Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between by Eric Nusbaum

May 09, 2020 Brina rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: baseball, history, los-angeles, hispanic-culture

Over the last two months we have been inundated with images about being safe at home. In the last two weeks, commercials have focused on mother’s being the mainstay of the home in anticipation of Mother’s Day. To me, it is just another day, but I found myself missing baseball more than ever. The pink batting gloves, cleats, and bats worn by Major League Baseball players to pay homage to their mothers is a touching tribute, but it is also the first marker of a long season in which teams can asses Over the last two months we have been inundated with images about being safe at home. In the last two weeks, commercials have focused on mother’s being the mainstay of the home in anticipation of Mother’s Day. To me, it is just another day, but I found myself missing baseball more than ever. The pink batting gloves, cleats, and bats worn by Major League Baseball players to pay homage to their mothers is a touching tribute, but it is also the first marker of a long season in which teams can assess where they are after six weeks. As pink is not a favorite color of mine, I can do without it, but as the calendar turns toward summer I am really missing baseball. My reading during this time has become baseball heavy as a coping mechanism, and this latest book focuses on the people whose lives and homes were altered when the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and, sadly, not about being safe at home.

Dodger Stadium had been pegged to host the 2020 all star game on the occasion of its sixty year anniversary. As one who lists Jackie Robinson as one of her top American heroes of the 20th century, it is hard to believe that the Dodgers have called Los Angeles home for over sixty years. Following their long sought after World Series victory in 1955, Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley assessed the state of Ebbets Field and knew that the team needed to upgrade its home park if it wanted to remain a force in the national league. Society was becoming more suburban and a ballpark in a busy Brooklyn neighborhood appeared outdated. O’Malley designed a modern stadium within the Brooklyn borough only to be foiled by equally powerful New York urban planner Robert Moses. Moses suggested that the Dodgers move to a state of the art new stadium in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens. O’Malley balked and, within two years, he uprooted the Dodgers to sunny California, and for good measure, brought the rival Giants to the west coast with him. For those looking to read a comprehensive book about the Dodgers, and Giants, move west, however, they will be disappointed. The team’s history is glossed over in the final section of the book as the author discusses it when he focuses on the construction of Dodger Stadium, a monument to the O’Malley family. As the Dodgers have been chronicled at length, the author looked to focus on the history surrounding the team from a new angle.

While the Dodgers do play a role in this book, it is primarily about urban politics of Los Angeles in the first half of the 20th century. The author Eric Nusbaum was privileged to hear former housing advocate Frank Wilkinson speak to his high school history class in 2003. Wilkinson moved with his family to Los Angeles from Arizona as a young boy in search of better health care for his mother, so, like the Dodgers, he was also a transplant. His father was a respected doctor who was also ascribed to the temperance movement and a social conservative. Wilkinson grew up hearing his father denounce alcohol and credit his life to religion. After graduating from UCLA, Wilkinson and a friend embarked for a traditional travel through Europe. On the eve of World War II, he witnessed communism in Russia and liked what he saw, forsaking religion and joining the party on his return to Los Angeles. A charismatic person, Wilkinson devoted his life to public housing, keeping his party membership quiet for as long as he could, making it his life’s mission to better the way of life for the minority people living in supposedly dilapidated shacks in the hills above Los Angeles.

Prior to the construction of freeways and Dodger Stadium, the hills beyond Los Angeles were not connected to the glitzy part of the city. The communities of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop were home to a thriving Mexican community, comprised primarily of immigrants. The hill communities were one large, extended family, and even through the depression years the people were hardly for want. Nusbaum focuses on Manuel and Abrana Arechiga of Palo Verde, who had called 1771 Malvina Avenue home since the 1920s. Although their home would have been viewed as a shanty by law makers, the Arechiga family had been running their home for nearly forty years by the time the Dodgers wanted to buy their land for construction of their stadium. Stealing Home is primarily about the Arechiga’s fight with the government to maintain ownership of their land so that it would be in the family for generations to come. They believed that as self made immigrants they had just as much stake in the land as politicians who attempted to seize their home through imminent domain. With courtroom fights on the horizon, the housing commission’s representative who attempted to talk the Arechigas into signing over their land was none other than Frank Wilkinson. In this nexus of race, party politics, and a strong woman in Abrana Arechiga, the struggle for land ownership and the future of Los Angeles came to a head. This story was more about the denunciation of Hispanic immigrants than it was about the new arrival Dodgers, who did in fact steal land from many first and second generation home owners to build their stadium. Race and the O’Malley’s deep coffers inevitable transferred the ownership of land in Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop to the Dodgers.

At times it felt as though Nusbaum wanted to do too much. He mentioned everyone from Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson to the Zoot Suit Riots of the 1940s and the Bracero Program, and did not focus on any of these people or events for more than a few pages. Even Sandy Koufax, the Dodgers first star in Los Angeles, is barely mentioned here, as the author can not decide who to make his main focus. Knowing little about Los Angeles politics of the 1950s, I found these sections to be the most compelling, until Nusbaum switched gears and focused on the Dodgers. While we are staying safe at home, I chose to read about an incident where politicians stole home from a group of home owners in order to start construction on a baseball stadium. It will not be the first or last time in history that this has happened. With this book jumping all over the place, I have a need to read about both the Los Angeles Dodgers, of which I have read a lot, and Hispanic culture in Los Angeles, of which I have read little. I feel a book just focusing on one, not both, of these issues would be much more compelling and comprehensive of a read.

3. 5 stars
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Mar 24, 2020 Blaine DeSantis rated it it was amazing

Thank you Perseus Books and NetGalley for this free ARC in return for my honest review. I spent 3 years in Los Angeles in the mid-70's and fell in love with the area. And in the past year I have been fortunate to have read 3 different books about Los Angeles and its Urban Development, athletics and the Dodgers. This book specifically deals with those people who lived in what is now called Chavez Ravine, prior to the baseball stadium these were 3 different communities (Palo Verde, La Loma & Bisho Thank you Perseus Books and NetGalley for this free ARC in return for my honest review. I spent 3 years in Los Angeles in the mid-70's and fell in love with the area. And in the past year I have been fortunate to have read 3 different books about Los Angeles and its Urban Development, athletics and the Dodgers. This book specifically deals with those people who lived in what is now called Chavez Ravine, prior to the baseball stadium these were 3 different communities (Palo Verde, La Loma & Bishop) and most of the focus is upon Palo Verde and the Abrana Arechiga family. The family moved from Mexico to escape the revolution and ended in Arizona and from there made their way to Los Angeles to settle in these hills about 1 mile from downtown. So near, yet so far away, basically forgotten by Los Angeles until a dreamer, Frank Wilkinson, a wanderer and dreamer becomes involved in Urban planning, as well as the Communist Party. Was Frank a Communist? I guess by those old definitions he was, he certainly believed in affordable housing projects and once he got himself into a position of some importance he is the force behind the initial attempts to have Palo Verde, et al, be declared a slum and begin condemnation proceedings to have the land purchased and used for these Housing Projects. Oh gee, we want affordable housing, let's put it where the Mexicans live and displace them.
We trace the history of Wilkinson, the Arechiga family and the Dodgers move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in this well researched book. The Dodgers wanted to move west and LA was finally able to offer them this land in Palo Verde because most families had left and accepted the condemnation awards. But the Affordable Housing fell through and eventually the Dodgers get this land to build Dodger Stadium which was state of the art in 1962 and remains so through today.
We follow the hopes, dreams, tragedies and fiascos that all these interests are involved in and along the way we can try and figure out who are the good guys, the bad guys, and wonder if there are either. This is a story that most Angelinos know nothing about, and few outside of LA are aware of what happened and how it came to pass that the Dodgers moved to LA and were able to wrest this land from the city and from the families that had lived there for over 40 years. A very well written book that gives us a lot of the inside and unknown stories about Chavez Ravine. It is a fascinating book that will appeal to broad range of readers who will read this book from differing points of view. ...more

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Dec 04, 2019 Lance rated it it was amazing

Shelves: politics, arc, baseball, net-galley, own-a-copy, nf-books-read-2019, blog, sports, history

Dodger Stadium is considered to be one of the crowing jewels among ballparks in the United States, nestled in a prime location with beautiful scenery overlooking the park that fans in certain sections can admire during a lull in the action. How the stadium came to fruition, however, is a very controversial journey that is still being talked about today, almost 60 years after its opening. This excellent book by Eric Nussbaum describes that journey, which took several twists and turns.

While there Dodger Stadium is considered to be one of the crowing jewels among ballparks in the United States, nestled in a prime location with beautiful scenery overlooking the park that fans in certain sections can admire during a lull in the action. How the stadium came to fruition, however, is a very controversial journey that is still being talked about today, almost 60 years after its opening. This excellent book by Eric Nussbaum describes that journey, which took several twists and turns.

While there isn't a lot about the game of baseball or the Dodgers in the book, at least compared to the political aspects of the book, a baseball fan will still enjoy Nussbaum's writing about the team, some of its players in the early days in Los Angeles and also of Walter O'Malley, the owner who moved the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.

While these passages make for interesting reading, they are not the heart and soul of this book. The true heroes of this book are not any baseball players but the Archeiga family, who refused to leave their home in Chavez Ravine, the area where the ball park was eventually built. When their home, along with all others in the predominantly Mexican neighborhood, was being taken by the government to make way for public housing, the Archiegas refused to accept the money that was being offered after appraisal by the government.

What followed was a great political story that would make a great novel – except that it was all true. This was where Nussbaum was at his best. Two personal stories are good examples of this. Whether he was writing about a man whose goal was to bring public housing to Los Angeles, only to be shamed by the crusade of an anti-Communism committee or he was telling the story of the local city councilwoman who was a key figure in getting O'Malley to move the Dodgers to the west coast, Nussbaum writes about the story in a manner that will keep the reader engaged, entertained and on an emotional roller coaster. Most of the time, it will be anger – anger at the politicians, at O'Malley, at practically anybody whose last name is not Archiega.

No matter what type of non-fiction a reader enjoys, this is one book that should be picked up and read cover to cover. It will explain why despite the beautiful view one gets inside and outside Dodger Stadium, there is a very poignant story underneath.

I wish to thank Perseus Books Public Affairs for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20... ...more

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Mar 24, 2020 Blaine DeSantis rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Thank you Perseus Books and NetGalley for this free ARC in return for my honest review. I spent 3 years in Los Angeles in the mid-70's and fell in love with the area. And in the past year I have been fortunate to have read 3 different books about Los Angeles and its Urban Development, athletics and the Dodgers. This book specifically deals with those people who lived in what is now called Chavez Ravine, prior to the baseball stadium these were 3 different communities (Palo Verde, La Loma & Bisho Thank you Perseus Books and NetGalley for this free ARC in return for my honest review. I spent 3 years in Los Angeles in the mid-70's and fell in love with the area. And in the past year I have been fortunate to have read 3 different books about Los Angeles and its Urban Development, athletics and the Dodgers. This book specifically deals with those people who lived in what is now called Chavez Ravine, prior to the baseball stadium these were 3 different communities (Palo Verde, La Loma & Bishop) and most of the focus is upon Palo Verde and the Abrana Arechiga family. The family moved from Mexico to escape the revolution and ended in Arizona and from there made their way to Los Angeles to settle in these hills about 1 mile from downtown. So near, yet so far away, basically forgotten by Los Angeles until a dreamer, Frank Wilkinson, a wanderer and dreamer becomes involved in Urban planning, as well as the Communist Party. Was Frank a Communist? I guess by those old definitions he was, he certainly believed in affordable housing projects and once he got himself into a position of some importance he is the force behind the initial attempts to have Palo Verde, et al, be declared a slum and begin condemnation proceedings to have the land purchased and used for these Housing Projects. Oh gee, we want affordable housing, let's put it where the Mexicans live and displace them.
We trace the history of Wilkinson, the Arechiga family and the Dodgers move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in this well researched book. The Dodgers wanted to move west and LA was finally able to offer them this land in Palo Verde because most families had left and accepted the condemnation awards. But the Affordable Housing fell through and eventually the Dodgers get this land to build Dodger Stadium which was state of the art in 1962 and remains so through today.
We follow the hopes, dreams, tragedies and fiascos that all these interests are involved in and along the way we can try and figure out who are the good guys, the bad guys, and wonder if there are either. This is a story that most Angelinos know nothing about, and few outside of LA are aware of what happened and how it came to pass that the Dodgers moved to LA and were able to wrest this land from the city and from the families that had lived there for over 40 years. A very well written book that gives us a lot of the inside and unknown stories about Chavez Ravine. It is a fascinating book that will appeal to broad range of readers who will read this book from differing points of view. ...more

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Jun 06, 2020 Geoff rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, arc, read-2020, net-galley, sports

"He may not have realized it, but when [LA Dodgers owner Walter] O'Malley acquired the [Chavez Ravine Dodger Stadium] site, he was also acquiring the previous decade of dirty politics and legal warfare and the aftereffects of an essential, almost primordial fight over what it meant to be a city. He was acquiring not just the Los Angeles territory but also the history of those three communities and the weight of the crimes perpetrated against them; he was acquiring the hangover from the war over "He may not have realized it, but when [LA Dodgers owner Walter] O'Malley acquired the [Chavez Ravine Dodger Stadium] site, he was also acquiring the previous decade of dirty politics and legal warfare and the aftereffects of an essential, almost primordial fight over what it meant to be a city. He was acquiring not just the Los Angeles territory but also the history of those three communities and the weight of the crimes perpetrated against them; he was acquiring the hangover from the war over public housing the had made this land available in the first place."

Not so much a book about baseball, or even the (misguided) use of public funds to build stadiums in US cities. Instead this is a look at mid-20th Century Los Angeles politics, and the fight (reflecting national trends) between collective principles and mythic individualism; between communist sympathies and crony corrupt capitalism; between public housing and private real estate developers, and between Mexican immigrants and the White elite.

This book has huge range, stretching from the Mexican-American War in the 1840s to Fernandomania in the 1980s. 'It manages to summarize the entire history of baseball (including it's made up origins) and dive deep into topics like the House Un-American Activities Committee. At times its range is a bit befuddling and it's hard to keep a hold of all the plot threads, even for the two main characters whose lives run through and frame the core issue of the book. The first was Abrana Arechiga, an immigrant first to Arizona and then to LA who lived in a vibrant community in Chavez Ravine and who refused to leave her home after it was commended to be replaced by public housing. the other was Frank Wilkinson, also an Arizona transplant to LA, who was a spiritual crusader who believed in the power of public housing and who was brought low by corrupt real estate and political enemies and the HUAC. Their stories don't have neat good guys or bad guys or happy endings, but do reflect the complexities of using politics to attempt to do good and the ways government can be captured and perverted by the rich, and how myths (of Los Angeles or of baseball) can be used to cover all sorts of ugliness.

**Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review. ...more

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Apr 28, 2020 Jeff Wilkinson rated it it was amazing

I liked this book a lot. It is very well written. As one of Frank Wilkinson's children, I can attest to the fact that the author stuck to the facts. It is a heartbreaking story of the destruction of a beautiful community. ...more

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Feb 11, 2020 Albert rated it it was amazing

Shelves: baseball

This was a wonderful, beautiful read, a mix of family, city politics, and baseball. There are many books about the Los Angeles Dodgers, particularly about its move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. This book should become one of the most important ones, for the very reason that the battle to break ground at Chavez Ravine has little to do with baseball. For the City of Los Angeles to make Dodger Stadium happen, they uprooted the communities of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop and forced its families t This was a wonderful, beautiful read, a mix of family, city politics, and baseball. There are many books about the Los Angeles Dodgers, particularly about its move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. This book should become one of the most important ones, for the very reason that the battle to break ground at Chavez Ravine has little to do with baseball. For the City of Los Angeles to make Dodger Stadium happen, they uprooted the communities of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop and forced its families to relinquish their homes.

This book focuses on the Aréchiga family, later known for being the faces of the last holdouts of the Palo Verde community before being forcibly evicted from their homes in 1959. It tells of Abrana Aréchiga finding her way to a strange land that would become Palo Verde, raising a large family (and a chicken coop). It tells of a Mexican immigrant community facing racist housing discrimination, settling into the one of the few parts of Los Angeles they were allowed to, building a life, and calling it home. And it tells of how they fought for their rights to their land, as eminent domain overruled those rights.

A decade before the forced evictions made way for Dodger Stadium, public housing advocates knocked on the doors of the Aréchiga household. A bitter fight in City Council ensued over a planned housing project to replace the Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop communities. After the proposed project was shut down, the city worked almost immediately on bringing big-league baseball to LA, eyeing the former housing project site for a new ballpark.

There is definitely a lot of baseball in this book. There are the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League, Jorge Pasquel and the Mexican League, Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Willie Davis, and Jaime Jarrin. The central baseball figure is Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley, he and his grand vision for a ballpark as an entertainment park. These pages were where I got my baseball fix in, learning more about the history of beautiful Dodger Stadium, its architecture and construction depicted in fascinating detail.

But baseball takes a backseat to the heroes of this story, who lived in the forgotten homes below today's Dodger Stadium parking lots. Most of us will never experience the pain of losing a home of four decades, or of being the target of city officials, or of being acutely reminded of bulldozed homes at each very sight of a ballpark. This book does the very important job of telling the stories of those who did experience such pain, reminding us of the great costs those families unwillingly bore for the sake of a ballpark they did not choose.

The author vividly paints a picture of a community lost in what was once Palo Verde. The city politics are thrilling and page-turning, turning a normally dry, disillusioning domain into exciting drama. The different characters come to life, tugging at the emotions of anger and sadness, filling one with both intrigue and nostalgia. The author carefully weaves together three storylines as they collide at Palo Verde: a family and their home displaced, a housing official and his ambitions dismantled, and a city and its national pastime deified above all else.

So that we don't forget, I highly recommend "Stealing Home" for all Dodger fans and any Angeleno who has ever attended a game at Chavez Ravine.

I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. ...more

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Jun 23, 2020 Trevor Seigler rated it it was amazing

To say that this is a story about baseball, or about communities being pushed aside, or about America itself, is to reduce a beautiful narrative that intersects with all of the above and manages to be Los Angeles-centric nonetheless to something that's easy to fit onto a bookjacket sleeve. This might be one of the most unclassifiable books I've ever read, but it's also one of the best so far this year.

Eric Nusbaum starts with the story of Frank Wilkinson (a name I'd never come across before) vi To say that this is a story about baseball, or about communities being pushed aside, or about America itself, is to reduce a beautiful narrative that intersects with all of the above and manages to be Los Angeles-centric nonetheless to something that's easy to fit onto a bookjacket sleeve. This might be one of the most unclassifiable books I've ever read, but it's also one of the best so far this year.

Eric Nusbaum starts with the story of Frank Wilkinson (a name I'd never come across before) visiting his high school and asking the assembled students how many of them loved Dodgers Stadium, in the mythic "Chavez Ravine." When Nusbaum raised his hand, Wilkinson said "well, it shouldn't be where it is." In that moment, the story of this book was born, though it took the author several years to realize what that story ultimately was.

It is, at its core, a story of America, not just in flag-waving tones that stir the heart of fair-weather patriots. This is a different America, a land where people come to seeking salvation or just a decent place to leave (like Manuel and Abrana Arechiga and their extended family, one of the many Mexican American families to live in the communities that would eventually be taken over by Dodger Stadium and its parking lots). It is the story of an idealistic man like Wilkinson, who grew up in luxury and was radically changed by the poverty he witnessed all around the world but especially in his home town of Los Angeles, and what he tried to do to alleviate that. It is the story of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the most progressive team in baseball (the first to sign an African-American player to break the color line) and also the most bewildered, unable to continue in Ebbets Field and looking westward to expand both its fanbase and the reach of major league baseball. All of these different elements coalesce around the machinations, both underhand and obvious to the public eye, to ensure that baseball would be part of the Southern California landscape, even if that meant removing people who had lived on that landscape for decades.

This is a beautiful, heartbreaking, odd little book that doesn't *really* fit into any easily-defined genre. But that's ultimately what's so great about it, and why I couldn't put it down when I started it. Give it a chance and you, too, will likely not be able to put it down until you've finished it. ...more

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Mar 25, 2020 Janelle added it

Love this author :)

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Jun 23, 2020 George rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: los-angeles, lacpl-ebook, non-fiction

Stealing Home is an excellent and very entertaining read.
Lot's of interesting and enlightening side stories. ...more

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May 23, 2020 Nils Jepson rated it liked it

this is an airport book which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it's one of those books your mom picks up when she's buying spearmint gum in the airport convenience store and reads four chapters on the plane before forgetting about it and falling asleep and never picking it up again until she realizes it's been on her bedstand covered in dust for 4 years. that sounds really negative but there's a time and place for books like this. not super analytical, too broad but easily digestible. i enjoyed this is an airport book which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it's one of those books your mom picks up when she's buying spearmint gum in the airport convenience store and reads four chapters on the plane before forgetting about it and falling asleep and never picking it up again until she realizes it's been on her bedstand covered in dust for 4 years. that sounds really negative but there's a time and place for books like this. not super analytical, too broad but easily digestible. i enjoyed it and learned a lot about my own city, or perhaps it just re-enforced my perceptions of LA. it's straightforward and the story is interesting enough that it basically writes itself.

in this way, the book sometimes reminds me of a bunch of Wikipedia articles -- about the creation of gum and the siege on Chapultepec Castle and the architecture of Dodger Stadium and public housing and Richard Neutra -- all stitched together to create a document that is overwhelming with bare-faced facts and knowledge but pretty underwhelming when it comes to momentum. each chapter is about 2 pages long and they bounce around 3 general plotlines: the creation of baseball, the displacement of residents in Chavez Ravine and the push to build public housing in Los Angeles. Within each thread, there are also about 40 different things going on with 500 different characters and a slew of fun facts. it's all interesting and makes you kinda marvel but, like a Wikipedia article, these fun facts are interesting in and among themselves. Nusbaum does very little analysis or even narrative work and a lot of the book just sort of hangs there, slightly contextualized among the falseness of manifest destiny and institutional racism.

a lot of this book reminds me of how i was taught history in middle school and some parts of high school. history, as nusbaum writes, is something rather clear-cut, straightforward, and un-ideological. like i said, there is some broad stitching referring to the "myths of LA" and discourse around informality and formality of "home" and grassroots movements, but these threads are always ethereal - just floating without any actual intention or meaning behind them. we know LA's corrupt (there's a whole genre of movie around this fact!) and privatized and ultra-capitalist and car-friendly and dispossessed and multi-cultural and beautiful in its own drought-y way but I wish Nusbaum went deeper into who was perpetuating these myths and why they were being perpetrated and how the direct outcome of this was oftentimes violent and contradictory policy. Nusbaum zooms over the history of LA, and the US, like a sky-bound helicopter, and is making some very acute observations but rarely does anything with these observations. the zoot suit riots, a potential terrorist attack, a movement to provide everyone with public housing (despite the dispossession this movement necessitated), the HUAC committee and it's oppressive tactics and the corruptness of the LA Times are all skimmed through like you're at a tapas restaurant, eating a lot of everything but getting your fill of nothing. Nusbaum is writing a book about fighters and bravery and what home means and who dictates what home is. I wish the book itself was braver in its analysis and argument. ...more

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Jul 29, 2020 Brad Peters rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, 1700-1900s

This is a good book, well written with Nusbaum weaving together vignettes of times, places, and people to craft a compelling story. Each chapter is short and stands, it would seem, alone from the preceding one, but ultimately all roads (chapters) lead to Chavez Ravine and the Dodgers' arrival back in the late 1950's.

This is NOT a book about the Dodgers, which I judged it would be by the cover and the subtitle. Oh, sure, O'Malley and the Boys in Blue show up in force in the closing chapters, but ...more

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Jul 28, 2020 Misael G rated it really liked it

Shelves: reading-through-the-rona

I really enjoyed this book. It took me a bit longer to finish than I expected, and at times, I found it difficult to following along. Having a better history of baseball probably would have helped me along.

That being said, Nusbaum is an excellent writer and storyteller. His vignettes bring the era to life, and it’s really rather amazing how a confluence of social conditions, local politics, and money came together to build Dodger Stadium. But as he himself notes, while the joy and beauty of Dod ...more

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Aug 13, 2020 Seth rated it liked it

Shelves: 2020, nonfiction-history

I was very excited for this book, unfortunately it wasn't really what I was expecting, which is really my fault. I thought the events had been more dramatic then they were. This book ended up focusing on a few individuals and their lives and broader LA politics. I'm also not too sure why so much time was spent on Frank Wilkinson and Duke Snide. ...more

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Apr 12, 2020 Michael Travis rated it really liked it

This is a story that needed telling. I have sat in the seats at Dodger Stadium; I have enjoyed the beautiful setting. What I didn't know was that the ghosts of 3 neighborhoods, the physical remnants were buried under the parking lots. I won't ever look at the stadium the same; I will forever pause and think of the Arechigas' and their home and life on Malvina Avenue. There are winners and losers in life...I wish they could be only the result of sports vs. life. ...more

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Jul 30, 2020 Marjorie Faulstich rated it it was amazing

A must-read for anyone interested in the history of Los Angeles, baseball, and the story of the Chavez Ravine. Jam-packed with historical details, brought to life through the lives of both historical/political figures and everyday people.

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Dec 10, 2019 Matthew Osgood marked it as to-read

I’ve worked with Eric, know him as an editor and writer, and am stoked on this book. He writes with empathy and compassion. He’s a hell of a writer. I’m very much looking forward to this.

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Mar 11, 2020 Marian P rated it really liked it

Eric Nusbaum’s Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between vividly recounts the arrival of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and more precisely Dodger Stadium in 1962. The book unspools with a cast of characters but mainly seeks to convey three main narratives: the story of Abrana Arechiga and how she was evicted from the Palo Verde neighborhood, the home of the future LA Dodgers; the story of Frank Wilkinson who was committed to bringing a federal housing project, the Elysia Eric Nusbaum’s Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between vividly recounts the arrival of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and more precisely Dodger Stadium in 1962. The book unspools with a cast of characters but mainly seeks to convey three main narratives: the story of Abrana Arechiga and how she was evicted from the Palo Verde neighborhood, the home of the future LA Dodgers; the story of Frank Wilkinson who was committed to bringing a federal housing project, the Elysian Park Heights, to Los Angeles; and the history of baseball, or more precisely how the Brooklyn Dodgers wound up in LA. Those three narratives come to a head in the decade of the 1950s at Chavez Ravine. Nusbaum has amassed a wide array of sources such as court documents, governmental documents, newspaper articles, and oral histories to convey the story of Dodger Stadium. It is a book written with verve and attention to detail.

The history of Mexicans in the Chavez Ravine area--originally comprised of three neighborhoods, Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop—is not a story frequently told and thus, perhaps the most unique narrative in the book. Nusbaum does an excellent job unfolding the history of one family led by Abrana and Manuel Arechiga. The history of Mexicans in the Southwest was precipated by the coming of the Mexican Revolution with many winding up in Morenci and Clifton, Arizona working in mining, as the Arechigas did so. Later, in the 1920s, the family migrates to Los Angeles winding up in Palo Verde. Nusbaum gives some context for Mexican life at this time, including repatriation of the 1930s, military service during the World War II, and the subsequent racial baiting of the Zoot Suit Riots. The Chavez Ravine Mexican neighborhoods are meticulously detailed, but I only wished that we had a greater grounding of Mexicans in this community and how, and if, they interacted with other local communities such as those in Boyle Heights well captured in George Sanchez’s Becoming Mexican Americans, for example.

The history of Frank Wilkinson is also well drawn as he was drawn to activism around public housing viz. his work with Fr. Thomas O’Dwyer who oversaw the Catholic Church in Boyle Heights. Sadly, while Wilkinson was firmly dedicated to the mission of public housing, he was on the receiving end of red-baiting during the HUAC hearings of the 1950s. This scapegoating leads to Wilkinson’s demise from the mission of public housing and effectively turns his life into shambles as he is painted as a Communist. The third thread of the arrival of baseball to Los Angeles is a fascinating one. The winner in this fascinating book is baseball; the losers are the Mexican/Mexican Americans of the Chavez Ravine, Wilkinson, and the dream of public housing. The greatest irony of the arrival of Dodger Stadium is that the LA city administrators never checked on or regulated the Mexican community of Chavez Ravine for more than 3 decades. Only when it became a highly valued real estate commodity did the City take interest, and in this assessment, Nusbaum cogently argues, “It was also about a generational failure. These communities had been victims of neglect and systemic racism for decades.” The book is recommended for those interested in the history of Los Angeles, Latino history, and the history of Dodger Stadium.
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Oct 01, 2020 patrick Lorelli rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sports-history

This book here is a true history book. The author Eric Nussbaum has given was the reader a true look at the history of Los Angeles before it became the city it is today or even was a hundred years ago. He goes into the description of how Chavez Ravine was really named after a family, and how after decades and even well before the city was even close to the mountain the people who lived there had their own life and way of doing things and living day to day.
You get a glimpse at the early basebal This book here is a true history book. The author Eric Nussbaum has given was the reader a true look at the history of Los Angeles before it became the city it is today or even was a hundred years ago. He goes into the description of how Chavez Ravine was really named after a family, and how after decades and even well before the city was even close to the mountain the people who lived there had their own life and way of doing things and living day to day.
You get a glimpse at the early baseball in Southern California with the Angels of the early Pacific Coast league. They played at Gilmore stadium corner of Fairfax and also Wrigley field in L.A. I found all of that very interesting. He also moves on to the Zoot Suit Wars what happened and the after-effects. Still, the people of Chavez Ravine were living okay with a few leavings some going to fight in WWII.
This would all begin to change after the war. Housing was a boon and regulations were changing. Also, laws were being passed to make it easier for the government to move people off the land which they wanted. How men of different areas wanted the land and what was thought to be a potential housing development soon was not to happen because you could not build anything there for it would collapse.
Now enter the man who owned the Times another who owned Clifton’s which was a cafeteria style restaurant and had good food, also politicians then O’Malley and you begin to see that maybe if we build a stadium, we can get the Dodgers to move from Brooklyn.
This where Frank Wilkerson comes in for, he was trying to stop the building but was unsuccessful to the point of being put on trial by the city and labeled a communist. Later the author would discover over 200,000 pieces of paper written and surveillance by the FBI on him and they say Hoover was not corrupt. They even found evidence of a hit that was put out for him but did not let him or his family know. It was okay to destroy this man and family besides everyone else that moved from the Ravine.
You find out how they moved everyone and tore down their homes without getting their items out beforehand. The stadium would be built down into the mountain instead of up, and a school and a church were buried and are underneath the parking lot along with a cemetery. When the stadium opened the first day, they had no drinking fountains they forgot to put them in. Really a good book and also a sad one for the people living there and for what the government did to Frank Wilkerson, but everyone thinks it was okay. The author did a g job with all of the research as well. Very much worth the read. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 5 stars Follow us at
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Jul 15, 2020 Reid Mccormick rated it liked it

Shelves: baseball

I have visited Dodger Stadium numerous times throughout my life. I have parked in nearly every parking lot and street adjacent to the stadium. It is a beautiful area. You can see Downtown Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Mountains, and the Hollywood sign from the park. Though you are in the middle of it all, you feel far from everything. Chavez Ravine is a little jewel in the center of Southern California.

I guess this is why the original homeowners to the area loved it too.

What we now simply call Ch I have visited Dodger Stadium numerous times throughout my life. I have parked in nearly every parking lot and street adjacent to the stadium. It is a beautiful area. You can see Downtown Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Mountains, and the Hollywood sign from the park. Though you are in the middle of it all, you feel far from everything. Chavez Ravine is a little jewel in the center of Southern California.

I guess this is why the original homeowners to the area loved it too.

What we now simply call Chavez Ravine was once home to Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop. These were quaint, easily overlooked areas of Los Angeles.

As the United States was rebounding from World War II and Los Angeles became a bustling metropolis, the need for quality housing became paramount. Soon officials eyed the communities of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop as a perfect place for new public housing.

After numerous law, ordinances, court cases, protests, condemnations and such, the area was set for public housing. However, public support for public housing had eroded. So only a few family and their houses were left untouched for nearly a decade.

And then the Dodgers came to town. Fast forward a few years, the holdouts in Chavez Ravine were finally removed and the Los Angeles Dodgers constructed their new home.

This books tells some interesting stories, I just don’t like how they are presented. Almost every chapter is two to three pages long and each chapter is a different story. Most chapters follow the concurrent stories of the Arechiga family and Frank Wilkinson. The stories are almost too detailed. You are given so much information that doesn’t fill the story or add to the character. It just is. It’s nice to humanize these real life characters, but I think the book suffers from these short snippets that bounce everywhere.

There are other stories included but they are so marginal to the main story, it just confused me.

To say that the story of Chavez Ravine is a story of the Dodgers, in my opinion, is very misleading. The majority of the story does not involve the Dodgers. Evictions and pushing people off their property is a chapter is Los Angles history that happened nearly ten years before O’Malley brought the team over.

I preferred City of Dreams by Jerald Podair. ...more

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Jul 10, 2020 Brian rated it liked it

I honestly don't know exactly what to make of this book. I think the author Eric Nusbaum felt he had a story about how Dodger Stadium came to be that he wanted to relate, and he succeeded in doing that. But toward the end of the book, he explains how public sympathy for the principal holdout family living in the neighborhood where the stadium was built, dried up. For me, at least, this removed much of the motivation for "rooting for the underdog," so to speak. I do think Nusbaum wrote a reasonab ...more

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May 02, 2020 Sara rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, baseball, history

I knew the one-sentence summary of how one of my favorite places in the world was built on a destroyed community, but with this book, Nusbaum brought the fullness of the story to life. This book is more about city-building and the interaction of power structures than it is about baseball, while also reminding us that those forces are the backdrop to individual people's stories: the Aréchigas family's American Dream; Fred Wilkinson's determination to bust inequality; the players (literal and figu ...more

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Apr 24, 2020 David Rugendorf rated it it was amazing

Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between is not just a book about baseball, or even about the events which led up to the construction of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Sure, it has all that, but that's just a part of the larger story. It's about, as the title suggests, the lives caught in between. It's about immigration and race relations, urban development, political deal making and corporate avarice. It's about idealism and repression. It's about the elusiveness ...more

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Apr 26, 2020 Mike Kennedy rated it really liked it

Shelves: baseball

I listened to the audio version of this book. It was a very interesting book that covered the land where Dodger Stadium sits today. This is much more of a political story than a baseball one. Chavez Ravine was home to a Mexican Community that was forced to move to make way for a public housing development that never materialized. After the housing development failed, the Dodgers come to town, and it was decided to give them the land to build a stadium. They didn’t help the situation any, but the ...more

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Aug 15, 2020 Dominic rated it really liked it

Shelves: owned-and-read

I was sent a review copy of "Stealing Home" months ago and finally got around to reading it. Let me get the negative out of the way first. Maybe the format was changed in the final copy, but I do not like when there are multiple characters presented in a story and every couple pages start a new chapter and you jump back and forth between those characters. I could never get invested in any particular character as I read a little bit about them, four pages later is a new chapter and a new characte ...more

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Jun 10, 2020 Matt Conger rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, north-america, los-angeles

I really enjoyed this as someone new to LA. It is by no means an uplifting story: it is hard to read the anecdotes and stories on racism & mistrust of government in LA in the 40s/50s/60s and not connect it to what is happening now in America.

Nonetheless, I enjoy nonfiction books that really transport me to a time & place and also highlight why people I've never heard of (Antonio López de Santa Anna, Frank Wilkinson) were newsworthy and why people I have heard of (Jackie Robinson) have a much mo ...more

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Jul 05, 2020 Tim Basuino rated it really liked it

I heard this book being plugged on an episode of "Effectively Wild" back in April, and with the pandemic making buying books at a store rather problematic for awhile, I ordered online.

In many ways this is a very engrossing mini-American novel... certainly books could be written (and have) about any number of characters in this - from Frank Wilkinson to Fritz Burns to Duke Snider to to Tolina Augustain. But it's the interweaving of all these that makes this extremely effective at under 300 pages. ...more

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May 06, 2020 Ajk rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, favorites

"You could work for a better world, but that did not mean the world was going to comply" is a hell of a line, and also kind of the crux of this book. Nusbaum does an incredible job telling a Big Story about Los Angeles through personalities without falling for the "Big Man of History" genre of storytelling: all of the individuals and families he writes about are small, from the families whose homes were destroyed to the millionaire O'Malley. They're all flawed, and none are remotely heroic. What ...more

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Sep 13, 2020 Cody rated it it was amazing

A baseball book that really isn't a baseball book. However, it provides a very exciting and important account of the history behind building Dodger Stadium. In these times where racial/social injustice has become increasingly visible, this book provides visibility on the past. As you might expect, (unfortunately) things really aren't so different now compared to one hundred years ago. It's emotionally conflicting to learn about the dark history surrounding such an iconic building. For all the go ...more

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Jun 27, 2020 Alexandria Fabbro rated it it was amazing

Stealing Home gives so much more of the backstory of Dodger Stadium than I’d heard as a kid growing up adjacent to the 110 freeway and following the snaking traffic on it to get to a Dodger game. My parents told of the evil Dodger organization that kicked hard-working Latino families out from their homes to build Dodger Stadium, but Eric Nusbaum compellingly writes of the many layers of well-intentioned public housing efforts by Frank Wilkinson that came to naught during the anti-Commie Red Scar ...more

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