Spotlight on Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers History: The Nickname

*Note to Bleacher Report editors: "Baseball" was known as "base ball" for many years. Please do NOT edit such references.   When I was a kid, I had a very arbitrary reason for becoming a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. (For more details, see this article.)   Over the years, it occurred to me that the nickname “Dodgers” was very unusual. I vaguely remembered a literary character in the book “Oliver Twist,” by Charles Dickens, called "the Artful Dodger," and just assumed that somehow, this became the team’s mascot.   I was dead wrong!   Many years ago, while in my twenties, I finally decided to sit down and research the origins of the Dodgers’ nickname. Today, what I learned then (and subsequently) will be the focal point of my weekly “Spotlight on Dodger History” column.   Dodger history began way back in 1856, with the Brooklyn Atlantics of the National Association of Base Ba...