The 100 Greatest Brooklynites of All Time: 90 to 81
When the Yankees’s arch rivals, the Dodgers, left Brooklyn in 1957, locals didn’t shrug their shoulders and switch allegiances—they maintained a distaste for the Bombers for generations, rooting for a Los Angeles team before they’d cheer a Bronx team with anything but a Bronx cheer. When the Mets came along five years later, erstwhile Dodgers fans embraced the team as their own. Brooklyn’s own Joe Torre played for the Mets at the end of his big-league career, then took his first management job with them, like a good Brooklyn boy would. But he failed to turn the team around, was fired, and kicked around the majors another 15 years before landing at the Yankees. Torre of course then led that team for 12 seasons, winning four World Series, as well as more pennants and division titles. But what true Brooklynite would have coached the hated New York Yankees? Yet alone have won them so many series? (This one was tough for us.)