Stealing home : Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the lives caught in between
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-318) and index.

"Dodger Stadium is an American icon. The oldest ballpark west of the Mississippi -- and the third oldest overall -- it is a shrine to baseball and an essential feature of the Los Angeles cityscape. Yet the story of how it was built has a dark side. To clear space for the stadium, the city tore down low-income, Hispanic-friendly housing, resulting in a dramatic confrontation between the County Sheriff and the one family-the Arechigas- who refused to yield their home.In Stealing Home, Eric Nusbaum -- a fluent Spanish-speaker, Dodgers fan, and lifelong Angeleno -- tells the stories of the people whose homes were destroyed, their conflict with the bureaucrats and money men of Los Angeles-notably Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley, and a well-intentioned activist named Frank Wilkinson -- and shows how their lives were overrun by the wheel of history. Stealing Home is a vibrant work of baseball and urban history, a story about how our ideals can betray us, and the people who pay the price when they do"--