Ratner: "I think in some ways [The Nets] are more important than the Dodgers" because a multi-class population needs a team to rally around (!?!)

From Real Estate Weekly, 5/15/13, For Ratner, developing New York is a team sport:

“I think in some ways [The Nets] are more important than the Dodgers,” said Bruce Ratner, executive chairman of Forest City Ratner Companies, who brought the basketball team to Brooklyn from New Jersey last year.
“We have a large, low income population in Brooklyn and having a basketball team is something that people, low, middle and upper income can really rally around.
“Having young people have something to look up to and be proud of where they live is very important,” he said.

Oh, sure.

Let's look at the Twitter feed (right) of the biggest booster of the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.

He got all excited about the seventh game of the Nets' playoff series, right? He issued an exuberant statement, even:

“Our Brooklyn Nets’ exciting win last night in the Windy City really ‘blew’ me away—and now we are coming back to Barclays Center for the most important game in Brooklyn Nets history! In Saturday night’s game seven, with the loudest, most in-your-face fans in the country ‘blacking out’ Brooklyn, there is no doubt the Nets are going to give the “flu-ey” Bulls the medicine they need—an early exit from the playoffs and a one-way ticket back to Chicago for some rest and relaxation. Bring on the Heat and watch out Lebron James, because after this series the Brooklyn Nets have ice in their veins and are coming to ‘cool’ you down.”

And then when the Nets lost, was Markowitz crushed, defiant, or hopeful? He didn't say.

Second coming of Dodgers?

Actually, Scott Turner of Fans for Fair Play in 2005 demolished the myth that the Nets would be the second coming of the Dodgers.

Actually, the Dodgers were the symbol of an underdog borough, and the players actually lived in Brooklyn, taking public transit and living middle-class lives.

Is Ratner suggesting that the Dodgers were not something to rally around? And that young people need a team to be proud of where they live?

And that those young people should look up to professional athletes? Surely he knows that the players, however skilled, are not necessarily role models.

Looking back at the Dodgers

I tweeted Ratner's statements and got a response.

“We have a large, lowIncome pop. in BK,& having a Bball team is something that people, low, middle & upper income can reallyRally around"2/3
— Norman Oder (@AYReport) May 16, 2013

.@ayreport Not quite as $-orientd as rememberd, but still cute:5/25/83, NYT lettr to editr: "Simplified Voir Dire": tinyurl.com/bho5y23
— True Urbanism (@True_Urbanism) May 16, 2013

That letter was published 5/25/83 under the headline SIMPLIFIED VOIR DIRE:

To the Editor:
A close if overlooked relationship exists between Ira Glasser's apologia for the Brooklyn Dodgers (Op-Ed May 3) and the current dispute over permitting lawyers to continue to conduct the voir dire of juries in criminal cases.
Before 1957, New York lawyers chose juries inexpensively and expeditiously by asking just one question: What baseball team do you root for?
If the juror answered, ''Yankees,'' the defense exercised a peremptory challenge. If the juror said, ''Dodgers,'' the prosecution exercised the challenge. But Giants fans were eminently acceptable to both sides, under a tacit understanding that they were the only reasonable people in town.
BURT NEUBORNE, Legal Director, A.C.L.U., New York, May 17, 1983

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Nets merch sales boom in BK (of course), Ebbets Field salute

Modell's sold more #Nets swag during the 1st day of the new branding than all of last season. thebrooklyngame.com/brooklyn-nets-…
— The Brooklyn Game (@TheBKGame) April 9, 2013

From the article:

Despite playing in a league with only 30 teams, the Nets were 31st in merchandise sales in their final year in New Jersey. They trailed all 29 other NBA teams, plus the now-defunct Seattle Supersonics.

Just like the Dodgers?

As a tribute to the 100th anniversary of Ebbets Field, the Dodgers 1955 championship banner will be displayed on the Nets court tonight.
— Stefan Bondy (@NYDNInterNets) April 9, 2013

@nydninternets Just 4 the record: #BarclaysCenter is not site where Dodgers sought to build successor to Ebbets Field cjr.org/behind_the_new…

— Norman Oder (@AYReport) April 9, 2013

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The new Jackie Robinson movie, 42, "Brooklyn We Go Hard," and what's left out of the legend

It's inevitable that the Barclays Center and the Brooklyn Nets will aim to capitalize on the new Jackie Robinson biopic, "42," which opens Friday, April 12

After all, arena/team fractional owner Jay-Z called out widow Rachel Robinson during one of his arena-inaugurating concerts last fall, while mogul Bruce Ratner was honored last month by the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

But the movie plays "the legend card," as  Dana Jennings wrote 4/7/13 in the Times Arts & Leisure section, The Superhero Who Leapt Color Lines: Jackie Robinson, the Hero, in ‘42:

Robinson’s words bring us up short because, culturally, we want his legend — a cross-pollination of proud American mythology and exceptionalism — to be true because it makes us feel good about ourselves, about baseball, about our perceived progress on race relations.

But as I listened to the hip-hop bravado of Jay-Z’s “Brooklyn We Go Hard” on a “42” movie trailer, I wondered whether he knew that Robinson was a committed Republican who campaigned for Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 presidential election.

Indeed. There's another complications: when Jay-Z "runs base" in the song the rapper/persona is dealing drugs, as noted in the RapGenius analysis.

Also see New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick's comment:

And so the impossible — a wildly popular rapper relentlessly given to calling black men “n----s” — is chosen for front-and-center attachment to the new movie about Jackie Robinson.

Yes, Jay-Z fans would say the n-word as uttered by the rapper is different, though Oprah disagreed (and later came around). Either way, I doubt that debate can be aired in "42."

About the money

There's something missing in the movie,, the full recognition of the role of money. Jennings wrote:

As with many movies about sports, which tend toward the legend model, “42” runs the risk of making more out of ballplayers and baseball executives than what’s there. At heart Robinson was a four-sport star at U.C.L.A. (where he was a very good football running back) who wanted to play ball and earn a living. Rickey was a career baseball man who wanted to win games and make money. They needed each other.

...Because Robinson’s breakthrough came in the United States of America, it’s also a tale complicated by its sense of keen economic opportunity: you know, money. And “42” doesn’t shy from that fact. Mr. Ford’s Rickey says, “Dollars aren’t black and white,” and the Dodger manager Leo Durocher, played by Christopher Meloni, states, “We’re playing for money here, Mr. Rickey.”

But Robinson was blunter in his book. “Money is America’s God,” he wrote, “and business people can dig black power if it coincides with green power.” And on his teammates: “They hadn’t changed because they liked me any better; they had changed because I could help fill their wallets.”

And that closes the loop back to Jay-Z, Barclays, and the Nets, where seemingly every "community" calculation gets costed out.

The Nets and 42

Oh yes, the Nets' Jerry Stackhouse wears 42, inspired by James Worthy, his favorite player, who himself was advised by his father to choose 42. As the Daily News reported:

"One thing about it is that the number 42 is significant in all sports, not just in baseball," former Piston Rick Mahorn, who mentored Stackhouse in Detroit, said. "(Robinson) was a person who sacrificed and who stepped up for what equality is about... when Jackie Robinson was playing for Brooklyn, what he endured, that's something that I didn't have to go through or anybody later in on in life, as my kids grow, and their generation doesn't have to go through that anymore."

Of course, it's not just about equality, it's about money.

What Brooklyn gained, and didn't

And let's not forget (as I noted in April 2011), in his 2001 book, A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn 1636-1990, Brooklyn historian Craig Steven Wilder wrote:

It is a twisted irony that Brooklyn's politicians offered more vocal protests against segregated sports than they had against the construction of a black ghetto. By attacking Jim Crow in professional sports, local officials were able to grandstand as champions of racial equality without tackling the politically costly issues of employment and housing discrimination.

...Yet, the integration of its famous baseball team was a mild accomplishment when measured against Brooklyn's extraordinary social divisions.

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The circle is completed? Ebbets Field flagpole placed outside arena; Abdul-Jabbar salutes "budding rivalry" with Knicks

"The Barclays Center’s marketing team has long tried to draw a connection with the Brooklyn Dodgers," the Daily News reported yesterday, and so many (but not everyone) comply:

“It’s gorgeous,” Sharon Robinson , 62, said while standing outside Barclays Center on Tuesday. “I think my father would be very proud.
“My father loved sports. He was a four-letter man at UCLA. So it’s right here in the city, and that would’ve been important to him, as it is to us.”

The Post reported:

“We are proud that such a historic symbol of Ebbets Field will now stand permanently outside of Barclays Center to connect the borough’s great sports past to its present,” said [arena developer Bruce] Ratner.
“The memories of Ebbets Field and the Dodgers, most notably the 1955 World Series championship, will always be an important part of Brooklyn’s history. Now fans from throughout the borough can take enormous pride in seeing a piece of Ebbets Field en route to watching Brooklyn’s new professional sports team, the Brooklyn Nets, at Barclays Center.”
“Bravo to the Brooklyn Nets and to Bruce Ratner for this fitting tribute to our beloved ‘bums’ of yesteryear—the Brooklyn Dodgers,” Markowitz said. “There is no better way to honor the Dodgers’ legacy in Brooklyn than by raising the Ebbets Field flagpole with Sharon Robinson, the daughter of Jackie Robinson, a product of Brooklyn and great American hero.”

Photo: Reid B. Kelley/Barclays Center

The Nets' Ben Couch wrote:

"I think that it's a beautiful connection to Ebbets Field," Sharon Robinson said. "To imagine this flying over Ebbets Field and being so much part of that history, to have this plaque will remind fans that the Brooklyn Dodgers were here and made such a difference in the community."

The Times covered it from the perspective of Nets player Jerry Stackhouse, who wears 42, which was Robinson's number, though not chosen for that reason. The Times covered not just the Nets/Knicks game but the rivalry among fans.

Kareem joins bandwagon

NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote a commentary yesterday for ESPN, Nets compete for their NY minute: Brooklyn is back in the game in a city known for historic sports rivalries:

Nets-Knicks has the potential to recreate the fervent rivalries of the 1950s among Gotham's sports fans. Both teams have gotten off to a great start and have been among the better teams early in the season. Another important aspect to the budding rivalry is that Brooklyn native and megastar rapper Jay Z is part-owner of the Nets. So the team is part of the whole social fabric of the borough.

Brooklyn also has supplied talent to the NBA since day one... Now Brooklyn kids can dream of playing NBA basketball in front of friends and family in their home borough.

Mikhail Prokhorov, the Nets' Russian owner who moved the team from New Jersey, could open the game to a whole new set of fans. And don't be surprised if the team drafts a player from Russia to appeal to the large Russian expatriate community there. That would be fully within the tradition of a melting pot that has been the first U.S. home for immigrants from around the world.

In 2015, the Islanders will also be moving in, giving Brooklyn sports fans even more to root for.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of the zaniness that was part of watching a game at Ebbets Fields. The stage is set and I think that a great new era of sports in New York is upon us. I can only imagine the fun arguments the next generation of kids will have about their favorite teams.

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The Nets anthem gets an article, the fans get a series, and the Dodgers flag pole is dedicated (and what about those $15 tickets?)

The New York Times devotes a section-front article to the Nets' (good, borough-focused) theme song/anthem, and continues its series profiling fans in one section.

Nets-Dodgers connection

Meanwhile, NetsDaily (and ESPN) reported yesterday an announcement from the Nets (updated: about an event today):

At 4 p.m. an eclectic group will gather to honor the Brookyn Dodgers connection to the Brooklyn Nets by unveiling a plaque at the base of the flag pole, which once stood atop Ebbets Field, the Dodgers stadium.
Among those at the dedication will be Sharon Robinson, the daughter of Jackie Robinson; Jerry Stackhouse who wears No. 42 to honor Robinson; Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn's borough president who remembers the Dodgers leaving in 1957; Bruce Ratner and Brett Yormark, and Irina Pavlova, Mikhail Prokhorov's representative as president of ONEXIM Sports and Entertainment Holdings ..

I reported in September that the flagpole dedication was in the works, and the New York Post followed up.

What story is missing?

You'd think some sports writer would ask arena/team spokesman Barry Baum the question he won't answer: how many of the promised 2,000 $15 tickets for Nets home games are actually made available for individual sale?


In a May 2005 presentation to City Council, Forest City promised "approximately" 3,000 such "screecher" seats.



However, a 9/10/12 Nets press release Sept. 10 stated, "A limited number of individual tickets starting at $15 each will be made available 72 hours prior to each Brooklyn Nets home game."

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Nets win delayed debut: claimed sellout, Brooklyn invocations, fan enthusiasm, neighborhood impacts less than at Streisand concerts

Photos by Tracy Collins

The Brooklyn Nets' delayed debut last night resulted in a victory over the Toronto Raptors, a reported (but dubious) sellout, and a general sense of fan satisfaction, including "Brook-lyn" chants--except, of course, for the mascot.

And there's a general wave of pride, as the sports world reminds us. "A showpiece," the Brooklyn-born grandfather of RealGM's Jarrod Rudolph tells the writer, from afar. "That building is a showpiece! An absolute thing of beauty."

Outside the arena, as far as I could tell, the impact of crowds was less than at previous events, notably the Barbra Streisand concerts, with the number of idling and honking limos greatly reduced--though not gone, as noted on Atlantic Yards Watch. (I'd reserve a full conclusion til others report in.) It looks like the word did spread that anti-idling measures would be enforced.

(At left, the back of the New York Post.)

What was most notable about my visits to Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street after the game was the dangerous crossing many people made of Atlantic, which was not closed off as with some events, to get to shuttle buses and other vehicles.

They need a crosswalk and/or light; otherwise, there's a disaster waiting to happen.

I didn't spend time on the arena plaza after the game or Pacific Street, which has been a hot spot for problems as eventgoers walk to the Fourth Avenue entrance to the D and R trains.




Around the arena


Last night, the Q train was not back, though others were, and the generally low post-Sandy car traffic reduced the likelihood of traffic jams.

Several shuttle buses to deliver people to Manhattan were used, and they drew people across Atlantic after the game.

The surface parking lot at the southeast block of the Atlantic Yards site looked at best one-third full, while the bicycle parking at the southeast corner of the arena block was less than one-quarter full. Still, at 85-plus bikes, that was the largest total ever.

Some violations persisted.

Despite "No Standing Anytime" signs on Dean Street opposite the arena, the curb was filled with vehicles that somehow get a pass, belonging either to emergency responders or those helping manage traffic, as far as I've seen in the past.

Dodgers redux?

Yes, there was an effort to connect the Brooklyn Nets of 2012 to the Brooklyn Dodgers of 1957. In fact, two Dodgers--but not the person with the most hallowed Dodgers connection--came to the game. The Daily News reported:

Sandy wiped out Brooklyn’s best-laid plans.
The sellout that the Nets hyped for weeks, the celebrity atmosphere, even a special ceremony involving Jay-Z and Jackie Robinson’s 90-year-old widow: scrapped.
No, Saturday night’s opening regular-season game at the Barclays Center didn’t have quite the buildup the Nets were getting before Thursday’s game was postponed. The big Hollywood moment seemed lost because it was two days later, transportation options were iffy, and they played an unsexy opponent, the Raptors. Many tickets were still available hours before tipoff, including $55 seats – even as the MTA restored subway lines running to the $1 billion arena.
...Rachel Robinson, who lives in Connecticut and was going to participate in a ceremonial passing of the torch to Jay-Z on Thursday, couldn’t make it to Saturday’s game.

The New York Post reported, in Nets game provides bright spot for reeling fans:

“Tonight the ghosts of Ebbets Field will be banished forever,” said Markowitz, referring to the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles in 1957.
Two members of that Dodger team -- pitcher Ralph Branca and catcher Joe Pignatano -- were on hand to welcome the Nets to Brooklyn.

Note that, as seen in the subversive sticker someone appended to an arena directional sign, right, not everyone was on board with Markowitz.

A lift for the community?

The Times reported:

Even the most irrepressible cheerleader, the Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz, acknowledged that the Nets’ season-opening game would not, and should not, unfurl as the party he had once hoped it would be, before the lingering effects of Hurricane Sandy led to the postponement of Thursday’s game against the Knicks.
“You can’t just party away and ignore how many people are suffering,” Markowitz said. “How much sweeter it would have been if everyone in the borough were living the lives they were living before the storm.”
And so it was that the return of professional sports to Brooklyn, a moment more than a half-century in the making, arrived Saturday with something more than a thud and as something less than a celebration.
Still, fans appeared grateful for the distraction provided by the Nets’ 107-100 victory.

New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro:

Honestly? There wasn’t a lot to argue with last night. Prokhorov was Prokhorov beforehand, reminding everyone that he’s now three years away from having to fulfill his marriage vow if the Nets don’t win a title. David Stern was in the house, honoring “the resilience of the community” and welcoming “Brooklyn, USA to the NBA” and, thankfully, not summoning Katrina when he meant Sandy, as he did in Miami the other night.
Pignatano was there, and the great Ralph Branca, and somehow it didn’t look as silly as it should have when they wore tank tops with “BROOKLYN” over their dress shirts.
“Brooklyn,” Branca said, “is the best.”

Photo via Jason Shaltz

It always was, of course, which is why after 55 years there still is so much affection attached to those memories, those times, those athletes. And judging by the energy in the building last night, it still can be. On its own. Walking its own path. Creating its own legacy. Building its own history.

A sellout?

The AP (via New York Post) reported:

A sold-out crowd of 17,732 that included entertainers Jay-Z, a part-owner, and wife Beyonce chanted "Brooklyn! Brooklyn!" a few times during the game and loudly at the end, celebrating the name on the front of the shirt much more than the back

A bit of skepticism from Toronto

Toronto Star reporter Doug Smith's live blog cast a bit of non-homer skepticism on some of the proceedings:

Great, now some political doofus is delaying the start.

I see all kinds of empty private suites and rows of empty seats; they can't in good conscience call this a sellout; I understand entirely why it wouldn't be given the circumstances of this week, though

A few videos

VIP parking on Dean Street "pad" outside arena



Crossing Atlantic Avenue



Less idling at Atlantic and South Portland

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Jay-Z at concert: "It’s our m-f-ing time now," so raise your middle finger to the haters (but no, the Dodgers didn't want to move to arena site)

The hip-hop blogs are all over a message Jay-Z sent last night to his "critics," who are apparently those who described his fraction of Nets/arena ownership as minute--a misinterpretation of a laudatory New York Times article that showed how his role dwarfed his stake.

(The more serious criticism of Jay-Z is whether he's fronted for developer Bruce Ratner, suggesting he's fulfilled promises about jobs, as I wrote for Salon last year.)

"Tonight, we got a lot of motherfuckers in the house, tonight," Jay-Z says in the video below. "Tonight we are in the midst of a historic time in Brooklyn, New York City. We finally got our own franchise."

The crowd roars, apparently identifying borough residency with the capitalistic success of Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov. (Though I know many disagree, the term "we" strikes me as most appropriate in the rare case when the team is owned by a cross-section of the community, such as the Green Bay Packers.)



The Dodgers reference

"I don't think it's a coincidence that the Dodgers wanted to play on this very site, this very site," Jay-Z continued. "They were going to build on this very land."

That's not true. They wanted to build across the street, at the site of what is now Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Center mall.

"How far we've come"

"I don't think it's a coincidence that Jackie Robinson was the first African-American to play baseball, and he was Brooklyn's own," Jay-Z stated. "And now we're standing here today, and I'm part of this Nets franchise. I don't think it's a coincidence. I'm looking out here right now to see how far we've come."

It's not a coincidence because Bruce Ratner was a smart (and lucky) businessman who thought Jay-Z could help him with street cred--and then Mr. Carter exploded into an even bigger star.

“We still got a long way to go because everybody wanna diminish your accomplishment,” Jay-Z continued. “When I look at the paper and I see them talking, ‘Eh, he owns one-fifteenth.’ First of all, I don’t know where they get that number from. But I’m cool with it. I know it’s not about me, it’s about y’all. What I mean by that is it’s not personal to me. They know that if you see me standing here that you know it’s possible to achieve great things, and I know a lot of y'all are ready to achieve great things…Don’t let anybody diminish your accomplishments. It’s our motherfucking time now.”


Who's us: the fans? Prokhorov? Ratner?

The middle finger in the air

"So I need every single person to put their middle finger up in the air for the people that's trying to hold them back," Jay-Z closed. "We're just gonna tell them this, tonight."

He then segued into “99 Problems.”

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