Ebbets Field
Where Jackie Robinson made history
Aside from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, no other ballpark evokes quite the baseball history of Brooklyn's Ebbets Field.
The Dodgers made history here early and often -- with a gap in an outfield fence allowing Brooklyn kids to watch the action -- although their only Ebbets World Series win came in 1955. Dodger part-owner Charles Ebbets opened the new park in 1913, and it was a beauty. An 80-foot rotunda of Italian marble greeted fans, who walked on a floor tiled like the stitches on a baseball.
The Dodgers met the Reds at Ebbets on August 26, 1939, for baseball's first televised game. And on April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson wore Dodger blue to become the first African-American in the 20th century to play major league baseball.
But alas, the Dodgers -- once called the "Robins" for manager Wilbert Robinson in the early 1900s -- took flight and headed west to Los Angeles after the 1957 season, and Ebbets Field was torn down three years later. Today, the Ebbets Field Apartments grace the site.
Longtime Dodgers rivals, the Giants left New York for points west that same year. Ironically, the same wrecking ball that took down Ebbets crashed the walls of the Polo Grounds -- the Giants' home field -- in 1964 after the fledgling Mets had spent two seasons there.
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