Training Days

"As Johnson notes, Dodgers co-owner Branch Rickey originally came to Vero, a sprawling, recently shuttered Naval Air Station with wooden barracks, to accommodate the 700 players he had under contract. But Rickey had another motive: The Mahatma had recently shocked America by signing former UCLA star Jackie Robinson and thus integrating the national pastime. He needed an out-of-the-way place where white and black ballplayers could practice together. Thus, 'Dodgertown' was born."

David Davis in the Los Angeles Times reviews Rody Johnson's The Rise and Fall of Dodgertown: 60 Years of Baseball in Vero Beach.