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.