Saturday, April 6, 2013

Charles Ebbets, Brooklyn’s Team and Their Ballpark - NYTimes.com

Charles Ebbets
On my first day of high school at Brooklyn Prep, 1150 Carroll Street, I looked out the window and saw the lights of Ebbetts Field - by then dark two years.  Giants had played there.  I saw the Duke of Flatbush hit a home run, along with Stan Musial - the Cardinals' legend.  I had fallen asleep in the second game of a twilight-night double-header.  After class I walked over the couple of blocks to Bedford Avenue.  Next game  Dodgers vs...... the sign above the gate said.  An iron ball swung from a crane, dropping onto the old wooden-framed walkways whose bounce from the wight of the crowd I recalled.  I heard the sickening crack of timbers, turned and walked away from the former field of dreams.  It was 1959.  In a few weeks the Los Angeles Dodgers would beat the Chicago White Sox 4 games to 2 in the World Series.  I rooted for the Dodgers but it was never the same as the days of the Boys of Summer. - gwc
Charles Ebbets, Brooklyn’s Team and Their Ballpark - NYTimes.com: by Bob McGee

"Charles H. Ebbets grew up on Spring Street in Manhattan, but he became inextricably linked with Brooklyn by the time he was a young man."...

In the first game there, on April 5, 1913, Brooklyn scored a 3-2 exhibition victory over the Yankees as Casey Stengel and Jake Daubert hit inside-the-park homers. Zack Wheat started Ebbets Field’s comic tradition by hitting a foul pop-up that Yankees third baseman Roy Hartzell dived into the stands to chase, bumping his head into a bass drum that resounded in G.

The stories that would make it the greatest ballpark ever had begun.

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