Brooklyn Dodgers? Never heard of ‘em. Could you imagine these words coming from born and bred Brooklynites? Inconceivable, right? Think again.
“I never even heard of them. I didn’t know Brooklyn had a baseball field,” said Garesha Ferguson, a 10th grader at Cobble Hill School of American Studies.
“I didn’t know they existed. So this was really a shocker,” echoed Alex Yeranosyan, a junior at Brooklyn Tech.
Fortunately, there is hope for these youngsters yet. The Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) has been saving their souls through its after-school program Exhibition Laboratory, in which 20 high school students curated “Home Base: Memories of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field,” set to open tonight, June 3. I had a chance to meet up with the kids last week and talk about what they're learning.
“I learned about Ebbets, and how [the Dodgers] got their name and their move to L.A., which made them not the Brooklyn Dodgers,” said Ferguson, perhaps beginning to bear a grudge that is her natural-born right as a Brooklynite.
After months of research in BHS’ archives, field trips (including one to the Ebbets Houses, where the beloved field once stood), conducting interviews with fans, and meeting with former Los Angeles Dodgers president/owner Peter O’Malley, the kids are veritable experts on the team, and might be budding fans as well.
“I feel like something is missing now. I would have definitely went if it was still around,” Yeranosyan said. “This team seemed to have an effect on everyone, whether or not you liked them. Ebbets Field, watching the Dodgers — It was the place to be.”
Brooklyn Tech senior George Athanail seemed to be coming to terms with why the Dodgers were often referred to as “Dem Bums.”
“The only impression I had [of the Dodgers] was that they had a reputation as one of the great teams, even though they didn’t always win,” he said. “They had that luster of the golden age of baseball. Actually, I was surprised to find out how much they lost.”
“All I knew was that they were from Brooklyn, now I know their entire history,” said junior Langston Curtis. “[The Dodgers] were significant because they distinguished Brooklyn from New York City. They gave Brooklyn a special sense of itself, which I think we lost a little bit, and that’s why people like to remember and care so much about the Dodgers.”
The exhibit is built to bring back memories for anyone who ever spent time at Ebbets. Included will be photos of the field and the fans, baseball cards, uniforms, autographed baseballs, original benches from the stadium, an actual Ebbets third base, ticket stubs, score cards and the enormous blue and white Dodger banner from their one and only World Series championship in 1955.
The memories are apt to come back quickly, as the entry to the exhibit will be carpeted with AstroTurf. “When we were doing interviews, everyone commented on the field — that it was extra green and bright. They said it was the first thing they noticed,” explained sophomore Abena St. clair.
Exhibit-goers will be able to record their own memories of the Dodgers and Ebbets at the “Post Game Wrap Up,” where an iMac will film their testimonies.
Back in February, BHS put out an open call for people who wanted to share their memories of Ebbets, and the students conducted interviews to be recorded for the oral history archive, some of which will be available at listening stations in the exhibit. Some students were amazed to learn about the dedication of the fans.
“I didn’t know they were so devoted. They brought, like, a ladle and a pan and banged it and cheered their hearts out until they couldn’t breathe,” said junior Curtis Gibson, who was also impressed with the story of Jackie Robinson. “I didn't initially think an exhibit on baseball was the best thing, but then [I learned about] the first black man who broke the color barrier.”
“It’s kind of sad the Dodgers are gone, but their legacy lives on," says Christina Valdez. “It doesn’t live on in the Mets. It lives on by people being more racially tolerant of each other.”
A dedicated Yankees fan, Valdez said she was a bit surprised to learn about the legendary enmity between the Bronx Bombers and the Brooklyn Dodgers. “I didn't know a lot of people didn’t like the Yankees,” she said, noting, “I saw a photo of people cheering at the ’55 World Series. I felt the same way when the Yankees won. It made me cherish the memories more.”
The exhibit also presents the battle between Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley (Peter’s father), much maligned in history for moving the team to L.A. in 1957, and the city’s powerful and controversial planning chief Robert Moses, over a new stadium for the Dodgers in Brooklyn, which, of course, never came to pass.
“The moment that most defines the team is their leaving, so it’s interesting to understand that well,” said Athanail.
The students studied binders full of correspondence between Moses and O’Malley, which are on display in the exhibit, and seemed to universally come to the conclusion that O’Malley has shouldered an unfair amount of the blame for the Dodgers leaving.
“I understand why people blame [O’Malley] but it clearly wasn’t his fault,” said Langston Curtis. “He tried to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn. People in L.A. tried to get him to move years before, and he blatantly rejected them … It was nice to see the actual writings between people. We didn’t do reading in books, because we had the actual materials to look at,” he added.
“We had the original objects, the original information.” Looking at them, junior Yeranosyan says, “you feel the same thing they felt 50 years ago.”
The history of the Dodgers, “helps us not only understand baseball, but the history of Brooklyn through baseball,” senior Athanail says. “My generation was not around for it, but it still created for our parents and grandparents their traditions.
“And also, it’s our neighborhood, and you have to know what happened in your neighborhood.”
“Home Base: Memories of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field” is opening on June 3 and will be on display until April, 2011 at the Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont St.
CAPTION FOR PHOTO AT TOP: Fans line up for World Series tickets at Ebbets Field, October 1, 1956 (Photo by Bob Lair, International News).
Photos from Brooklyn Historical Society
Photography Collection
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