugelhorn. Raney sang two haunting and nostalgic
ballads of years gone by and innocence lost, Joe
Raposo’s “There Used to Be a Ballpark” (popularized in
the 1970s when recorded by Frank Sinatra) and Dave
Frishberg’s “Dodger Blue.” Fanzone, a former infielder
with the Chicago Cubs and an accomplished studio
musician, was the featured soloist on his rendition of
“It Might As Well Be Spring.”
The evening concluded with Elayne Boosler
returning to the stage to sing the National Anthem,
accompanied by Nancy Bea Hefley on organ. But this was
not just the usual rendition; rather it spoofed the echo
common at large ballparks which often makes it a
difficult experience for singers, as what they hear on
the loudspeakers may be several seconds late. In this
instance, while Boosler was singing live, a tape
recording of Boosler singing runs several seconds late,
and then even longer; the delayed sound echoes back and
then the sound crosses over (as in “Row Row Row Your
Boat”). By the end of the song, Boosler’s voice comes
out at the right place, but her lips are not moving; you
hear only the voice on the tape finishing the song. Hard
to visualize this finale? Probably so, because like most
of the evening, you really had to be there to fully
appreciate it. “Legacies: Baseball from Flatbush to the
City of Angels” was totally unique in its mix of
artists, whose approaches and styles ranged from the
traditional to the more experimental. It was
illuminating to all those in attendance to discover that
an historic occurrence nearly half a century ago — the
westward move of the Dodgers — continues to interest
and provide meaningful source material for younger
generations of artists. ~ All photos courtesy of Larry Goren ~ |