#263 Ebbets Field and the Glory Days of the Brooklyn Dodgers

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2018

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Robins. The Bridegrooms. The Superbas. The Dizziness Boys. Dem Bums. The Boys of Summer. Whatever you call them, they will always be known in the hearts of New Yorkers as the Brooklyn Dodgers, the legendary baseball team that almost literally defined the spirit of Brooklyn in the early and mid 20th century. Equally as heralded is their former home Ebbets Field, a tiny stadium east of Prospect Park that saw several spectacular moments in sports history. This tiny but mighty field was also witness to many heart-breaking events for the Dodgers' unique die-hard fans. In this show, we review Dodgers history from the perspective of the team's fans and the surrounding neighborhood. This episode features recollections from Brooklynites who grew up around Ebbets Field, a sampling of stories from the Brooklyn Historical Society Oral History Collection. What was it like to grow up just a couple blocks from Ebbets Field? What makes Dodgers fans particularly unique in the world of sports? And what were the unfortunate series of events that led to the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn forever? FEATURING: Jackie Robinson, Robert Moses, Branch Rickey, Leo Durocher and a wild lady named Hilda Chester, armed with her vicious cowbell. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Bowry Boys Episode 263,
0:02.6	Ebott's Field and the Story of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
0:06.4	Hey, it's the Bowry Boys.
0:10.4	Hey.
0:11.4	Support for the Bowry Boys is provided by our listeners.
0:15.0	Join us for as little as a dollar a month
0:17.6	by visiting patreon.com slash Bowry Boys.
0:24.0	Hi there, welcome to the Bowry Boys. This is Greg Young.
0:26.8	And this is Tom Myers.
0:28.4	Tom, it's springtime and at very long last,
0:32.8	we are visiting a place of great legend for some,
0:36.0	a long vanished ball field in the heart of Brooklyn,
0:39.4	named Ebott's Field.
0:41.4	And the team which once played there, the Brooklyn Dodgers.
0:45.6	Together, these two things, the Brooklyn Dodgers and Ebott's Field
0:49.6	were an indispensable part of Brooklyn.
0:52.4	In fact, for many, they were Brooklyn.
0:56.2	Their legendary status, of course, is only heightened
0:59.4	by the fact that by the late 1950s,
1:02.4	the Dodgers had left town and in 1960,
1:06.8	the ballpark disappeared. It completely vanished.
1:10.2	So this story for many is really that of mythology,
	...

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