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Dodgerland: Decadent Los Angeles and the 1977-78 Dodgers
Contributor(s): Fallon, Michael (Author)
ISBN: 0803249403     ISBN-13: 9780803249400
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
OUR PRICE:   $31.46  
Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats
Published: June 2016
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Sports & Recreation | Baseball - History
- History | United States - State & Local - West (ak, Ca, Co, Hi, Id, Mt, Nv, Ut, Wy)
Dewey: 796.357
LCCN: 2016002293
Physical Information: 1.47" H x 6.08" W x 9.31" (1.80 lbs) 472 pages
Themes:
- Chronological Period - 1970's
- Locality - Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA
- Cultural Region - Southern California
- Geographic Orientation - California
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
The 1977-78 Los Angeles Dodgers came close. Their tough lineup of young and ambitious players squared off with the New York Yankees in consecutive World Series. The Dodgers' run was a long time in the making after years of struggle and featured many homegrown players who went on to noteworthy or Hall of Fame careers, including Don Sutton, Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, and Steve Yeager. Dodgerland is the story of those memorable teams as Chavez Ravine began to change, baseball was about to enter a new era, and American culture experienced a shift to the "me" era.


Part journalism, part social history, and part straight sportswriting, Dodgerland is told through the lives of four men, each representing different aspects of this L.A. story. Tom Lasorda, the vocal manager of the Dodgers, gives an up-close view of the team's struggles and triumphs; Tom Fallon, a suburban small-business owner, witnesses the Dodgers' season and the changes to California's landscape--physical, social, political, and economic; Tom Wolfe, a chronicler of California's ever-changing culture, views the events of 1977-78 from his Manhattan writer's loft; and Tom Bradley, Los Angeles's mayor and the region's most dominant political figure of the time, gives a glimpse of the wider political, demographic, and economic forces that affected the state at the time.


The boys in blue drew baseball's focus in those two seasons, but the intertwining narratives tell a larger story about California, late 1970s America, and great promise unrealized.