INTRODUCTION
In 1993, MLB expanded by two teams. One of the teams was placed in Denver, Colorado. The other was placed in Washington, D.C.
Denver had a tough time coming up with financial backers and when several possibilities fell through, it scrambled to find a money man — a Youngstown, Ohio, drug store magnate named Michael Monus. His presence — and so-called money, $26 million worth from him and his investors — clinched the bid for Denver.
Well, it turned out Monus' money was built on fraud. A year after Denver had been awarded the bid, Monus had to pull out because he was charged with embezzling funds and falsifying profits at his Phar-Mor Inc. drugstore chain.
Scrambling for new investors for their not-yet-fielded ballclub, the Colorado investors were forced to punt to a New York based investor named Wyatt Evans, who purchased their expansion franchise and decided to move it to Brooklyn, N.Y.
Through legal problems, the team was placed in Newark, rather than New York to avoid the potential lawsuits that would follow. But Evans kept planning for his ballpark in Brooklyn.
Both the Yankees and Mets balked at Newark, but two district court judges threw out challenges by the teams on anti-trust considerations, saying that the fact that New Jersey is an entirely different state did not prove that a team in Newark would not prove such claims.
In 1995, a bill to repeal baseball's antitrust exemption was torpedoed by MLB lobbyists, but was later added a rider to a farm competitiveness bill and was passed in a late-night session, ushering a whole new era to Major League Baseball, rife with a variety of 'market corrections' to place teams in other markets, given that previously, all of the team moves in MLB had been orchestrated largely because of lawsuits or owner greed.
It was at the end of that season that the Newark Rens, playing in a converted minor league stadium, announced a move to Brooklyn, returning major league baseball to the section of New York for the first time since the end of the 1957 season.
The team, working with Borough President Nora Martinez, agreed on a deal to build a privately financed stadium -- the first in modern MLB -- called
MetLife Stadium of Brooklyn to be located at the site for the Atlantic Yards, ironically a locale that was once considered for a stadium for the longlost Brooklyn Dodgers. The ballpark was finished in early 1997 and the team began their first season 40 years after the Dodgers started their last season in Brooklyn.
Dimensions of MetLife Stadium (or simply "The Yard", who here irate at the name, afraid that some would be confused by the name and think the Mets had moved to Brooklyn..)
Quote:
LF Line: 342
LF: 342
LF Alley: 358
CF: 400
RF Alley: 358
RF: 318
RF Line: 296 (just like old Ebbets Field..)
Fences are 8 ft. except for Right Field where they are 38 ft. high
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The team, paying homage to the past, installed a center field area called "Champions Pavilion" where fans born before 1955 are able to get into games for $5.50 on Sundays.
Brooklyn's Hall of Champions: 1890 (NL), 1899 (NL), 1900 (NL), 1916, 1920, 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955 (WS), 1956
The team also retired the numbers of four Brooklyn Dodgers, referring to them instead as the "Brooklyn Four". The four were Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider.
The team named itself the Brownstones, after the iconic residences that are famous in Brooklyn. "We wanted a name that represented our city past, present and future. Something everyone could rally around," said Evans.
In a concession to the Yankees and Mets, the newly named Brooklyn Brownstones agreed not to broadcast their games anywhere on New York City television stations for five years from the time they moved to Brooklyn.
Team officials stated from the start that "the goal is to bring a title to Brooklyn." The team said that it would not be "inhibited by the ghosts of our past. We're here to be successful, we're here to rekindle the flame of Brooklyn baseball into a whole new generation and this time, we're not going anywhere."
This Is A Brooklyn Story.