Dodgers Brand Takes a Beating in Very Public Dispute

One of the most storied teams in the annals of baseball is the Los Angeles Dodgers. Why? Primarily because their roots are in the Brooklyn, New York of the 1950s. That's where the "Bums," as they were affectionately known, were the classic National League underdogs to the American League New York Yankees.

It wasn't that the Dodgers were bad; in fact, they had some of the best-known players in baseball — such immortals as Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, and Roy Campanella. It was just they could never beat the Yanks (well, not never: after playing the Yankees in four World Series, the Dodgers finally beat them to win the 1955 World Series — only to lose to the Yankees again the next year).

A 1959 World Series win as the Los Angeles Dodgers may have somewhat soothed the bad blood surrounding the Brooklyn Dodgers' relocation to the West Coast, but the team would never be quite the same. Still, they won two more World Series in the 1960s (one against the Yankees) and another in 1988.

But now the Dodgers brand is being battered by a controversy that seems to reinforce the famed phrase coined by Yogi Berra (he of the Yankees): "It ain't over 'til it's over."Continue reading...