Kind Words..

“Eric Nusbaum takes several overlooked threads of history and weaves them into a vivid tapestry of 20th century America that is at once sprawling and intimate, raw and poignant. Stealing Home is a relevant and important book--and a fantastic read.”

—Margot Lee Shetterly, author of Hidden Figures

"Stealing Home has a driving plot, a humane heart, and a proud conscience. Read it and enjoy the story, or read it and get mad, or read it and change your mind. Most importantly, read it.”

—Chuck D, Founding member of Public Enemy

“Nusbaum’s reporting and research are impressively deep, and his empathic writing brings his subjects to life. Stealing Home is a baseball book, but it's only glancingly about baseball. Really, it’s about how you can’t fight city hall, how one person’s American Dream often tramples another's and how myth‑making can be used to gloss over injustice and trauma.”

―People

“A scrupulously detailed account, written in novelistic, economical prose.”

―Los Angeles Times

On May 8, 1959, Abrana Aréchiga stood in the entryway ofher home as Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies broke down her door. This was the end. She watched as strange, silent men loaded her furniture onto waiting trucks. She wailed as deputies carried her adult daughter by the wrists and ankles down the front stairs. Outside, she bent and picked up a rock, feeling the weight of it in her hand. Finally, she sat, helpless, as a bulldozer plowed into her living room…

Dodger Stadium is an American icon. But the story of how it came to be goes far beyond baseball. The hills that cradle the stadium were once home to three vibrant Mexican American communities. In the early 1950s, those communities were condemned to make way for a utopian public housing project. Then, in a remarkable turn, public housing in the city was defeated amidst a Red Scare conspiracy.
 
Instead of getting their homes back, the remaining residents saw the city sell their land to Walter O’Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Now LA would be getting a different sort of utopian fantasy—a glittering, ultramodern stadium.
 
But before Dodger Stadium could be built, the city would have to face down the neighborhood’s families—including one, the Aréchigas, who refused to yield their home. The ensuing confrontation captivated the nation—and the divisive outcome still reverberates through Los Angeles today.