September 24, 1957: The Last Game at Ebbets Field

September 24, 1957: The last game is played at Ebbets Field. The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 2-0 on a 5-hit shutout by rookie lefthander Danny McDevitt.

It was also the day that President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division to assist with the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. And it was the day the Camp Nou stadium opened in Barcelona, Spain. I have a separate entry for each of those events.

It was a Tuesday night, a school night, and Dodger fans were already depressed by the fact that the move was, though not yet officially announced, already heavily rumored. Only 6,702 fans came out.

Gladys Gooding was the organist and the National Anthem singer at Ebbets Field, and also at Madison Square Garden. This made her the answer to the snarky trivia question, "Who is the only person to 'play' for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers?" (Ray Castoldi has since done so for the Mets, the Knicks and the Rangers. John Kiley was Boston's version, having played the organ at Fenway Park and the Boston Garden.)

Having started with the Dodgers in 1942, Gooding had also written the team's theme song, "Follow the Dodgers." She began the tradition of tailoring "walkup songs" for the players. For Pee Wee Reese, it was "My Old Kentucky Home." For Gil Hodges, it was "Back Home Again in Indiana." For Carl Furillo, "the Reading Rifle," it was "The Pennsylvania Polka."

But for Duke Snider, who was born in Los Angeles and grew up in neighboring Compton -- yes, the Duke of Flatbush really was "straight outta Compton" -- her playing of "California, Here I Come" proved to be all true prophetic. (She also could have played it for Jackie Robinson, who grew up outside L.A. in Pasadena, but she might not have had a song for him. At any rate, he wasn't in this game, having retired after the 1956 season.)

An urban legend says that the reason that umpiring crews became standardized at four isn't just because there's four bases, but also because the umpires were tired of her playing "Three Blind Mice" every time a Dodger argued with an umpire.

But, all through this game, she played sad songs, many of them songs of endings, including "Am I Blue," "After You're Gone," "When I Grow Too Old to Dream," "Silver Threads Among the Gold," "Don't Ask Me Why I'm Leaving" and "How Can You Say We're Through." She was not used to playing the new form of music sweeping the country, rock and roll: The most recent tune she played was Doris Day's hit of the previous year, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)."

There was some appropriateness to her playing of "When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day." Not only was blue the Dodgers color, but that song was known as the signature song of crooner Bing Crosby, who was a part-owner of the Pirates, the opponent that evening. Crosby was not in attendance. She also played "Thanks for the Memories," the signature song of Crosby's former film partner, Bob Hope, who was a part-owner of the Cleveland Indians. He did not attend, either.

Jim Gilliam led off the bottom of the 1st inning with a walk. A bad pickoff throw by Pirate starter Bennie Daniels, making his major league debut, allowed Gilliam to reach 2nd base. Daniels struck Gino Cimoli out, but Elmer Valo doubled to right field, scoring Gilliam and putting the Dodgers up, 1-0.

Cimoli led off the bottom of the 3rd by beating out a grounder to 2nd. Valo grounded out, but Cimoli advanced to 2nd on the play. Hodges singled Cimoli home. That made it 2-0 Dodgers, and that was the last scoring play in the ballpark's history.

Daniels pitched the 1st 7 innings for the Pirates, and was the losing pitcher. Like Snider, he grew up in Compton. Unlike Snider, he was black. He was still with the Pirates in 1960, when they won the World Series. He was then lost to the "new" Washington Senators in the expansion draft, and, on September 21, 1961, he was the losing pitcher in the last game at Griffith Stadium in Washington, as the Senators lost to the Minnesota Twins, who had been the "old" Washington Senators. 

The last play at Ebbets Field was a groundout, Dee Fondy hitting the ball to shortstop Don Zimmer, who threw to 1st baseman Hodges, who thus became the last Brooklyn Dodger to play in a home game. The night before, Snider had hit the last Brooklyn home run.

After the last out, Gooding played, "May the Lord Bless and Keep You." Somebody turned on her record of "Follow the Dodgers." No one wanted to follow them to Los Angeles. She quickly reached for the record player, turned it off, and played the last song at Ebbets Field: "Auld Lang Syne."

(If you're familiar with the Brooklyn Dodger Sym-Phony Band, I have no record of whether any of them attended; and, if so, what songs they attempted to play.)

The Dodgers would have the next 2 days off, and close their history as a Brooklyn-based team away to the Philadelphia Phillies, losing the finale. The official announcement of the move was made on October 8. After 75 seasons, 45 of them at Ebbets Field, the Brooklyn Dodgers were dead.

(In the wake of the NFL's Washington Redskins, now the Washington Commanders, calling themselves "The Washington Football Team" in the interim of their name-change, I have taken to calling the L.A. version of the Dodgers "The Los Angeles Baseball Team.")

The ballpark was torn down in 1960. In 1962, the Ebbets Field Apartments opened. By the time I first visited, on June 18, 1988, the area, on the edge of the neighborhoods of Flatbush, Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, was a gang-riddled, drug-infested hole.

I last visited on December 29, 2012, and the area is still a bit iffy, but a far cry from what it was in the 1980s and early '90s. Brooklyn has gone from all but uninhabitable to actually hip since then. But it will never be what it was when the Dodgers were there.

September 24, 1957, a date which lives in misery. And yet, if the Dodger fans were so great, how come only 6,702 showed up? Huh? (Well, for one thing, the Dodgers were in fourth place. For another, that was also a Tuesday night, a workday and a school night.)

The Brooklyn Dodgers weren't moved. They were assassinated. To this day, Walter O'Malley, the banker's lawyer who owned the team in part from 1942 and wholly from 1950 to his death in 1979, is despised in the New York Tri-State Area.

Some people blame Robert Moses, New York City's "master builder," who refused to condemn the land, across from the Flatbush Avenue Terminal of the Long Island Rail Road on which O'Malley, to his credit, had decided to spend his own money, not taxpayer dollars, to build a new stadium, a domed facility that would be known as the Brooklyn Sports Center. But if O'Malley was truly the "visionary" that his apologists have claimed, he could have found a way around Moses. O'Malley's "vision" only seemed to work when it helped him make more money, not when it could have helped others.

The story is told of two Brooklynites, both boys of the 1940s and young men of the 1950s, who went on to write for the New York Post. Pete Hamill (Irish Catholic) and Jack Newfield (Eastern European Jewish) were having lunch, and one of them said so-and-so was "the worst person who ever lived." (Shades of Bob & Ray's "Worst Person in the World" sketch, later co-opted by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who admits to being heavily influenced by Bob & Ray.)

And Pete says, "Let's collaborate on a column: 'The Ten Worst Human Beings Who Ever Lived.' Let's start. I'll write my three worst on my napkin, you write your three worst on yours, and we'll compare."

And each of them ended up writing the same three names, in the same order: Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Walter O'Malley.

Today, of course, the more apt comparison is to Lord Voldemort from the "Harry Potter" stories. O'Malley is, for many old people originally from Brooklyn, He Who Shall Not Be Named. The one who said, "Avada Kedavara" to their childhood dreams. Lord Waltemort.

And yet, one person who escaped punishment was the Mayor, Robert Wagner Jr., son of the U.S. Senator from the State of New York who wrote the 1935 bills that became the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act. A former State Assemblyman and Borough President of Manhattan, he had been elected in 1953 with 46 percent of the vote, and was up for re-election just 6 weeks after the last game at Ebbets Field, and less than 7 week after the last Giants game at the Polo Grounds.

He had received letters saying things like, "I want the Dodgers in Brooklyn. And you can do it by building the Sports Center. You had better get it done, or you'll not get a vote for me." Wagner could have found a way around Moses. He did not try. Instead, up for re-election in mere weeks, he lost 2 major league baseball teams.

The Republican nominee was Robert Christenberry, former Chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission. He was endorsed by President Eisenhower, Vice President Richard Nixon, and the State's most recent Republican Governor, 2-time Presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey. He never mentioned the loss of the Dodgers, or the loss of the Giants, instead basing his campaign around Wagner's apparent failures on the issue of crime.

Result? Overall, Wagner won 69 percent of the vote, Christenberry only 27. In no Borough did Wagner get less than 64 percent. In aggrieved Brooklyn, Wagner got 75 percent. He would be elected to a 3rd term in 1961. Most likely, this was due less to Christenberry's refusal to make the loss of the baseball teams an issue than it was to the strength of New York City's Democratic political machine, the weakness of its Republican Party, and the weakness of the State's Republican Party.

In 2012, roughly where O'Malley wanted to build the Sports Center, the Barclays Center opened, becoming the home of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets, formerly the New Jersey Nets and the Long Island-based New York Nets. Maybe, if there was any justice, the team that moved to Brooklyn should have been the Los Angeles Clippers.

Instead, the "Brooklyn Dodgers" of the other major sports have been the NBA's Minneapolis Lakers, who moved to Los Angeles in 1960; the NFL's Baltimore Colts, who moved to Indianapolis in 1984; and the Minnesota North Stars, who moved to Dallas in 1993.

Despite the move, the Los Angeles Dodgers honored some Brooklyn Dodgers with the retirement of their uniform numbers: 1, Harold "Pee Wee" Reese; 4, Edwin "Duke" Snider; 14, Gil Hodges; 39, Roy Campanella; and 42, Jackie Robinson, the last of these eventually retired for all of baseball.

While they played in Brooklyn, Tommy Lasorda (2), Jim Gilliam (19), Sandy Koufax (32) and Don Drysdale (53), retired number honorees, are better known for playing in Los Angeles. This is also true of manager Walter Alston and broadcaster Vin Scully.

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September 24, 1957 was a Tuesday. No NFL games were played. And the starts of the NBA and NHL seasons were a month away. But a full slate of Major League Baseball games was played. In addition to the Ebbets Field finale:

* The New York Giants, who had already announced their move to San Francisco for the 1958 season, lost to the Phillies, 5-0 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Curt Simmons pitched a 4-hit shutout. Willie Mays went 0-for-3. Five days later, on Sunday, September 29, the Giants played their last game at the Polo Grounds, and lost to the Pirates, 9-1.

For the next 4 seasons, New York's National League baseball fans, unwilling to give up baseball, but unwilling to switch to the American League's New York Yankees, took the Pennsylvania Railroad from Penn Station in New York to the North Philadelphia station, and walked the 7 blocks from Broad Street down Lehigh Avenue to 21st Street, and walked into Connie Mack Stadium to watch the Phillies play the Los Angeles Dodgers or the San Francisco Giants.

If they were feeling particularly adventurous, they would drive down, and risk their cars, parking in the North Philly ghetto. Some would cheer their old heroes. Some would boo them.

In 1962, the New York Mets arrived, and the former fans of the Dodgers and the Giants would join in a "marriage of convenience" -- one which produced "The New Breed," the Met fans too young to really remember the former teams.

* The New York Yankees? They didn't play that night. Nor did the Baltimore Orioles, the Cleveland Indians, or the Detroit Tigers.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 2-1 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Ted Williams hit a home run.

* The Cincinnati Redlegs -- from 1954 to 1958, the Reds used that name due to the stupidity of the Red Scare -- swept a doubleheader from the Chicago Cubs, at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Reds won the opener 4-3, and the nightcap 11-9. Over the 2 games, Ernie Banks went 2-for-9 with a home run and 2 RBIs for the Cubs; while, for the Reds, Frank Robinson went 1-for-6 with an RBI, and Wally Post homered in both games.

* The Milwaukee Braves, having clinched their 1st NL Pennant the night before on an 11th-inning home run by Hank Aaron, beat the St. Louis Cardinals at Milwaukee County Stadium again, this time 6-1 in the regulation 9 innings. In this game, Aaron went 1-for-5, but the hit was a grand slam. Stan Musial went 1-for-2 with 2 walks.

* And the Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Athletics, 7-6 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium.