The Ghosts of Ebbets Field

"[It is] one of the most notorious abandonments in the history of sports." (U.S. Federal Judge)




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebbets_Field#/media/File:Ebbets1913OpeningDay.jpg

Charlie Ebbets started buying up parcels of land in Brooklyn, a block at a time, including a garbage dump where pigs used to dine which they called Pigtown.  Within five years, he built a baseball stadium, but neglected to include a flag, keys to the bleachers and a press box.

The opening game featured the Brooklyn Dodgers, named after the streetcars that its fans used to dodge, and the Philadelphia Phillies.  The Dodgers quickly worked their way into the hearts of Brooklynites.  With the bleachers full, more seats were added in the 1920's.  Lights were added in 1938 to pave the way for the first night game.  The press box was added in 1929, along with a scoreboard in 1940.

The scoreboard came at the time of major success for the Dodgers, a baseball team that captured the pennant several times including 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955 and 1956.  

Probably Ebbets Field's biggest claim to fame came in 1947, when the color barrier in baseball was broken with manager Branch Rickey's hiring of Jackie Robinson.  Number 42 stole many a base at Ebbets Field with his wife Rachel, and later his children, cheering him on from the stands (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2013/04/april-15.html).

While the Dodgers kept knocking on the door of success, they were never able to clinch the World Series.  That all changed in 1955.  Once more, the Brooklyn Dodgers faced the New York Yankees, the heavy favourites.  Ebbets Field was packed for the series.  For Brooklynites who couldn't get tickets, they stayed home and watched the series on their televisions or listened to it on the radio.  One fan pointed out that he was going to the game to watch it "in colour, rather than in black and white".  Things looked bleak for the Dodgers after the Yankees took the first two games.  No baseball team had ever come back to win the World Series after such a start.  However, with players like Jackie Robinson, the team came back to win the championship.

Henry Petroksi, a former Brooklyn resident, said in his book Paper Boy that the streets surrounding Ebbets Field were surprisingly quiet at first, filled with disappointed Yankee fans returning home.  Brooklyn fans were in shock.  However, within 90 minutes, Brooklynites erupted in celebration.  After decades, Brooklyn's loyal fans had finally been rewarded.

Sadly, the celebration was short lived.  As one writer says, the Dodgers were "victims of their own success".  Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley wanted to expand Ebbets Field, but had no where to go.  He wanted to build a new stadium at the Atlantic Yards where an old market was being torn down.  New York City Commissioner Robert Moses (after whom the Parkway is named) wanted a baseball stadium built at Flushing Meadows.  However, Walter O'Malley said that his team was called the "Brooklyn Dodgers, not the Queen's Dodgers".  In 1956, real estate developper bought Ebbets Field.  The following year, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebbets_Field).

In 1960, Ebbets field met the fate of the wrecking ball.  Where famous ball players once played, a massive apartment complex was built, named Ebbets Field apartments.  In 1972, when Jackie Robinson died, the complex was renamed in his memory. 

Ebbets Field would not soon be forgotten.  Frank Sinatra sang about it in his tune "There Used to be a Ballpark".  Roger Kahn wrote about it in his book The Boys of Summer.  The HBO documentary filmed it in Brooklyn Dodgers:  Ghosts of Flatbush.  One U.S. federal judge called it "one of the most notorious abandonments in the history of sports".  

http://uspsstamps.tumblr.com/post/32212104084/on-september-24-1957-the-brooklyn-dodgers-played

Baseball : Where Memory Gathers

"Baseball, because of its continuity over the space of America and the time of America, is a place where memory gathers." (Donald Hall)

http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348561584l/6656790.jpg

Apart from the two years that the Toronto Blue Jays won the Major League championship, I have not been a baseball fan.  However, in recent years, I have discovered a handful of picture books which not only bring baseball, but history, to life (Jackie's Gift, All Star!  Honus Wagner and the Most Famous Baseball Card Ever, Campy:  The Story of Roy Campanella, Willie and the All Stars).  I have realized that the two are interchangeable.  As Donald Hall explains:  "Baseball, because of its continuity over the space of America and the time of America, is a place where memory gathers." (http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/baseball/)

Ebbets Field circa 1912 courtesy http://www.oldnycphotos.com/bbm311.html.

Back in 1909, Charles Hercules Ebbetts bought an old garbage dump called Pigtown.  Three years later he constructed a ball park, Ebbetts Field, the future home of the Trolley Dodgers.  The team had been named for its loyal fans who dodged trolleys on Brooklyn's busy streets.  As Walt Whitman explained, the sport had permeated the city:  "In our sundown of perambulators of late, through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters, playing base, a certain game of ball...Let us go forth awhile and get better air in our lungs.  Let us leave our close rooms...The game of ball is glorious." (http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/baseball/)

As Ken Burns says, "baseball is a powerful metaphor for America".  The changes that the Brooklyn Dodgers have undergone are indicative of the changes the nation has undergone.  Burns points out that baseball touches on:  race, immigration, labor and management, pop culture and advertising, heroes and villains.  

Firstly, let's talk about immigration.  "In the 1930's and 1940's, Brooklyn was a melting pot of immigrants trying to make a buck." (https://books.google.ca/books?isbn=0595314287)  

Roy Campanella, the son of an Italian immigrant, played for the Brooklyn Dodgers.  His father used to pedal fruits and vegetables out of his truck.

Baseball is also the history of race.  Number 42, Jackie Robinson, broke the colour barrier when he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2013/04/april-15.html).

Former Brooklyn manager Leo Durocher was suspended in 1947 for "association with known gamblers" after being involved in a rigged crap game.

The Brooklyn Dodgers produced its share of heroes including Roy Campanella, who after suffering a terrible car accident, was paralyzed and wheel chair ridden for the rest of his life.  He never gave up, however, and continued to lead a productive life off of the baseball field.

The Brooklyn Dodgers' history culminated with the winning of the World Series in 1955.  However, the joy for Brooklynites was shortlived for the team moved to Los Angeles only two years later.

It's hard to believe the influence that baseball has had on pop culture.  The Glossary of English Idioms Derived from Baseball (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_English-language_idioms_derived_from_baseball) includes dozens of expressions such as:

• Play ball!
• grand slam
• ballpark figure
• to knock it out of the park\batting a thousand
• you're in the big leagues now
• charley horse (1887)
• cover one's bases
• throw someone a curveball
• extra innings
• grandstanding
• step up to the plate

Ken Burns Baseball series proves that baseball truly is "America's pastime".  Comprised of nine "innings", the series includes photographs, drawings, paintings, lithographs and newsreels.  Just as the Civil War series has the "Ashokan Farewell", the Baseball series has "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" a song dating back to 1908.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_stmo.shtml

Ken Burns: King of the Documentary

"He told me that my whole work was an attempt to make people long gone come back alive." 

(Ken Burns, quoting his father-in-law)

A distant relative of the famous poet, Robert Burns, Ken Burns was born in Brooklyn, New York. The son of a biotechnician and a cultural anthropologist, Burns was surrounded by books; he devoured the family encyclopedia.  Tragedy struck early when, at 3, his mom was diagnosed with cancer and passed away eight years later.  Her death helped shape his career.

At 17, Burns received an 8 mm movie camera for his birthday and made his first film footage.  He attended Hampshire College and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in film studies and design in 1975, studying under photographers Jerome Liebling and Elaine Mayes.  Burns and a college classmate created Florentine Films named after Florence Massachusetts, Mayes' hometown.  He worked for both the BBC and Italian television for a short time.

Burns' father-in-law predicted his future:  "He told me that my whole work was an attempt to make people long gone come back alive."  In 1976, Burns started adapting David McCullough's book The Great Bridge for television.  He believed that the bridge, one of America's greatest landmarks, affected many Americans.  Five years later, Burns documentary, The Brooklyn Bridge, premiered on PBS.  The new film maker was nominated for an Academy Award in 1982.

Burns soon became known for his "technique of cutting rapidly from one still picture to another, in a fluid, linear fashion".  He added first hand narration read by celebrities.  In the background, he played haunting melodies or time period pieces -- classic Ken Burns.

It was not until 1990 that Burns hit the big time with his chef d'oeuvre, The Civil War.  Forty million viewers watched the initial broadcast and Burns became a household name.   He has since made at least two dozen documentaries, the most recent being Jackie Robinson, which aired last month on PBS.  More are forthcoming in 2017 and 2018.

Note:  For a list of all of Ken Burns' documentaries, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Burns.

Ken Burns working on the Civil War courtesy http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Ken-Burns-editing-Civil-War.jpg.

The Big Cat of Basketball

"In 1950, basketball was like a babe in the woods.  It didn't enjoy the notoriety that baseball did."  So explained Earl Lloyd, the first black player in the National Basketball Association.  He did for basketball what Jackie Robinson did for baseball.  Here is his story.

Earl Francis Lloyd was born on April 3, 1928 in Alexandria, Virginia.  He took up basketball in Grade 6 and soon excelled at the sport.  He attended a black high school which would later be integrated with the local white high school and the new school would be called T.C. Williams.  This is the school featured in the fact-based football movie "Remember the Titans".

Upon graduation from high school, he was accepted at West Virginia State College, also an all-black school.  Earl played on the basketball team where he and his teammates won the C.I.A.A. championship in 1948 and 1949.  At 6 feet 7 inches, Earl soon acquired the nickname "The Big Cat".  In four years of college, Earl and his friends only visited the city of Charleston three or four times, even though it was only 10 miles away.  Being a segregated city, they chose to stay on campus where it was safe.  One day, a friend approached him on the college campus and said she heard on the radio that Earl was going to be drafted by an NBA team.  Because the owners and managers were white, they did not usually visit black campuses.

Map courtesy www.enchantedlearning.com.

But the friend was right and Earl was soon signing on the dotted line with the Washington Capitols.  This was his first chance to have a conversation with a white person in his entire life.  Earl found his teammates to be accepting of him despite his skin colour.  He had no car and it was white teammate Bill Sharman who drove him to every practice.  His white coach, Horace "Bones" McKinney, also accepted him with open arms.  AT one point the team lodged at a hotel where Earl was refused entry at the restaurant.  Earl ordered room service and Coach McKinney ate with him in his hotel room.  The young basketball star "carried that gesture for the rest of his life".

While Earl's teammates were supportive, and the opposing teams were supportive, the fans were not.  They taunted him mercilessly in places like St. Louis, Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, shouting insults like "Go back to Africa" and "Show us your tail".  Like Jackie Robinson, Earl Lloyd refused to take the bait.  Instead, he used the rude fans' insults to fuel his fire on the basketball court.

Earl's time with the Washington Capitols was brief as he was drafted into the American military and sent overseas to Korea.  After two years in the service, he returned home to find out his team had folded.  He was picked up by the Syracuse Nationals where he averaged 10.2 points per game.  While travelling with Syracuse, he still encountered racism.  The team was invited to an exhibition game in South Carolina, but Earl was not allowed to go due to his skin colour.  It was bad enough that he couldn't play, but even worse that his teammates said nothing to him about the matter.  He was hoping that they would at least acknowledge the injustice of the situation.

Photo of NBA champions, Syracuse Nationals, 1955 courtesy jpollard.homestead.com.

Earl continued to rack up points on the basketball court and in 1955, he received the ultimate reward -- the NBA championship.  After six years with Syracuse, Earl signed on with the Detroit Pistons for his last two seasons.  In 1960, he retired.

Earl soon became the NBA's first black assistant coach.  Then in 1965, the general manager of the Pistons wanted to make him the head coach, but his decision was overridden by someone higher up.  Earl did become the Pistons' head coach, however, seven years later.

Earl was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002.  His fans will never forget the class he showed both on and off the court.  He was once asked who was the one person he would pick to have lunch with if he had the chance.  He said his first choice was Jesus, but if he could not lunch with Jesus, his second choice was his favourite sports hero -- Jackie Robinson.

Note:  For more information read his autobiography, Moon Fixer:  The Basketball Journey of Earl Lloyd.

You Give Me the Number and I'll Give You the Guts!

Image courtesy www.wbez.org.

Rob and I just saw the movie "42" last night and we were thoroughly impressed.  Based on the life of baseball great Jackie Robinson, the movie tells the tale of how he broke the colour barrier in professional baseball.  It is a story of a true hero, a hero who endured taunts and death threats, but who never lowered himself to his enemy's level.

Jackie Robinson, the son of Georgia sharecroppers, never knew his father who abandonned the family when he was just a baby.  His mother moved the family to California where Jackie attended UCLA, lettering in not one but four sports.  After a brief stint in the Army, Jackie signed up with the Montreal Royals.  Only a year later, he signed on with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

It was on this date in 1947 that Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier in professional baseball.  He was the first black player to set foot on the field with whites since the 1880's, the time of Reconstruction.  With his arrival came immediate rumblings:  rumblings from Jackie's teammates; rumblings from the opposing team; rumblings from the opposing coaches; rumblings from the crowd; and rumblings in the press.  What was a black man doing playing on a white baseball team?

The movie highlights one particular game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Jackie was up to bat.  While he tried to focus on the pitch, he had a constant barrage of taunts from the Pirates coach behind him.  Not one to hold his cool in the past, and not one to bend easily to Jim Crow laws, Jackie came close to losing it.  Finally, he'd had enough and he ran under the stands, smashing his baseball bat against a cement wall and breaking it into several pieces.

Photo of coach who taunted Robinson who agreed to a posed shot only after pressure from the Phillies owner courtesy wordpress.com. 

It was there that he was met by the Dodgers' owner, Branch Rickey, a Christian businessman.  He reminded Jackie that the road to integration in baseball would not be easy.  He reminded him that like our Saviour, Jesus Christ, he would have to turn the other cheek.    He reminded him that if he fought back, the press would claim that he threw the first punch.  He reminded him that he still had complete faith in him.The best way to fight back would be to play his heart out and win the game.

Jackie didn't give up that day.  He marched back on the field and he played his heart out.  And his teammates started to fight back on his behalf.  One of them stood up to the Pirates coach who had been harassing Jackie.  The Dodgers ended up winning the game.

But it wasn't the end of the fight.  Jackie endured many death threats in the coming months.  He was run out of town in Florida during spring training.  And he was denied entry into hotels where the other team members stayed.

Jackie often wondered why the Dodgers owner, Mr. Rickey, signed him in the first place.  Why was he willing to field the inevitable questions that the media would direct his way about signing a black baseball player?  Why was he willing to put up with the fights that broke out in the locker room over the fact that one of the team's players was black.  Why was he willing to put up with the team being turned away from hotels simply because one of its players was black?

Photo of Mr. Rickey courtesy 4.bp.blogspot.com. 

At first, Mr. Rickey claimed that he was strictly a keen businessman with a good eye for talent.  But later he revealed that when he was young, he met a young black baseball player like Jackie, but he didn't do enough to help him.  He vowed that if he had the opportunity again, he would help the next black baseball player who came into his life.

Bit by bit, Jackie's teammates accepted him as a full fledged member of the team.  Bit by bit coaches saw the incredible talent that he possessed.  Bit by bit, crowds started to see the promise in the young baseball player.  And bit by bit the media discovered what a legend in the making Jackie was.

Photo courtesy www.americaslibrary.gov. 

One journalist in particular took Jackie under his wing and looked out for him as he travelled from town to town.  He would make sure that Jackie had lodgings since most of the hotels would not accept blacks.  The journalist had a unique perspective since he too was black.  Just as Jackie had been refused entry into the white baseball teams at first, so too was this journalist refused entry into the white press box.  He sat in the stands with the fans and typed on a typewriter perched on his lap.

Jackie was not just a hero on the baseball field.  He was also a hero at home.  While his father ran out on him, he vowed that his children would know him, and know him well.  He and his wife raised three children and he was married until the day he died in 1972.  His baseball number, 42, is the only number to be permanently retired from the sport.  As Jackie had said to Mr. Rickey when he signed him:  "You give me a number on my back, and I'll give you the guts."  Thank you, Jackie, for your courage!

Photo courtesy www.findingdulcinea.com.

*First published in 2013.

Coach Boone Battles Racism on the Football Field

"I can't make you like each other, but I will demand that you respect each other." 

(Coach Herman Boone)

When Coach Herman Boone walked into the dining hall at his football camp in 1971, he saw whites sitting at white tables, blacks at black tables.  He marched his team onto the bus and took a field trip    -- to Gettysburg.  In the early morning hours, the boys' eyes still half closed, Coach Boone told them about the young men who, over a hundred years before, had fought about the same thing that they were fighting about.  Only now they were wearing tombstones for hats.  The following morning, Coach Boone saw "a noticeable change in the dining hall".

In the 1950's and 1960's, schools were integrated across the United States.  The city of Alexandria, Virginia was no exception.  Parker-Gray, a black school, and George Washington and Hammond, both white high schools, were integrated into one school called T. C. Williams in the fall of 1971.  Resistance came from both blacks and whites.  Suddenly, children could not graduate from the same school as their parents or grandparents.  Alexandria students had to be bussed from one end of town to the other, often bypassing their "home school" on the way.  Blacks and whites would share the same classrooms for the first time in Alexandria.

With the integration of the schools came the integration of the sports teams.  T. C. Williams football team was in a shambles.  It was crying out for leadership.  And that came in the form of head coach, Herman Boone, a black who grew up in North Carolina.  A controversial decision, Boone was hired by the city of Alexandria instead of the more experienced white coach, Bill Yoast.  

Like baseball's Jackie Robinson, Herman Boone knew that if he were to be accepted by whites, he would have to deliver a top notch performance.  From the moment he set foot on the T. C. Williams field, he was a disciplinarian.  For the first time, white football players were facing off against blacks. And these were blacks who were originally on opposing teams.  But that didn't matter to Boone who reminded them:  "I can't make you like each other, but I will demand that you respect each other."

As Boone explained:  "Nobody wanted me to succeed but me."  But the T. C. Williams coach started to deliver immediately.  President Nixon heard about the fuss and sent his aide, Dr. Browne, to check out the Titans shortly after they returned from Gettysburg.  The interaction among the players likely accounts for some of the growing respect between blacks and whites.  However, as one former player points out:  "Boone's gradual acceptance by fans, neighbours and colleagues might have more to do with winning than enlightenment."  Like Jackie Robinson, Herman Boone knew how to win.  

With a no loss record, the Titans went on to win the Virginia State Championship that year and were ranked second in the United States.  Not just an inspiration at T. C. Williams, they inspired their entire community.  Richard Nixon called them "the team that saved Alexandria".  Coach Boone had a large part to play in that transformation.

Coach Boone with Titans players courtesy http://deadspin.com/remember-the-titans-is-a-lie-and-this-man-wants-you-to-1609473834.

Jackie Robinson Pens Protest Letter to Eisenhower

"I was sitting in the audience at the Summit Meeting of Negro leaders yesterday when you said we must have patience.  On hearing you say this, I felt like standing up and saying:  'Oh no!  Not again.'

I respectfully remind you sir that we have been the most patient of all people." (Jackie Robinson)

It was 1958 -- eleven years since the first black man officially played in the National Baseball League; four years since the ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education; three years since Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus; and one year since the National Guard escorted nine students to Little Rock High.  

Yet, America was still a long way from fulling integrating blacks into white society.  Jackie Robinson, who had integrated professional baseball, had just hung up his number 42 jersey.  He penned a letter to President Eisenhower indicating his frustration with the civil rights movement, which, after making giant strides, had seemed to stall.  

"I was sitting in the audience at the Summit meeting of negro leaders yesterday when you said we must have patience.  On hearing you say this, I felt like standing up and saying:  'Oh no!  Not again.' (www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/jackie_robinson_letter/).  I respectfully remind you sir that we have been the most patient of all people."  He pointed out that Negroes were striving to attain goals that Whites had already been granted over 150 years before.

"17 million Negroes cannot do as you suggest and wait for the hearts of men to change," implored Robinson.  In 1958, Negroes represented about 10 percent of the American population, a significant amount.  Robinson wanted actions, not words, for the Civil Rights Movement to move forward.  

Robinson saw President Eisenhower's attitude of forbearance as encouraging, not discouraging, the segregationists.  He reminded the President about Governor Faubus, who, the previous year, had blocked the school entry of the Little Rock Nine.  

The baseball legend drove his point home by stating:  "would let it be known that America is determined to provide -- in the near future -- for Negroes -- the freedoms we are entitled to under the Constitution."

Note:  For more information about Jackie Robinson, read "You Give Me the Number, I'll Give You the Guts!" at http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2013/04/april-15.html.

Jackie Robinson (right) meets Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders circa 1950's courtesy http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/publication/2009/01/20090106142542jmnamdeirf0.8552515.html#axzz3l0Ucr18M.

Wendell Smith Recommends Robinson to Rickey

When Jackie Robinson played, he turned an upside down nation right side up. (Roger Rosenblatt)  

The movie 42 features a man who sits in the stands at Ebbetts Field with his typewriter in his lap, furiously typing away names, dates and stats.  He is not a baseball player; he is not a manager; he is a journalist -- a black journalist.  That is why he sits in the stands rather than in the press box.  He is on a mission -- to desegregate the game of baseball.

Wendell Smith played baseball back in the 1930s.  In fact, he won the American League championship game in 1933.  A scout in the stands, so impressed by Smiths play, spoke to him after the game:  I wish I could sign you, but I cant, he said.  He signed the opposing pitcher, a white, instead.  Smith vowed then and there that he would help to get the first black player into the major leagues.

He would reach his goal, however, with a typewriter, not with a ball and glove.  Smith was hired by the Pittsburgh Courier, the most influential black newspaper in the country.  He highlighted the names of 20 black players that he felt were good enough to make it in the big leagues.  His suggestions were also published by the Communist paper The Daily Worker.  Despite his comprehensive pieces, Smith was rejected by the Baseball Writers Association of America due to his colour.

In 1938, Smith polled the big league players in a Pittsburgh Hotel lobby and discovered that 75% were not opposed to integration on the baseball field.  However, owners were not hiring them; all that is, except, Branch Rickey, head of the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Smith approached Rickey and told him how impressed he was with a young black player named Jackie Robinson.  In 1947, Rickey, who had also vowed to help get the first black into the major leagues, signed Robinson.

It was Smiths job to be in charge of Robinsons travel and lodging arrangements while he was on the road, given that he was not allowed to eat and sleep at the same hotels as the white players. Something as simple as a black using a restroom at a gas station was cause for conflict in the Jim Crow South.  Smith helped smooth over those rough early days in Florida during spring training. Robinsons teammates did not accept him right away, nor did the fans.  But Rickey and Smith backed him up, and Robinson delivered with the bat and with his feet.  As Roger Rosenblatt explained:  "When Jackie Robinson played, he turned an upside down nation right side up."

http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2012/05/bessemers_andre_holland_comes.html