October 3, 1956 President Eisenhower is about to throw out the first pitch at Ebbets Field for game 1 of the 1956 World Series. Walter O’Malley checks his watch for the starting time. Just beside O’Malley is commissioner Ford Frick. In the left hand side of this photo is Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles….
“The field was even greener than my boy’s mind had pictured it. In later years, friends of ours visited Ireland and said the grass there was plenty green all right, but that not even the Emerald Isle itself was as green as the grass that grew in Ebbets Field.” – Duke Snider
Carl Furillo plays the carom at Ebbets Field [jetpack_subscription_form title=”Join the Community” subscribe_text=”We bring you cool stories about the game, players, ballparks and the people that shaped the game!” subscribe_button=”Join us!” show_subscribers_total=”1″] Subscribe to our Podcast The Daily Rewind on Apples Podcast | Spotify | Google | Stitcher And connect with us wherever else you…
This Week we cover August 26 – Sept 1 . . . We are going to talk Tom Yawkey, Jackie Robinson, Jeff Bagwell, The First Televised Game, Rob Dibble, The Rat and Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammell. TRIVIA – Who was the first black/African American player in Major League Baseball History? On August 26, 1939…
Ebbets Field Ebbets Field was on the block bound by Bedford Avenue, Sullivan Place, McKeever Place, and Montgomery Street. After locating the prospective new site to build a permanent stadium to replace the old (and wooden) Washington Park, club owner Charlie Ebbets acquired the property over several years, starting in 1908, by buying parcels of…
On November 13, 2006, the New York Mets break ground on their new ballpark, to be named Citi Field. Some of the park’s architecture harkens back to Ebbets Field, which resided in Brooklyn and was home to the Brooklyn Dodgers through 1957.
Although the Bulova company had promised a free watch to any player who hit their clock located high above the Ebbets Field scoreboard, Bama Rowell didn’t receive the timepiece after his 1946 blast. The injustice is corrected more than 40 years later when the former Braves’ outfielder, whose blast is thought to be the inspiration for author Bernard Malamud having Roy Hobbs, the hero of his 1952 novel, The Natural, smashing a glass-shattering homer off the light tower, receives his wristwatch from Bulova on ‘Bama Rowell’ Day in Citronelle, Alabama, the honoree’s hometown.
Twenty-eight months after the Dodgers play their last game in Brooklyn, the demolition of Ebbets Field finally begins when a wrecking ball, painted with red and white stitches, begins its work on the ballpark Brooklyn called home for 44 years. Before the demolition wheel-chair bound Roy Campanella, the team’s former All-Star catcher and three-time National League MVP is given an urn of dirt from behind home plate in front of a crowd of 200 faithful fans.
On September 24, 1957, the Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates play the final game in the history of Ebbets Field. Grounding out, Pirates’ left-handed first baseman Dee Fondy becomes last player ever to bat in Ebbets Field as the Dodgers blanked the Bucs, 2 – 0, in the last major league game ever played…
Duke Snider, with his second round-tripper in the Dodgers’ 7-3 victory over Philadelphia, hits his 40th home run, tying Ralph Kiner’s National League record of five consecutive seasons with forty or more homers. The Duke of Flatbush’s seventh-inning homer off future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts will prove to be the last one ever hit at Ebbets Field.