IN less time than it took Derek Jeter to win the World Series as a rookie, three more championships and play in this year’s All-Star Game, the Dodgers changed the world.

And they did it twice – saying hello to Jackie Robinson then goodbye to Brooklyn.

The decade from 1947-57 gets an extended look from HBO in “The Ghosts of Flatbush,” a two-part documentary premiering tomorrow (8 p.m.) that chronicles the devout pride, joy and eventual despair the borough felt for its ballclub.

If at one time The Bronx was burning, Brooklyn definitely was bummin’ – in good ways and bad.

“When you try to describe it to somebody, they get this mysterious look on their face, like, ‘I don’t know if I understand,’ ” former Dodgers pitcher Carl Erskine says in “Ghosts.” “They can’t [understand] if you hadn’t been there.”

HBO does its best to explain the Dodgers mystique, putting together a worthy drive-thru course in Brooklyn Dodgers, New York City and even American history.

It starts with the arrival of Robinson, which had more to do with finances than one would like to think. The first African American major leaguer, he changed the game on the field and the games off the field – reinforcing the point that in Brooklyn, the color of your cap meant more than the color of your skin.

Those Dodger blue “bums” – with “Boys of Summer” legends Gil Hodges, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese and Duke Snider filling the lineup – won six NL pennants, one eternal World Series (in 1955), and the souls of their fans.

But almost as quickly as Robinson and the glory days arrived, they were gone.

(Robinson played from 1947-56; by comparison, Jeter has been a Yankee two seasons longer.)

The team fled west to Los Angeles and put 3,000 miles between the haves and the have-nots.

All the key moments are visible again, and baseball fans – including featured Brooklynites Larry King, Louis Gossett Jr., and Pat Cooper – will be reminded how cyclical the game can be.

There’s Mickey Owen’s gaffe (hello, Bill Buckner); Bobby Thomson’s epic home run (Aaron Boone, anyone?); Sandy Amoros’ great catch (hey, Endy Chavez); and Hodges’ God-awful ’52 Series (paging Alex Rodriguez).

But it’s the play-by-play of Walter O’Malley’s failed battle to keep the team at home that completes the story and starts a sad new one – the perpetual truth that times are changing, and not for the better.

“It’s the first time you realize that something that you thought could never go is gone,” author Robert Caro says. “And it’s gone forever.”