Ebbets Field

[Toy Cannon]

I was doing some research for a trivia question about someting that happened at Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn and thought I'd share this with you baseball history lovers.



It was, in the truest sense, a ballpark -- a cozy, friendly little place where you could forget your troubles, inhale a few hot dogs and peanuts and cheer on your beloved Dodgers -- boisterously and with passion, like hard-living Brooklyn fans attacked everything in life.

It was a gaudy, colorful, wonderfully-misshapen arena where everything seemed out of sync, balls bounced out of control and you not only learned to expect the unexpected, you counted on it.

It was a shrine in the Borough of Churches, where you could go to worship players named Leo, Newk, Dazzy, Dixie, Babe, Campy, Jackie, Pee Wee and the Duke. It was where Hilda Chester clanged her cowbell and Shorty's Sym-Phony Band stayed out of tune for two decades.

Ebbets Field was charming and charismatic -- equal parts madhouse and magic kingdom, a rickety baseball palace where pennants were won, dreams were shattered and your emotions were stretched to the limits of ecstasy and disappointment.

The charm of Ebbets started and ended with its fans -- the most raucous, colorful, knowledgeable zealots ever to unite their passions in a common cause. You couldn't empower the Dodgers without talking the talk -- a distinctive dialect in which you "moidered dem bums," cheered for "Boit" Shotton and chastised the "Gints", an alien force from somewhere across the East River. "Ya bum, ya" was a daily admonition, not necessarily restricted to Dodgers opponents.

The fans were only part of the zany atmosphere of a ballpark that stretches the imagination of anybody unfortunate enough not to have attended a game there. There were critics who called Ebbets Field a ratty architectural disaster, but history cherishes it as an aesthetic treasure.




SIGNATURE FEATURES
Ebbets Field was non-conformist in every sense, with nuances and physical oddities that affected the way the game was played. It was a stadium overflowing with personality.

Part of it came from the close proximity of the seats to the field, especially around dugouts that seemed to blend into the stands. You could almost reach out and touch someone in uniform -- a closeness that created a special bond with the Dodgers and an irritating dialogue with opponents.

The personality started with an ornate rotunda inside the main entrance and extended to the field itself, which must have been constructed by somebody with a sense of humor. The right-field wall was a concave nightmare, mastered by Walker and Carl Furillo but a confusing puzzle to most opposing outfielders.

Shots off the wall, which sloped inward from the top and bottom, bounced around the field like a billiard ball coming off a cushion. The wall was an inviting 297 feet down the line, but it was topped by a 20-foot fence that protected the windows of businesses along Bedford Avenue.

The right-field wall was divided by a giant scoreboard that jutted onto the playing field -- another nightmare for outfielders. And the left-field wall, backed by a double-decked grandstand -- occupied by the rowdiest bleacherites in baseball -- made two angled cuts away from the plate before meeting the concave wall in deepest right-center field.

At first glance, Ebbets was a shock to your nervous system. You could become mesmerized by the colorful and gaudy signs that added character to a park that already had more than its fair share. The most prominent signs were on the scoreboard -- a full-length strip across the bottom sponsored by Abe Stark, who challenged players to "Hit Sign, Win Suit," and a Schaefer Beer sign in which the "h" and "e" in the word Schaefer could be illuminated to designate a hit or error.

It was easy to become overwhelmed by the personality of Ebbets Field, where several legendary fans gained as much renown as the players they rooted for. The cowbell-toting Hilda was a noisy fixture for years in the left-center field bleachers and the five-piece Sym-Phony band seemed to be everywhere, irritating the opposition with their musical antics while saluting their Dodgers heroes. Hilda, who could bellow an "eatcha heart out, ya bum" put-down that could be heard throughout the park, was an intimidating obstacle for Giants fans who might venture into enemy territory.

What more perfect setting for Casey Stengel's tip-of-the-hat gesture to heckling Dodger fans, releasing a live bird that flew away to freedom? Where else could the Daffiness Boys of Wilbert Robinson have received such loving affection in the 1920s? Where else could you find a singing newsboy who would regale you with Dodger tales, the tone of his melodies reflecting the team's successes and failures?

Babe Herman, who made it perfectly clear to anybody who would listen that he never was hit on the head by a fly ball, did slide into third once, only to find teammates Dazzy Vance and Chick Fewster already there. Herman's bases-loaded double turned into a double play. Umpire George Magerkurth became a famous Brooklyn figure only because he was floored by an irate fan, who held him down and pummeled away near home plate. Hungry fans, upset at not being able to purchase tickets for a critical game against the Giants in 1924, used a dismantled telephone pole to batter in the gate and flowed into the already-packed stadium.

This was the proper setting for yellow baseballs, a milkman/batting practice pitcher and a dropped third strike that cost the Dodgers an important World Series victory. Where else could Johnny Vander Meer have mustered the strength to pitch his second consecutive no-hitter -- in the first night game ever played at Ebbets Field? What park, with its incredible melting pot of patrons, was more fitting for the great sociological experiment -- Jackie Robinson's 1947 breaking of baseball's color barrier? Cookie Lavagetto's 1947 double off the right field wall still bounces through the soul of Brooklyn, a vivid, happy memory of one of baseball's greatest World Series moments.




QUOTABLE
"You were so close to the field, sitting anywhere in that old park, that you could hear the players talking to each other." -- Red Patterson, a former Dodgers vice president

[Baseball Guru]

Great stuff Dale

Thanks for the post

Very interesting indeed!

[treasurecoast1]

Ebbets Field and the Brooklyn Dodgers were a unique park and a unique franchise.

It is a travesty that the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. A travesty because the BROOKLYN Dodgers were a team filled with history in a city that loved them.

Ebbets Field was falling apart in 1957 and the area around the park was a declining neighborhood, not particularly safe, but the move to California, taking Stoneham's Giants with him to boot, was an event that changed baseball forever. It destroyed three rivalries (Yankees/Dodgers, Yankees/Giants, Dodgers/Giants); they no longer mean anything of what they used to.