Flatbush Brooklyn hosted the majestic yet cramped Ebbets Field — home to the Brooklyn Dodgers. The ballpark was built by Dodger owner Charlie Ebbets at the cost of $750,000 and until 1929, no press box was present in the stadium. Fans could buy tickets in one of the twelve gilded ticket windows, enter the majestic marble rotunda through one of the twelve turnstiles, and look up and see a chandelier with twelve baseball bat "arms" holding twelve baseball lamps. Home of the Abe Stark sign, host to the 1949 All-Star Game & nine Fall Classics, and the field where Jackie Robinson first stepped upon make Ebbets Field one of the most legendary ballparks in history.
"Charlie Ebbets, the owner of the Dodgers, was building a magnificent new baseball palace way out in Flatbush, to be named after himself, and slowly acquiring enough good players to climb out of the second-division residence the Dodgers had fallen into ever since 1903, even before Hanlon left." - Leonard Koppett in The Man in the Dugout (2000)
Ebbets FieldMajor League Occupant(s) |
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Data | ||
First Game | 04-09-1913 | |
FirstNightGame | 06-15-1938 | |
Last Game | 09-24-1957 | |
Ebbets FieldBallpark Capacity |
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Data | ||
Capacity Changes (Yearly Attendance) |
1913 | 18,000 |
1924 | 26,000 | |
1926 | 28,000 | |
1937 | 35,000 | |
1938 | 32,000 | |
1940 | 34,219 | |
1941 | 34,000 | |
1946 | 32,000 | |
1952 | 31,902 | |
Ebbets FieldBallpark Dimensions |
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Data | ||
Backstop | 1942 | 64' |
1954 | 70½' | |
1957 | 72' | |
Centerfield | 1914 | 450' |
1930 | 466' | |
1931 | 447' | |
1936 | 399' | |
1938 | 402' | |
1939 | 400' | |
1947 | 399' | |
1948 | 384' | |
1955 | 393' | |
Left Center | 1932 | 365' |
1948 | 351' | |
Left Field | 1913 | 419' |
1914 | 410' | |
1921 | 418' | |
1931 | 384' | |
1932 | 353' | |
1938 | 365' | |
1939 | 357' | |
1940 | 365' | |
1942 | 356' | |
1947 | 357' | |
1948 | 343' | |
1953 | 348' | |
1955 | 343' | |
1957 | 348' | |
Right Center | 1913 | 352' |
Right Field | 1913 | 301' |
1914 | 300' | |
1922 | 292' | |
1926 | 301' | |
1938 | 297' | |
Ebbets FieldMiscellaneous Items of Interest |
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Data | ||
Demolished On | 02-23-1960 | |
Architect | Clarence Randall van Buskirk | |
Construction | Castle Brothers, Inc. | |
Cost | $750,000 | |
Owner | Brooklyn Dodgers, Inc. | |
Field Surface | 1913-1957 | Natural Grass |
Highest Attendance | 41,209 | 05-30-1934 |
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Ebbets Field |
"The Fall of Ebbets"
Ebbets Field was a special place
From the excitement of the pennant race
To the agony of losing to the Yankees
But all of Brooklyn cried on their hankies
When the home they called heaven
Was lost in 1957
Before they left, it was all going well
The Dodgers were doing kind of swell
In the fall of '55
The whole city was alive
None had a clue that the home they called heaven
Would be lost in 1957
That year they finally got over that hump
They finally broke out of the slump
They won a championship for the very first time
They all celebrated from sunrise to bedtime
They finally beat the Yankees in a best-of-seven
Two years before 1957
The very next fall, Gil, Campy, and the Duke
Proved that the past year was no fluke
They tasted very little of defeat
They were thinking of repeat
It came down to another game seven
In the place they called heaven
They lost and heaven began to crumble
To third place the Dodgers stumble
Then, broke the sad, sad story
That Ebbets would no longer see glory
Everyone knew that the home they called heaven
Would eventually be lost in 1957
One final game at Ebbets Field
Even then the Dodgers refused to yield
And with that final victory
Brooklyn baseball was history
Every Brooklynite filled heaven
All knowing it would be gone after 1957
Now, it's time to say good-bye
No Brooklynite had a dry eye
The Dodgers had just left town
Leaving Brooklyn with a frown
Brooklyn knew that the home they called heaven
Would soon be no more after 1957
Time for heaven to fall
Look out here comes the wrecking ball
With mighty blows from a steel bubble
Ebbets Field became rubble
No more was the home they called heaven
To the ground it went after 1957.
The first night game at Ebbets Field (June 15, 1938) appears in the Baseball Almanac fabulous feats section, because it was also the second consecutive no-hitter thrown by Johnny Vander Meer.
A stunning eighty foot circular rotunda greeted Ebbets Field fans as they entered the ballpark and it was made of Italian marble with baseball-style "stitching" along with twelve turnstiles, twelve ticket windows, twelve lights shaped like baseballs held up by bat poles and a twenty-seven foot ceiling.