Another SI Snafu?

In his March 9 article in Sports Illustrated, "The Wrong Man,", which is drawn from a new book on the Dodgers, Forever Blue, Michael D'Antonio makes what he and SI present as a new, provocative argument : That Walter O'Malley is not to blame for the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn. That this argument still defies conventional wisdom is a testament to the tenacity of conventional wisdom. But it is not new. Neil Sullivan, in his book The Dodgers Move West (Oxford, 1987), made a similar argument more than two decades ago. D'Antonio's article makes no mention of Sullivan's book. I hope D'Antonio's book does not make the same mistake. It is a grave ethical oversight in both journalism and academia to present an idea as original if it is not. In this case, the idea decidedly is not original and to present it as such is deeply dishonest.