Carl Erskine played 12 seasons with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, winning 122 games. Courtesy of Alex Rader
	RELATED • SI PHOTOS: A look back at the '55 Dodgers
	Biggest MLB markets Market Pop. per team New York (2 teams) 10.6 million L.A./Orange County (2) 8.19 million Chicago (2) 4.58 million Washington, D.C./Baltimore (2) 3.8 million San Francisco Bay (2) 3.52 million
	Smallest MLB Markets Market Pop. per team Tampa Bay (1) 2.4 million Pittsburgh (1) 2.4 million Cincinnati (1) 1.98 million Kansas City (1) 1.78 million Milwaukee (1) 1.69 million
	Biggest Markets Without MLB Montreal 3.6 million Brooklyn* 2.6 million San Juan, P.R. 2.45 million Portland, Ore. 2.27 million Sacramento 1.8 million Orlando 1.64 million *Part of New York City metro area not included

With its vaudeville-era carnival games, rickety old roller coaster and lumbering Ferris wheel, Coney Island hardly seems like the place to find a brand-new baseball team. But the Brooklyn Cyclones -- the Class-A affiliate of the New York Mets -- are one of baseball's biggest success stories.

Since the team's debut in 2001, tickets at KeySpan Park go faster than hot dogs off the grill at nearby Nathan's Famous. That's no small feat, considering that at a capacity of 7,500, the park is one of the largest in Class A ball. The team's merchandise ranks among the highest-selling in the minor leagues. And the nostalgic value of a professional baseball team back in Brooklyn after 44 years is not lost on the residents of the most populous borough in New York City.

On the weekend of July 23, the Cyclones held a series of promotions to honor the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers on the 50th anniversary of their first and only World Series title in Brooklyn. (The franchise moved to Los Angeles two years later, breaking countless fans' hearts.)

At the game I attended, a handful of members from that team were feted in a pregame ceremony, and evidenced by the number of gray-haired fans in attendance decked out in Brooklyn Dodgers paraphernalia, the magic of "Dem Bums" is alive and well. Former pitchers Carl Erskine, Clem Labine and Ed Roebuck and pinch hitter George Shuba paraded around the stadium in vintage convertibles. The fans gave each a warm ovation, mindful of what this group meant to Brooklyn in their day.

"This was marvelous," the 78-year-old Erskine later told me. "I felt like I just pitched and won."

As the fanfare quieted, I had a brief chat with Roebuck (now 74), who compiled a 52-31 record with a 3.35 ERA over an 11-year career as a reliever. The conversation turned to the uniqueness of Brooklyn fans, arguably the most attached and dedicated of the three teams that called New York City home until the Dodgers and Giants moved West. I asked Roebuck if the Big Apple could support a third major league team today.

"I think it could," he said. "How many people live in Brooklyn now?"

When I told him the figure -- 2.6 million -- all he could say was, "Wow!"

You can't blame Roebuck for being surprised. If Brooklyn were its own city, it would be the nation's fourth-largest. But it's only a chunk of New York City's total population of 8.1 million, and an even smaller portion of a 21.2 million-strong metropolitan area.

And so, on the 50th anniversary of the Brooklyn Dodgers' only title, let's reopen this Pandora's box. Whenever talk comes to adding an expansion team or moving an existing franchise (take the former Montreal Expos, for example), the scuttlebutt is about Las Vegas, Portland, Ore., Norfolk, Va. and a handful of other cities -- even San Juan, Puerto Rico -- that don't have a major league team.

Each of these places is an American city on the rise and individually deserving of major-league treatment, but not one seems to make the economic sense of putting a team back in Brooklyn. Why? First of all, none has a metropolitan population bigger than Brooklyn. And before you discount that as sentimental Dodger drivel, take that a step further and divvy up the population of the New York metro area: Add a third franchise and that's 7 million potential fans per team -- a higher population-per-team ratio than any major-league market except the L.A. area (see chart, above).