On This Date in Sports September 24, 1957
In collaboration with the Sportsecyclopedia.com
With a 2-0 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Brooklyn Dodgers win their final game at Ebbets Field. Dodgers Owner Walter O’Malley who had sought to build a new stadium in Brooklyn, only to be blocked by the city announced a few months earlier plans to move to Los Angeles. At the same time, he convinced Horace Stoneham to move the New York Giants to San Francisco, leaving New York without a National League team.
New York City is five boroughs combining to create a giant metropolis. The boroughs themselves could be considered cities on their own standing. While Manhattan was always the pulse of New York, Brooklyn had its own unique identity. A large part of that identity centered around its beloved baseball the Dodgers. Playing their games at Ebbets Field since 1913, the Dodgers became the one things that truly belonged to Brooklyn as the team and the borough lived and died with every win and loss.
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It was here in Brooklyn that Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier and began a decade of unprecedented success for the Dodgers. The Brooklyn club would win pennants in 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955 and 1956. In 1951, they experienced the ultimate heartbreak losing a tie-breaker playoff to the arch-rival New York Giants on Bobby Thompson’s shot heard around the world. In 1955, they experienced the ultimate euphoria finally beating the New York Yankees in the World Series on Johnny Podres shutout in Game 7.
As the Dodgers celebrated their first World Series championship, the end was nearing for fans in Brooklyn as Walter O’Malley was in a battle with the City of New York over the building of a new stadium. O’Malley wanted to build a new stadium by the Atlantic rail yards, giving ease to public transportation. However, Robert Moses who in charge of city planning refused to allow the Dodgers to build a new stadium in Brooklyn, offering instead to build a stadium in Flushing, Queens that would benefit suburbanites in Long Island, with easy access to the Grand Central Parkway. Refusing to become the Queens Dodgers, O’Malley jumped at an offer from Los Angeles to build a ballpark in Chavez Ravine.
The New York Giants meanwhile were equally unhappy with the Polo Grounds. At first Owner, Horace Stoneham considered moving to Minneapolis but decided to move to San Francisco at the urging of Walter O’Malley who wanted to keep the rivalry alive. It was also essential in getting National League to approve the move, as some owners may have been reluctant to allow just one team to move to California when the rest of the league was still East of the Mississippi.
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For the Dodgers final game in Brooklyn, Danny McDevitt got the start. He would pitch a complete game shutout, allowing five hits and one base on balls, while striking out nine. The Dodgers meanwhile got RBIs from Elmer Valo in the first inning and Gil Hodges in the third to win the game 2-0. In the seventh inning, Don Zimmer got the final hit at Ebbets Field, while Dee Fondy grounded out to short to end the game. The Dodgers would end the season on the road against the Philadelphia Phillies with a 2-1 loss on September 29th. The New York Giants meanwhile final game at the Polo Grounds was a 9-1 loss to the Pirates on the same day. The Dodgers finished their final season in third place with a record of 84-70, while the Giants finished in sixth place with a record of 69-85.
Ebbets Field would be torn down and replaced by a housing project in 1960. The Polo Grounds would remain open, as New York sought to bring the National League back to the city. When the expansion Mets made their debut, they played their first two seasons at the old stadium by Coogan’s Bluff. The Mets would eventually play at Shea Stadium, which essentially was the ballpark turned down by O’Malley by the World Fairgrounds in Flushing.