Ebbets Field
Encyclopedia
Ebbets Field was a Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

 park
Stadium
A modern stadium is a place or venue for outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.)Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event...

 located in the Flatbush
Flatbush, Brooklyn
Flatbush is a community of the Borough of Brooklyn, a part of New York City, consisting of several neighborhoods.The name Flatbush is an Anglicization of the Dutch language Vlacke bos ....

 section of Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, USA, on a city block which is now considered to be part of the Crown Heights
Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Crown Heights is a neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The main thoroughfare through this neighborhood is Eastern Parkway, a tree-lined boulevard designed by Frederick Law Olmsted extending two miles east-west.Originally, the area was known as Crow Hill....

 neighborhood. It was the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers
History of the Brooklyn Dodgers
-Early Brooklyn baseball:Brooklyn was home to numerous baseball clubs in the mid-1850s. Eight of 16 participants in the first convention were from Brooklyn, including the Atlantic, Eckford, and Excelsior clubs that combined to dominate play for most of the 1860s...

 of the National League
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League , is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional...

. It was also a venue for professional football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

. The first National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

 team in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, the New York Brickley Giants used the stadium in 1921
1921 NFL season
The 1921 APFA season was the 2nd regular season of the National Football League, which was then called the American Professional Football Association....

, as did the NFL's Brooklyn Lions in 1926
1926 NFL season
The 1926 NFL season was the 7th regular season of the National Football League. The league grew to 22 teams, a figure that would not be equaled in professional football until 1961, adding the Brooklyn Lions, the Hartford Blues, the Los Angeles Buccaneers, and the Louisville Colonels, with Racine...

. Two different incarnations of a Brooklyn Dodgers football team also used Ebbets Field as their home stadium, as did the Brooklyn Tigers of the second AFL before they moved to Rochester
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...

 in November 1936. The field was demolished in 1960 and replaced with apartment buildings.

History

Ebbets Field was on the block bound by Bedford Avenue
Bedford Avenue (Brooklyn)
Bedford Avenue is the longest street in Brooklyn, New York City, stretching and 132 blocks from Greenpoint south to Sheepshead Bay, and passing through the neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Flatbush and Midwood....

, Sullivan Place, McKeever Place, and Montgomery Street. After locating the prospective new site to build a permanent stadium to replace the old, wooden Washington Park, club owner Charlie Ebbets acquired the property over several years, starting in 1908, by buying parcels of land until he owned the entire block. This land included the site of a garbage dump called Pigtown, because of the pigs that once ate their fill there and the stench that filled the air. In 1912, construction began, and a year later, Pigtown had been transformed into Ebbets Field, where some of the game's greatest drama would take place.

Following an inter-league exhibition game against the New York Yankees
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...

 on April 5, 1913, the park formally opened on April 9 against the Philadelphia Phillies
Philadelphia Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies are a Major League Baseball team. They are the oldest continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional American sports, dating to 1883. The Phillies are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League...

. When the park was opened, it was discovered that the flag, keys to the bleachers, and a press box had all been forgotten. The press box was not added until 1929. Initially the seating area was a double deck from past third base, around home plate, and all the way down the right side. There was an open, concrete bleacher extending the rest of the way down the left side to the outer wall. There was no seating in left or center. The right field wall was fairly high due to the short foul line (around 300 feet) but had no screen or scoreboard at first. The ballpark was built on a sloping piece of ground. The right field wall made up the difference, as the right field corner was above street level. The left field corner was below street level, and there was an incline or "terrace
Terrace (stadium)
A terrace or terracing in sporting terms refers to the traditional standing area of a sports stadium, particularly in the United Kingdom and Ireland...

" running along the left field wall.

As was the case of Boston's Fenway Park
Fenway Park
Fenway Park is a baseball park near Kenmore Square in Boston, Massachusetts. Located at 4 Yawkey Way, it has served as the home ballpark of the Boston Red Sox baseball club since it opened in 1912, and is the oldest Major League Baseball stadium currently in use. It is one of two "classic"...

 and Detroit's Tiger Stadium (two ballparks that opened one year earlier, in 1912), the intimate configuration prompted some baseball writers to refer to Ebbets Field as a "cigar box" or a "bandbox."

Ebbets Field was the scene of some early successes, as the "Robins" (so-called for long-time manager Wilbert Robinson
Wilbert Robinson
Wilbert Robinson , nicknamed "Uncle Robbie", was an American catcher, coach and manager in Major League Baseball...

) won league championships in 1916 and 1920. The Ebbets seating area was expanded in the 1920s, a "boom" time for baseball when many ballparks were expanded. The double deck was extended from third base around the left field corner, across left field, and into center field, covering the terrace and allowing right-hand hitters to garner many more home runs. By the 1940s, the big scoreboard had been installed, as well as a screen atop the high wall, which made right field home runs a little harder to come by. However, additional rows of seating across left field reduced that area by about 15 feet, to the delight of the sluggers.

After the early successes, though, the team slid into some hard times, which would continue for a couple of decades, until new ownership brought in first promotional wizard Larry MacPhail
Larry MacPhail
Leland Stanford "Larry" MacPhail, Sr. was an American lawyer, and an executive and innovator in Major League Baseball.-Biography:...

 (in 1938
1938 in baseball
-Major League Baseball:*World Series: New York Yankees over Chicago Cubs *All-Star Game, July 6 at Crosley Field: National League, 4-1-Awards and honors:*Most Valuable Player**Jimmie Foxx, Boston Red Sox, 1B...

), then, after MacPhail's wartime resignation, player development genius Branch Rickey
Branch Rickey
Wesley Branch Rickey was an innovative Major League Baseball executive elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967...

 (in 1943
1943 in baseball
-Major League Baseball:*World Series: New York Yankees over St. Louis Cardinals *All-Star Game, July 13 at Shibe Park: American League, 5-3-Other champions:*Negro League World Series: Homestead Grays over Birmingham Black Barons...

). In addition to his well-known breaking of the color line by signing Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...

, Rickey's savvy with farm systems
Farm team
In sports, a farm team, farm system, feeder team or nursery club, is generally a team or club whose role is to provide experience and training for young players, with an agreement that any successful players can move on to a higher level at a given point...

 (as with his prior work for the St. Louis Cardinals
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are a professional baseball team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are members of the Central Division in the National League of Major League Baseball. The Cardinals have won eleven World Series championships, the most of any National League team, and second overall only to...

) produced results that made the Brooklyn Dodgers "Bums" a perennial contender, which they would continue to be for decades to come.

The Dodgers won pennants in 1941
1941 Brooklyn Dodgers season
The Brooklyn Dodgers, led by manager Leo Durocher, won their first pennant in 21 years, edging the St. Louis Cardinals by 2.5 games. They went on to lose to the New York Yankees in the World Series....

 (under MacPhail), 1947
1947 Brooklyn Dodgers season
On April 15, Jackie Robinson was the opening day first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first black player in Major League Baseball since . Robinson went on to bat .297, score 125 runs, steal 29 bases and be named the very first Rookie of the Year...

, 1949
1949 Brooklyn Dodgers season
The Brooklyn Dodgers held off the St. Louis Cardinals to win the National League title by one game. The Dodgers lost the World Series to the New York Yankees in five games.- Offseason :...

, 1952
1952 Brooklyn Dodgers season
The Brooklyn Dodgers rebounded from the heartbreaking ending of 1951 to win the National League pennant by four games over the New York Giants. However, they dropped the World Series in seven games to the New York Yankees...

, 1953
1953 Brooklyn Dodgers season
The 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers repeated as National League champions by posting a 105-49 record, as of 2011 the best winning percentage in team history...

, 1955
1955 Brooklyn Dodgers season
In , the Brooklyn Dodgers finally fulfilled the promise of many previous Dodger teams. Although the club had won several pennants in the past, and had won as many as 105 games in 1953, it had never won a World Series. This team finished 13.5 games ahead in the National League pennant race, leading...

 and 1956
1956 Brooklyn Dodgers season
The 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers edged out the Milwaukee Braves to win the National League title. The Dodgers again faced the New York Yankees in the World Series...

. They won the 1955 World Series
1955 World Series
The 1955 World Series matched the Brooklyn Dodgers against the New York Yankees, with the Dodgers winning the Series in seven games to capture their first championship in franchise history. It would be the only Series the Dodgers won in Brooklyn . The last time the Brooklyn franchise won a World...

 (the only world title in Brooklyn Dodgers history), and were within two games and a playoff heartbreak of winning five NL pennants in a row (1949–53) and matching the cross-town Yankees' achievement during that stretch. Ebbets also hosted the 1949 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
1949 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
The 1949 Major League Baseball All-Star Game was the 16th annual midseason exhibition game between the all-stars of Major League Baseball's American and National Leagues. The American League continued its early dominance of the Midsummer Classic with an 11-7 win at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. The...

.

Demise

But the Dodgers were soon victims of their own success, because only a limited number of eager fans could cram into minuscule Ebbets Field, and it had almost no automobile parking
Parking
Parking is the act of stopping a vehicle and leaving it unoccupied for more than a brief time. Parking on one or both sides of a road is commonly permitted, though often with restrictions...

 for Dodger fans who had moved east to suburban Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

, though it was near a subway station
Prospect Park (BMT Brighton Line)
Prospect Park is an express station on the BMT Brighton Line of the New York City Subway. Located at Empire Boulevard and Flatbush Avenue in Flatbush, Brooklyn, near the border of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, it is served by the Q and Franklin Avenue Shuttle trains at all times and the B train on...

. Club owner Walter O'Malley
Walter O'Malley
Walter Francis O'Malley was an American sports executive who owned the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers team in Major League Baseball from to . He served as Brooklyn Dodgers chief legal counsel when Jackie Robinson broke the racial color barrier in...

 announced plans for a privately-owned domed stadium
Brooklyn Dodgers proposed domed stadium
The Brooklyn Dodgers proposed domed stadium was to replace Ebbets Field for the Brooklyn Dodgers to allow them to stay in New York City. The Dodgers instead moved to Chavez Ravine in Los Angeles, California...

 for his Dodgers at the Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards
The Atlantic Yards is a mixed-use commercial and residential development project of 16 high-rise buildings, under construction in Prospect Heights, adjacent to Downtown Brooklyn and Fort Greene in Brooklyn, New York City...

 in Brooklyn, where a large market was being torn down, but New York City Building Commissioner Robert Moses
Robert Moses
Robert Moses was the "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, Rockland County, and Westchester County, New York. As the shaper of a modern city, he is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris, and is one of the most polarizing figures in the history of...

 wanted the city to build a stadium located in Flushing Meadows
Flushing Meadows
Flushing Meadows is an American short film by Larry Jordan, with director Joseph Cornell. The film is 8 minutes long, in color, 16mm, and silent....

 in the borough of Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....

 (the future site of Shea Stadium
Shea Stadium
William A. Shea Municipal Stadium, usually shortened to Shea Stadium or just Shea , was a stadium in the New York City borough of Queens, in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. It was the home baseball park of Major League Baseball's New York Mets from 1964 to 2008...

 and Citi Field). O'Malley refused to consider Moses' position, and Moses refused O'Malley's. As a result, O'Malley began to flirt publicly with Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, using a relocation threat as political leverage to win favor with his desired Brooklyn stadium. Ultimately, O'Malley and Moses could never come to agreement on a new location for the Dodgers, and the club moved west to Los Angeles. During the last two years in Brooklyn, the Dodgers played several games each year in Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City is the seat of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States.Part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City lies between the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay across from Lower Manhattan and the Hackensack River and Newark Bay...

's Roosevelt Stadium
Roosevelt Stadium
Roosevelt Stadium was a baseball park at Droyer's Point in Jersey City, New Jersey. It opened in April 1937 and hosted high-minor league baseball, seven major league baseball games, plus championship boxing matches, top-name musical acts, important regional high school football and even soccer...

, as part of O'Malley's additional tactics to force a new stadium to be built.

In 1956, real estate developer Marvin Kratter
Marvin Kratter
Marvin Kratter was a New York-based real estate investor who was the head of the Kratter Corporation, National Equities, Countrywide Realty, Knickerbocker Brewery, Rom-American Pharmaceuticals, and the Boston Celtics...

 bought Ebbets Field from O'Malley. He leased Ebbets Field back to O'Malley until the team left for Los Angeles after the 1957 season.

The Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, California, after the 1957 season
1957 Brooklyn Dodgers season
The 1957 Brooklyn Dodgers season was overshadowed by Walter O'Malley's threat to move the Dodgers out of Brooklyn if the city did not build him a new stadium in that borough. When the best the mayor could promise was a stadium in Queens, O'Malley made good on his threats and moved the team to Los...

, while their long-time crosstown rivals the New York Giants
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the National League West Division....

 moved to San Francisco, based upon O'Malley's urging to Giants owner Horace Stoneham
Horace Stoneham
Horace C. Stoneham was the principal owner of Major League Baseball's New York/San Francisco Giants from the death of his father, Charles Stoneham, in 1936 until 1976. During his ownership, the team won National League pennants in 1936, 1937, 1951, 1954 and 1962, a division title in 1971, and a...

. That meant lights out for Ebbets Field, which was demolished, beginning on February 23, 1960. O'Malley's removal of the franchise from its historic home has been referred to as "one of the most infamous abandonments in the history of sport" by the New York Courts.

Legacy

Ebbets Field was but one of several historic major league ballparks demolished in the 1960s, but more mythology and nostalgia surrounds the stadium and its demise than possibly any other defunct ballpark.

A great deal of history happened at Ebbets Field during its relatively short 45-year lifespan with the Dodgers. Of the many teams that uprooted in the 1950s and 60s, the Dodgers have probably had the largest number of public laments over their fans' heartbreak over losing their team. A couple of decades later, Roger Kahn'scclaimed book The Boys of Summer and Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

's song "There Used to Be a Ballpark
There Used to Be a Ballpark
"There Used to Be a Ballpark" is a song written by Joe Raposo and recorded by Frank Sinatra for Sinatra's 1973 album, Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back....

" mourned the loss of places like Ebbets Field, and of the attendant youthful innocence of fans and players alike. The story of Ebbets Field and the Brooklyn Dodgers' move to Los Angeles were also chronicled by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American biographer and historian, and an oft-seen political commentator. She is the author of biographies of several U.S...

, figured into the plot of the film Field of Dreams
Field of Dreams
Field of Dreams is a 1989 American fantasy-drama film directed by Phil Alden Robinson and is from the novel Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella...

, and were featured in an entire episode of Ken Burns
Ken Burns
Kenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs...

' public-television documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 Baseball
Baseball (documentary)
Baseball is an 18½ hour, Emmy Award-winning documentary series by Ken Burns about the game of baseball. First broadcast on PBS, this was Burns' ninth documentary.- Format :...

, as well as a 2007 HBO documentary called Brooklyn Dodgers: Ghosts of Flatbush
Brooklyn Dodgers: Ghosts of Flatbush
Brooklyn Dodgers: Ghosts of Flatbush is a heart wrenching 2007 documentary film produced by HBO sports chronicling the last ten years of the Brooklyn Dodgers tenure in the borough of churches...

.

Ebbets Field is arguably a more popular venue now than when it actually stood. Some fans who did attend games at the stadium remember it as cramped and decrepit towards the end of its life. The famous rotunda was said to be a bottleneck in the concourse. Baseball historians occasionally point out that although the stadium was no doubt a pleasant place to watch a ballgame, architecturally speaking it was not any more remarkable than several other "lost parks." As of 2010
2010 in baseball
-Major League Baseball:*Regular Season Champions*World Series Champions - San Francisco Giants**American League Champions - Texas Rangers**National League Champions - San Francisco Giants*Postseason - October 7 to November 4...

, the Dodgers have played in Dodger Stadium
Dodger Stadium
Dodger Stadium, also sometimes called Chavez Ravine, is a stadium in Los Angeles. Located adjacent to Downtown Los Angeles, Dodger Stadium has been the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers team since 1962...

 for more years (49 through the 2010 season) than they played in Ebbets Field (45). Shea Stadium's duration (1964–2008) was the same as that of Ebbets Field.

However, Ebbets Field has managed to transcend the realm of mere fact to become a kind of icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

 for what many see as the golden era of the national pastime, and its destruction symbolic of the "lost innocence" of a bygone era. Its influence can be seen in the current ballpark of the New York Mets
New York Mets
The New York Mets are a professional baseball team based in the borough of Queens in New York City, New York. They belong to Major League Baseball's National League East Division. One of baseball's first expansion teams, the Mets were founded in 1962 to replace New York's departed National League...

, Citi Field, which features replicas of Ebbets' exterior façade and entry rotunda, which is named in honor of Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...

.

Subsequent use of the former Ebbets Field site

Apartments were built upon the former Ebbets Field site, and were named the Ebbets Field Apartments upon their opening in 1962 and were later renamed the Jackie Robinson Apartments in 1972, the same year Robinson died. MS 320, a school across McKeever Place, has been renamed Jackie Robinson Intermediate School.

Other sports at Ebbets Field

Though known as a cathedral for baseball, other sports were played at Ebbets Field as well. In addition to the professional football teams that played at the stadium, it was also home to Manhattan College
Manhattan College
Manhattan College is a Roman Catholic liberal arts college in the Lasallian tradition in New York City, United States. Despite the college's name, it is no longer located in Manhattan but in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, roughly 10 miles north of Midtown. Manhattan College offers...

's football team from 1932-1937.

The stadium also hosted a number of soccer games. On April 11, 1926, Ebbets Field hosted the US National Challenge Cup soccer tournament (now known as the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup
Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup
The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup is a knockout tournament in American soccer. The tournament is the oldest ongoing American soccer competition and is presently open to all United States Soccer Federation affiliated teams, from amateur adult club teams to the professional clubs of Major League...

). Bethlehem Steel F.C.
Bethlehem Steel F.C.
Bethlehem Steel Football Club was one of the most successful early American soccer clubs. Known as the Bethlehem Football Club from 1911 until 1915 when it became the Bethlehem Steel Football Club, the team was sponsored by the Bethlehem Steel corporation and played their home games first at East...

 from Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

 of the American Soccer League
American Soccer League
The American Soccer League has been a name used by three different professional soccer leagues in the United States. The first American Soccer League was established in 1921 by the merger of teams from the National Association Football League and the Southern New England Soccer League. For...

 won its sixth and final National Challenge Cup title, scoring a convincing 7-2 victory over Ben Miller F.C. of St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

 in the final before more than 18, 000 fans. On June 7, 1931, over 10,000 fans came out to Ebbets Field to watch Celtic
Celtic F.C.
Celtic Football Club is a Scottish football club based in the Parkhead area of Glasgow, which currently plays in the Scottish Premier League. The club was established in 1887, and played its first game in 1888. Celtic have won the Scottish League Championship on 42 occasions, most recently in the...

 of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 crush local side Brooklyn Wanderers
Brooklyn Wanderers
The Brooklyn Wanderers was a U.S. soccer team which was a founding member of the National Association Football League in the late nineteenth century. It later joined the American Soccer League.-History:...

 5 - 0. On June 17, 1947, the first known televised soccer game in the US took place at Ebbets Field when Hapoel Tel Aviv lost to the American League Stars 2 - 0. On June 18, 1948, Liverpool
Liverpool F.C.
Liverpool Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside. Liverpool has won eighteen League titles, second most in English football, seven FA Cups and a record seven League Cups...

 of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 beat Djurgården of Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 3 - 2 in front of 20,000 fans at Ebbets Field. On October 17 of that year, the U.S. national team
United States men's national soccer team
The United States men's national soccer team represents the United States in international association football competitions. It is controlled by the United States Soccer Federation and competes in CONCACAF...

 beat the Israel national team
Israel national football team
The Israel national football team is the national football team of Israel, controlled by the Israel Football Association .Israel National Football is the direct successor of the Eretz Yisrael National Team during British Mandate...

 team in front of 25,000 at Ebbets Field. On May 8, 1955, Sunderland
Sunderland A.F.C.
Sunderland Association Football Club is an English association football club based in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear who currently play in the Premier League...

 of England beat the American league Stars 7 - 2. On May 17, Sunderland tied 1. FC Nuremberg of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 also at Ebbets. On May 23, 1958, Manchester City
Manchester City F.C.
Manchester City Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Manchester. Founded in 1880 as St. Mark's , they became Ardwick Association Football Club in 1887 and Manchester City in 1894...

 of England lost to Hearts
Heart of Midlothian F.C.
Heart of Midlothian Football Club are a Scottish professional football club based in Gorgie, in the west of Edinburgh. They currently play in the Scottish Premier League and are one of the two principal clubs in the city, the other being Hibernian...

 of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 5 - 2 in front of 20,000 patrons at Ebbets Field. On June 28, 1959, Napoli
S.S.C. Napoli
Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli, commonly referred to as Napoli, is a professional Italian football club based in Naples and founded in 1926. The club has spent most of its history in Serie A, where it currently plays its 2011–12 season....

 of Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 lost to Rapid Vienna
SK Rapid Wien
The Sportklub Rapid Wien is an Austrian football club playing in the country's capital city of Vienna. Rapid is the most popular club in Austria and also record title holder having won the Austrian national football title 32 times...

 of Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 1 - 0 in front of 18,512. At the rematch, also at Ebbets Field three days later in front of 13,000 people, Napoli tied Rapid Vienna 1 - 1, in one of the last events ever held there.

Dimensions

Original (estimates)
  • Left field pole - 419 ft
  • Center field deep - 477 ft
  • Right field pole - 301 ft


1932-1947
  • Left field pole - 348 ft (unposted)
  • Left field corner - 357 ft
  • Left-center field - 365 ft
  • Deep left-center - 407 ft
  • Deep right-center bleacher corner - 389 ft (unposted)
  • Deep right-center notch - 395 ft
  • Right-center, scoreboard edges - 344 ft and 318 ft
  • Right field pole - 297 ft

1948-1957
  • Left field pole - 348 ft
  • Left-center field - 351 ft
  • Deep left-center - 393 ft
  • Deep right-center bleacher corner - 376 ft
  • Deep right-center notch - 395 ft
  • Right-center, scoreboard edges - 344 ft and 318 ft
  • Right field pole - 297 ft
  • Backstop - 71 ft

Further reading

  • Green Cathedrals, by Phil Lowry.
  • Ballparks of North America, by Michael Benson.
  • Old Ballparks, by Lawrence Ritter.
  • The Zodiacs, by Jay Neugeboren.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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