[00:00:17] Speaker A: One day we'll get that.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: We will.
[00:00:19] Speaker C: We need a click track for the introduction.
The Nathans and Roncast best.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: There we go. Okay.
[00:00:28] Speaker C: We're still here in Boston, but we've.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: Moved on in podcast land.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: Boston is my favorite baseball city because it's home to my beloved Red Sox.
But there was another team which exists only in my imagination because they packed up and left Brooklyn in 1957, I think. And I think they moved out to LA starting with the 1958 season. I know you're a big baseball fan, Michael.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: I started falling asleep. I'm sorry.
Hey, come on.
[00:01:05] Speaker C: We're recording here.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: No, actually, I try to keep up, but family gatherings had instruments. We didn't throw around any footballs or baseballs at family gatherings and I missed it. So. Yes, keep.
[00:01:23] Speaker C: You know, truth be told, neither did we.
My baseball fandom came to me.
It was a bit out of character, but I think the whole family has a love of Boston anyway. And the Red Sox are deeply rooted in Boston. I lived in Boston as a kid for about two years and it's nice to be back here visiting my sister Jenny, who is off to the side here, being respectfully quiet.
I'm sure at some point she's taking a bow, a curtsy.
In any event, two of them. I just love to write baseball songs and you've been so patient with me, Michael. This is the second baseball song that we've recorded. The first one, of course, was the strength to not fight back, which also is about the.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: You know, it's. I've learned a lot just about the history of baseball because of you. And this song, despite the topic being maybe something that's not my forte nor expertise nor main interest in life.
Like any good sports movie, it can relate to someone who is not necessarily interested in that topic. Right.
And I put sports under a topic just because I'm a musician and I'm being stereotypical, I only know that. But basically this tune has flat bush sunset. Flat bush sunset. Yes, indeed it has. Aaron, you have a debut on this one.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Are you playing piano?
[00:03:09] Speaker C: Yes, piano. This is the first track of ours that I play piano on and the first track that I don't play guitar on in all our four albums.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: And I believe it's track seven on the album. But I believe that I did some harmony vocals going through my list. I should have made a list sooner, but the magic of editing will make this be all suave and cool, I think. Cello and harmony vocals.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: It's very sparse.
[00:03:40] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: And we had a little cello section, maybe two to four cellos, depending on the moment. But it's a beautiful song. It doesn't need a lot. A good song with good bones equals simple communication in many ways. And so this does just that. And it takes you into this story, and whether you know all the little details and nuggets of references or not, it still hits you deeply. And you might want to get a Kleenex out. So if you shed a tear over Schaefer beer.
There you go.
[00:04:19] Speaker C: There you go.
I wrote this song based off of an essay written by Mr. Rory Costello of the Society for American Baseball Research. And I thought it was just a really fascinating essay because I thought that once Ebbits Field in Brooklyn hosted its last Dodgers game, that they raised the ballpark pretty much a month or two later. But it turns out it was sitting there for about two and a half years, and they squeezed a lot of activities into that time, that the park was used for other purposes, that this cathedral to baseball had a bit of an afterlife, and it was filled with.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Soccer and.
[00:05:11] Speaker C: Football and amateur baseball, and there was even an auto thrill show.
And so I just took all of these things and kind of turned it into this song about analogy for Ebitsfield, kind of a straightforward look at what you do with the ballpark after your team leaves and for the lease is up.
[00:05:38] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: And it really know made me want to learn more. And we interviewed Rory.
[00:05:46] Speaker C: We did.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: And he and Aaron had a conversation that went deep. And so I know that any baseball fan is going to really enjoy this. And on top of that, anyone who's not a fan is going to really enjoy this, too, because we try to connect it to the greater audience. But you both have such a deep knowledge of who played what, when, how, what era, all that stuff.
It amazed me because it reminded me of when I go deep into music conversation. So were there any spots in the song that you wanted to make note of?
[00:06:27] Speaker C: Well, I think that the spot that you dropped your cellos in and kind of lifted, it was a know that was the thing that I couldn't do, playing the song by myself. And that's the touch that you bring to pretty much anything. It's like you're not a baseball fan. If I asked you to list five baseball players, you probably Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds, that's right.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: I saw him play once at Candlestick park.
[00:06:56] Speaker C: Oh, wow. See, I didn't know that you've been to a baseball game.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Yeah, Candlestick park, when it was still Candlestick park.
[00:07:03] Speaker E: Wow.
[00:07:04] Speaker C: See, I didn't know, that that's amazing.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: And I went to probably a Tucson Toros game, which is where the Colorado.
[00:07:12] Speaker D: Rockies did their spring training for a.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Lot of years in Tucson, Arizona.
[00:07:15] Speaker C: Dang. Well, see, you learn something new every day, but in any event, you're able to latch into the emotion behind a song. I think you fundamentally understood the idea of a city losing its sports team is like taking a little piece of its heart away, and that's how it was in Brooklyn. And you lifted this song with your very tasteful use of cello. It could have become maudlin, but I think you handled it just right.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Oh, thank you.
[00:07:46] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:07:47] Speaker C: Let's hear that little spot.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: And we're back. We heard that spot.
[00:08:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: That's beautiful.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thank you, Aaron, for pointing that out. You heard a dog, and we're going to keep that in there because podcasts are the result of the environment, and it's a good thing. So we're kind of on pre remote, pre recording in Boston right before we go on the whale watch, which, if you've been listening, you've already heard what happened. We don't know what happened.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: You're ahead of us right now.
[00:08:43] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: So we're time traveling and you're time traveling with us, and it's confusing.
But without further ado, we should probably introduce our guest.
[00:08:53] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:08:54] Speaker C: Thank you, Rory Costello, for taking a moment to speak with us here is that interview.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: All right, well, we're here with Rory Costello of Brooklyn, New York. Hello, Rory.
[00:09:15] Speaker F: Hi there.
[00:09:15] Speaker C: So, Rory is, in addition to.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Is this a volunteer job that you do with Sabre, or is this a real paid gig?
[00:09:27] Speaker F: It is. Sabre is a nonprofit, and it's just a hobby for me, my day job is in the financial industry.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: Okay. And for those of us who don't know what Sabre is, it's not a sword.
[00:09:38] Speaker D: Right.
[00:09:39] Speaker F: It's the Society for American Baseball Research. Sabr.org is the website.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: And so that when people talk about saber metrics in baseball, they're referring to Saber, right?
[00:09:51] Speaker F: They are.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: What does saber metrics mean?
[00:09:54] Speaker F: Well, it means analytical study. You hear a lot of these days about different sports teams using analytics, and it's just taking a look at what the numbers mean and deriving strategies from them and studying more closely what the numbers actually represent in terms of a player's performance.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: But the stuff that you study tends to be more backward looking and historical, right?
[00:10:20] Speaker F: Well, yeah, because Sabre isn't just about analytics and the statistics. There's a whole lot more. There are people who love ballparks. There are people who love history. There are people who love the. There are just a whole number of different committees that are represented in Sabre, each devoted to different interests.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: And which committee are you involved with?
[00:10:43] Speaker F: Well, I'm actually the co chairman of the bioproject committee, which is an endeavor to write short biographies of every man who's ever played in major League Baseball, along with other significant figures.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I've seen that you've done a really long list of bios of baseball players, and I've only heard, and certainly I followed baseball somewhat closely over the years, and I hadn't heard of all these people. I think Hubie Brooks was one of them.
[00:11:10] Speaker F: I didn't actually do Hubie Brooks, but he was one of the guys I liked. Well, I remember him because mainly he was one of the guys who went into the trade for Gary Carter that helped the Mets become champions again.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: All right, well, I'll have to take a closer look at that list, but I didn't see a lot of superstars.
[00:11:28] Speaker F: No. Well, I've always felt that the stories of the foot soldiers are more interesting in many ways than the stories of the stars.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Yeah, baseball tends to have a lot of, you hear the same notes played over and over. Know, you see Kirk Gibson's home run or Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield, and you go to the hall of Fame and it's kind of boiled down to a couple hundred people, but you seem to see the game for what it is, which is a team endeavor and something that goes far beyond just a handful of guys that'll see their name on a plaque in Cooperstown someday.
[00:12:06] Speaker F: Well, I like stories that are off the beaten path. When I first got involved, when the bioproject came into being in the early 2000s, I'd actually done some work a few years previously when I'd rejoined Saber after a couple of years away, I thought to myself, what's a story that has not been covered before? And I remembered when I was a kid collecting baseball cards in the 70s that there were guys from the US Virgin Islands who'd made it to the majors. And so I got involved with that, just writing up a short history and a list of biographies of all the guys who made it from the Virgin Islands to the majors.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Is it anybody we might have heard of?
[00:12:41] Speaker F: Well, if you're a Yankees fan, one of the guys who played with the team in the, when they were down in their luck, before they became champions again, Horace Clark, they referred to him as Horace.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Horace Clark era. Yeah, right.
[00:12:57] Speaker F: And so he came from Frederickstead.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: I started watching baseball in 1981 and the Yankees were some of the first teams, was the first team that I saw home games of. So just after the strike, when their fortunes fell again, I thought that was the low point of the franchise. But I guess it turns out they've had plenty of errors when things didn't go quite as well. But I digress.
[00:13:21] Speaker F: As a Mets fan, I tend to believe that Yankee fans haven't suffered enough.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So as a Red Sox fan, I always think the Yankees could suffer more.
Anyway.
[00:13:36] Speaker D: Okay, we can break this up.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
And Michael, of course, is not an anything fan.
[00:13:45] Speaker D: Other in a maybe I'm a sports observer. I guess there's not much that keeps me to it. But I mean, the history is so deep, right, with all the teams and the loyalty and the ballparks. And I do remember as a kid I did get to see Barry Bonds play at Candlestick park before. I think they rebuilt it or renamed it. I think it turned to insight.com park or something like that.
[00:14:16] Speaker F: Well, they gave them a new stadium. They moved away from the stick. Yeah.
[00:14:20] Speaker D: And it was thrilling. As a kid, you couldn't ask for a better time.
And I did follow it fairly well. But again, I wasn't trying to follow statistics or collect baseball cards, even though I had a few. And we did have a neighbor who was a baseball player by the last name Kelner in Tucson in the 50s or something like that. And he was the Kelner family in Tucson and that was one of their claims.
There's baseball cards with his picture on it somewhere. So I remember I'd always keep an eye out occasionally for our neighbor's baseball card. So again, it has nothing to do with much of anything, but I just wanted to say that I do pay attention. Just 0.1%.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: Who dreams of the world in giant snail.
It's time to pay the bills with imaginary ads.
[00:15:26] Speaker C: And this is just a note that if you would like to be our sponsor, please get in touch. We'd love the support, but for the time being, we're going to promote brands that we really love. And you know, Michael, I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I drink Schaeffer beer.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: You haven't had beer in a long, long time.
[00:15:52] Speaker C: Have know Schaefer is.
They had it at the Brooklyn Dodgers park. It was up on the wall. And if you were in the stands enjoying a Schaefer beer, you were having the true Ebbitsfield experience. And I would highly encourage anybody out there if you have the opportunity to enjoy a crisp, cold Schaefer beer. Go for it. It'll make you feel as if you were there in the park.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And please write back.
Email us at I enjoyed
[email protected].
Actually, don't do that. It doesn't exist.
Just email us if you want to tell us what you thought of your beverage.
[00:16:43] Speaker C: Now, I have to say that if you are enjoying a Schaefer beer, chances are you got it through. There's only one distributor of Schaefer beer right now, and that's eBay.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: That's right. So it's going to taste a little bit like an old MRe, probably from like, what, year? 1960s?
It may still be okay for you. You might have to go to the hospital.
[00:17:10] Speaker C: And this is the part where our lawyers have forced us to say that you have to hold us harmless for this if you're going to try this experiment, because we can't be responsible for what happens if you drink a Schaefer beer, because it has been how many years since they've offered Schaefer beer?
[00:17:30] Speaker A: It's been a long time. And our lawyer is Basil and Basil company and currently located at the window. And, yeah, we're trying to heed our lawyer's advice. So enjoy, enjoy.
[00:17:46] Speaker C: Drink up. Make sure it's a cold one.
It's aged a little more, so it tastes a little more distinct.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And when you cool things down, some of the funkiness gets a little bit covered up by the cold temperature. So there you go.
[00:18:01] Speaker C: Go Dodgers.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And back to Rory.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: So I came upon your essay about the Dodgers, and I don't remember exactly what led me to it, but your piece, twilight at ebbots Field is really fascinating, and it's a long, detailed look at kind of disproving this theory that the last pitch was thrown at ebbots field and wrecking ball flew later that night, that it actually had a pretty interesting afterlife. How did you come across this story?
[00:18:43] Speaker F: Well, I'd run across a couple of these teasing references to events that had taken place after the Dodgers moved away. I saw in a book there was something about a demolition derby, and I thought, what? And then I saw something else about soccer, and I thought again, what? And so then I thought to myself, this is a great story. There's got to be something more to this. And then I kept on digging the original work I did back in 2005. And then Sabre published in their research journal the first form of the article in 2006. And then over the years, I've kept on finding out more and more. And that's the beauty of online publishing, is that you can just always make quick fixes and additions to stories that are online.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: So why do you think people care about the Dodgers, about Abbott's field?
What is the hold that this ballpark that's been gone for, what, 60 something years now has continued to have on the public imagination?
[00:19:42] Speaker F: Well, people refer to ballparks often as cathedrals. Well, the best of them are. And Ebotsfields had I never went there myself. I was born a couple of years after the wrecking ball swung.
Originally I was always a Mets fan, but after moving to Brooklyn in the early ninety s, I got more and more into Brooklyn history and lore. And then I found out more about Evbotsfield. And you can still see, even in Brooklyn Heights, right near where the team offices stood, on Montague street, there's a TD bank, and they have a mural inside the bank of, oh, so the legacy lives on. But apparently, from what I can understand, it was a small place and it was an intimate place, and it had a lot of characters. And even though over the years it got kind of run down, it still had a lot of charm. And it was really part of the fabric of Brooklyn society. Because the NBA was only just starting in the late forty s. The NFL was around, but it didn't get big until the late 50s, early sixty s. And so baseball was it. It was the national pastime, and it was really woven into the fabric of society.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: And what was it about the Dodgers?
[00:20:57] Speaker C: I mean, if you were living in.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: New York during the Casey Stengel era, what was that, the, well, late 40s.
[00:21:06] Speaker F: Up until like right around 1960, okay.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: They won a lot of World Series, and the Dodgers just kind of squeezed one out there toward the end.
And yet you see all these books about the Dodgers from that era, and it's almost as if people seem to gravitate in retrospect, the lovable losers. What is it about the Brooklyn Dodgers? Why people still seem to hold them in such high regard?
[00:21:40] Speaker F: Well, I think you touched on it, the underdog appeal and just the idea that, well, there was the slogan, wait till next year. And then it was always, always next year. And then in 1955, next year finally arrived.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: What kind of impact did that have on their self image and the fans self image?
[00:21:58] Speaker F: Well, as far as I know, everybody in Brooklyn was just jubilant. There was a huge celebration, and they made it back to the World Series again the next year in 56 and lost to the Yankees.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: Well, suffice it to say, while this was going on.
The team's ownership was talking about the need for a new home. And I know that it kind of goes beyond the scope of your article, but can you just touch briefly on what caused the Dodgers to leave Brooklyn?
[00:22:30] Speaker F: Well, that's an endless debate, really. But the two primary figures are Walter O'Malley, who was the primary owner of the club, and Robert Moses, the New York City power broker. And O'Malley wanted a new stadium in Brooklyn, and Moses wasn't prepared to give it to him. He offered him the site in Queens that eventually became Shea Stadium, where the Mets played. And right around there also is Cityfield, the Mets current home. But at any rate, O'Malley was interested at first, but then he quickly backed away and realized that he had the bigger and better deal in Los Angeles, and that's what he was going to do. And so a lot of people, they're O'Malley supporters who blame it on Moses, and then they're the O'Malley opponents who will always say that it was his fault no matter what.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: So, okay, the Dodgers pick up and leave after the end of which season was it? 58 57. And they play the start of the 58 season in La Coliseum while waiting for the new stadium to be built out there, right? That's right. Olympic stadium Stadium. Yeah. So who owns Ebbots Field at that point? And did the Dodgers own it themselves at one point?
[00:23:49] Speaker F: Well, they did. I think O'Malley owned it as part of the overall franchise property, and then it was sold to a developer named Marvin Crater, who leased it back to the team for three years. And so that meant 58. 59, or actually, I'd have to look at the article again. But at any rate, there were three years on the lease, and the lease ran out at the end of 1959. And so that's why the ballpark finally got demolished in February 1960.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: It must have given the fan, put the fans on edge to hear that the park had been sold.
[00:24:27] Speaker F: Well, yeah, but I think a lot of them just didn't want to accept reality. They were still hoping against hope that the team was somehow going to stick around.
But by the time 57 came, you could be pretty well assured that the team was going to be gone.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: So, I don't know, maybe the Dodgers were kind of hedging their bets with this lease in case they had to stick around a couple of extra years. But suffice it to say, they owed money on the place, and so they had to come up with ways to increase revenue. Is that why there were activities there beyond baseball after the Dodgers left?
[00:25:01] Speaker F: Well, I think it was really just to. Yeah, they had the property on the books and they figured might as well squeeze some revenue out of it.
[00:25:09] Speaker B: So, I mean, how long is this period between the time that the Dodgers left and when the ballpark was torn down?
[00:25:17] Speaker F: Two and a bit years, because the last Dodgers game was September 1957. And then the first activities started up again in April 1958. There was soccer and there was college baseball, and then there were a few other things like the circus and the demolition derby in early 58.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Were Brooklynites willing to come back to Evitsfield after the Dodgers left? Were these events pretty well attended?
[00:25:46] Speaker F: Not the Dodgers fans. I think they would really. In college baseball, there wasn't much of an audience for that. It was just real baseball diehards, not necessarily Dodgers fans. But I think the soccer games were the things that were best attended, and that's because it was a different fan base. It wasn't a baseball fan base. Brooklyn had a lot of italian folks, a lot of polish folks, and just people who were soccer fans first and foremost. Probably not. Only a generation removed from Europe would be my guess. And the attendance wasn't bad at its best. It was 20 some thousand. And considering evits field, seated around 32,000 or so, that was a pretty decent crowd.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: That was pretty small attendance for a major league ballpark, right?
[00:26:33] Speaker F: A small capacity?
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Small capacity, rather.
[00:26:35] Speaker F: Yeah, it was. And that was one of the reasons why O'Malley wanted to move, because even though it was a small capacity, it wasn't even getting filled up that much toward the end, in the 56 and.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: 57 season, just after they won. Do you think it was because they were threatening to leave and people were starting to detach?
[00:26:55] Speaker F: And that was part of it. But people were also moving out of Brooklyn and east to Long island, just going where there was more property. And also just because maybe they didn't like living in the city anymore, things. Demographics were changing.
[00:27:09] Speaker B: Yeah. So there was a demolition derby on the field at Ebbots Field.
[00:27:14] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:27:14] Speaker F: And apparently it tore the heck out of the.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: So maybe this is the time to start talking about a fellow named Babe Hamburger and the care he took with the upkeep of that place and how it must have torn him up inside to see the field getting all damaged like that. Who was Babe hamburger?
[00:27:39] Speaker F: He started off as a bat boy with the Dodgers in 1921 when he was just a kid. And it was the only job he ever knew. He stayed with the franchise doing all sorts of things. He was a PA announcer. He was a batting practice pitcher. He was a bartender. He was just the major domo of the ebbits field. And so when the team moved west, he didn't want to move west. Brooklyn was where his life was, and his heart and his identity really were wrapped up in Ebbots Field. And he was made the superintendent of the park during those twilight years from late 57 through early 1960.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: So it was a real skeleton crew that was keeping this place up during those years, right?
[00:28:19] Speaker F: Yeah, it was him and a handful of guys and this mixed breed watchdog.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: I guess it was the New York Times, a story that you linked to through one of your pieces, which I had found before you and I connected, that talked about the Los Angeles Dodgers winning the World Series and what it was like to be at EBits Field while that was happening.
[00:28:50] Speaker F: That sounds like the gay Talisi piece, right?
[00:28:53] Speaker B: Was that the Times?
[00:28:55] Speaker F: Yeah, it was. He was writing for the Times then, before he became a big name author.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Maybe you can speak to how it must have felt.
I touch on this in the song a little bit about what happens when someone or something that you love kind of achieves success after you've cut ties with them.
It must have been such a bittersweet feeling for the fan base in Brooklyn to watch their Dodgers win.
[00:29:27] Speaker F: Well, I think because the rough mix you sent me of the song, where I thought it matched up with the Talisi piece really well, was the ghostly feel. And I remember they quoted babe hamburger saying, boy, if the Dodgers were still here, there'd be bedlam right about now. But instead it was just the skeleton crew and the empty stores, the businesses that used to serve the fans around the ballpark.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: I'm really struck. And I don't know, Michael, if you've spent much time in Brooklyn.
I mentioned before we started recording that my wife and I got married in Brooklyn, and I've always wanted to see the area around where the old ballpark was. But you look at it on Google Maps or whatever it is, and it just seems to be almost nothing there, other than a sign on the apartment building that replaced it to indicate that anything of significance ever happened there.
It seems like after the Dodgers left, kind of their soul sort of went with them.
[00:30:30] Speaker F: Well, yeah, it's an unremarkable area of BRooklyn, and it's an unremarkable set of projects, and you have to hunt pretty hard to find the sign. But even though it's not too far east of Prospect park, which is still one of the areas that draws a lot of Brooklynites just from all different directions, just because it's a pretty place and it's a nice place to hang out. And like you were saying, the botanical garden is nearby. The botanical garden. If you were to walk from there to the site of Evits Field, it's probably only about 15 minutes.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: Have you ever walked around the block there and looked for indications that anything significant ever happened there?
[00:31:09] Speaker F: Yeah, I did. And I think the mural that I was mentioning before about the TD bank and Montague street is a darn site, nicer than whatever is at the actual site of the ballpark.
[00:31:21] Speaker B: So you had mentioned that before we started recording. Can you back up a little bit? And Montague street was where the offices were.
[00:31:28] Speaker D: Right?
[00:31:29] Speaker F: Right. Because that's in Brooklyn Heights. It's near Borough hall. The end of Montague street is just a short distance away from Borough hall, which is where the local government is. And Montague street also contains the Brooklyn Dodgers team offices. And on that spot stands a tv bank. And inside the bank is a really nice mural of editsfield with the players and all the signage and everything else like that.
[00:31:55] Speaker B: And of course, those offices were where Jackie Robinson got.
[00:32:01] Speaker F: That's right.
[00:32:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, we did a song called the strength to not fight back about Jackie Robinson a couple years ago. And so it starts with that scene which happened, I guess, on that spot when Jackie Robinson walks in to the offices and he doesn't know exactly what's about to transpire and history is made.
[00:32:27] Speaker F: I have to give that one a listen.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Yeah. But I wish that the Dodgers had left a few more breadcrumbs. It seems like they've had such an afterlife in the public imagination.
Who were some of the characters on the Brooklyn Dodgers that people remember the best?
[00:32:49] Speaker F: Well, certainly there was Gil Hodges, who went on to become manager of the amazing Mets in 1969. And that's how I really just first heard of the Brooklyn Dodgers, because I was a kid and the Mets were my team and Gil Hodges was the manager. And then unfortunately, he died way too young of a heart attack in 1972. But you read about him, and then for many Mets fans, it was their introduction to the Dodgers, the former national League team, that were there.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: I tried to sneak a lot of Dodgers names into the song, but I just was not successful.
But if I could, I would have gotten the name Duke Snyder in there.
[00:33:33] Speaker F: Well, I think there are precious few of those guys who are still alive. I think the only survivor of that team who is a big name was Carl Erskin, who's something like 96 years old now.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:42] Speaker C: And of course, he wasn't a big.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Name at the time, but Kofax was on that team, right?
[00:33:48] Speaker F: Well, he definitely played in 56 and he played in 57. I think he might have pitched in a handful of games in 55, but he probably wasn't eligible for the postseason.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:34:00] Speaker F: Although my memory could be playing tricks on me.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: So Epbots field back in that day didn't necessarily. They had other activities there, too, right? There was football games.
[00:34:12] Speaker F: There were football games. There was some boxing from time to time, although I'm not sure how much of that was still going on in the 50s, but definitely in its past. It hosted some NFL games and some boxing, among other things. Well, I'll tell you one of the other fun stories about the original version of the piece that got published in 2006. When I was doing the research and all the digging about the activities, I saw that there was St. John's college baseball, and then being a Mets fan, I recognized the name that was in the headline in the New York Times. It said, shriver's two run blast leads St. John's to victory, or something of that nature. And I realized that it was a guy who played briefly for the New York Mets in 1963. And so then I said to myself, oh, man, I got to get a hold of Ted Schreiber to hear his memories of what it was like to hit a home run in Evbots Field while he was playing college ball. And it was Ted who, he had vivid memories of it. He said he could realize it or think about it like it was yesterday. And then he had a beautiful, vivid description of the home run.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:35:18] Speaker F: And then also of what it was like to set foot on this beautifully manicured professional field, as opposed to the places he played on in the sand lots.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: So, I mean, he hits this home run, but there's almost nobody in the stands, right?
[00:35:35] Speaker F: Well, he said just a handful of people, because it was early in the year, it was April, and it was probably kind of chilly. And college baseball wasn't much of a draw, especially with the Dodgers loss being so fresh in the minds of people in Brooklyn. So that's what he told me, was that there were only a handful of people there, real diehards, who loved the sport and just wanted to turn out to watch some ball anyway, so he said he could hear the ball rattling the seats.
[00:36:03] Speaker D: As a musician, a lot of times.
[00:36:06] Speaker A: We say that my dad always said.
[00:36:09] Speaker D: This when I was on the road with my dad, that the right people are in the audience, even if you have two or three people or I've had a show once where I had zero people. You can't say that about zero people in the audience. But with your interviews with various baseball players or just anyone playing on teams for fans, when you have less people but diehard fans, does that still warm your heart or is there kind of like this hole that's different than a musician's experience of like, okay, we may have had ten people, but you were a great crowd. They cheer a lot. If you get an audience that it could be small but very mighty and warm your heart nonetheless. Is it the same thing in the sports world? This is for anyone who doesn't follow baseball but who is interested in this conversation nonetheless, and that includes me. So I'm curious your thoughts on that.
[00:37:11] Speaker F: Well, I think probably a lot of it has to do with the venue too. If it's a really small club and you have just a handful of diehards, then the energy level is right for that club. But if you have a big stadium, even a relatively small major league stadium like Abbott's field, and you have just a handful of people in a 32,000ft park, then it's going to feel kind of dead.
[00:37:38] Speaker D: Okay. Yeah, well, and that kind of lines up a little bit with our experience as folk musicians. It can be hit or miss. You never know from town to town and who knows your music and who doesn't.
[00:37:56] Speaker C: I remember seeing a game.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: The only time I've ever been to McCoy Stadium in Potucket was in 2017. And I think they were already talking about leaving town for what was eventually Worcester at that point. But I remember seeing these real diehards sitting in the stands and just.
It was pretty empty.
And the visitors scored like eight runs in the first inning. And everybody was really just so down. And then they came back to win nine to eight. And it was the most electric feeling and everybody was on their feet and it was one of the most amazing games I'd ever seen. And Raphael Devers was one of the players.
But yeah, it was amazing how much energy you could get from a small crowd under the right circumstances.
[00:38:49] Speaker F: Well, you know, it's still something you can see. I remember riding the subway, it was about a year or two ago with my son, and I saw an older guy wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers cap. And so I just said, excuse me, sir, did you by any chance ever get to see a game at Evansfield? And he said, yes, I did. But if you think about it, it's been 65 years since major league ball was played at Evbotsfield, since the Dodgers left. And so let's just say that a kid of six, seven, eight years old went to that game. They're still in their early 70s.
[00:39:23] Speaker B: Yeah, there's still a lot of memories out there of Evans. I wish I had seen a game there.
[00:39:31] Speaker D: Go ahead. Of the gentleman that you mentioned that's around 95 years old. Have you had a chance to speak to that person, Carl Erskin?
[00:39:41] Speaker F: I personally have not, but Carl Erskin has a reputation for just being a super nice gentleman. And I remember, actually, there was one time when I was a kid, I sent him a baseball card and I didn't observe the protocol to include a stench, self addressed envelope. And nonetheless I got it back, signed from Carl Erskin just because he was that kind of guy.
[00:40:01] Speaker B: Oh boy, that's great.
Who else did you speak to for your article?
[00:40:07] Speaker F: Well, let's see. Well, I remember, actually, there was something else, one of the tangents that I remember hearing about when I was doing the work on the Virgin Islands, there was a guy who was just, he was a semi pro player from St. Croix, and he told me about how he played ball in Ebbots Field with a team when he was living and working in the States in Brooklyn. And so I thought, wow. And there was something else. In addition to having read about the demolition derby and the soccer, here was more evidence that baseball had been played there. And this was the negro leagues angle. And so then I looked into it and I wrote a letter to Joe Black, who was another one of the Dodgers stars of the early fifty s. And I said, hey, I heard that Roy Campanella organized a negro leagues team in the late fifty s. And he wrote back a brief sentence or two at the bottom of a letter and basically saying, I don't believe it never happened. And then I looked up, I did some digging in the New York Times, and the fellow I'd met in the Virgin Islands was right. There were four negro league games that took place in July and August 1959, including the great Satchel page and one of them.
[00:41:17] Speaker B: So before we talk about Satchel Page, for those of our listeners who don't know who Roy Campanella was, can you give us a brief grammar?
[00:41:25] Speaker F: Sure. He was the Dodger star catcher from the late 40s through 1957 when he suffered an automobile accident and it made him a paraplegic. But he was still, I was surprised to discover, even though he was not long out of the hospital and in delicate health, he was a busy man when he was organizing the negro leagues. And among other things, he'd made appearances at the ballpark. And he even acted as himself, I believe, in an episode of the tv show Lassie.
[00:41:58] Speaker B: Michael, you've heard of Lassie, I'm sure.
[00:41:59] Speaker D: Oh, I have, I have. Yes. Reruns. Reruns.
[00:42:03] Speaker B: He played third base for the Rangers back in the 80s, so it's just bad humor. We tell each terrible jokes. There's this iconic picture of Roy Campanella in his wheelchair on the field at Ebbots Field.
I think you can see the wrecking ball, but it hadn't quite swung yet.
Do you know that picture, Rory?
[00:42:28] Speaker F: Oh, yes. It's part of a series. And in fact, the guy I was mentioning when Michael was asking about him, Carl Erskin, was one of the Dodgers who was on hand for the demolition, and he posed next to the wrecking ball, which was painted like a baseball. It had stitches on it.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
So Satchel Page, I mean, legendary figure.
Can you talk a little bit about who Satchel Page was and what brought him to Ebbotsfield that afternoon? I'm assuming it was an afternoon.
[00:42:59] Speaker F: It was.
Well, he was a terrific pitcher in the negro leagues, probably from the late 30s through the. He even had, when he was up there in years in his early 40s. He appeared for a few years in the majors with the Indians and the St. Louis Browns, but this was even though he actually did come back and make one more appearance in the majors when he was in his 60s, in the mid 1960s. Maybe it was 1965, but when he appeared at Epbots Field in 59, he was probably in his early to mid fifty s. And I'm sure that the reason he appeared was just because there was money in it. Although from what I understand, the crowd for those games was probably around 4000.
[00:43:41] Speaker B: Which is still a respectable number. If I got that number of people at a Nathan's Runstadt show, I'd be ecstatic. But in any event, this was some of the last baseball and probably the last professional baseball played at Ebbots Field.
[00:43:56] Speaker F: It was. There was some high school ball and there was some youth ball played after that. But then the last events of any kind that were played at Ebbotsfield, any sport, were some soccer matches in the fall with the American Soccer League.
[00:44:10] Speaker B: Can you think of anybody who's made a name for themselves later in life who played at know, other than the names we've already discussed, who played at Ebotsfield during that period?
[00:44:23] Speaker F: Well, let's see.
There were a number of guys who made it to the majors, but no major stars, sorry to say.
[00:44:32] Speaker B: I have to wonder whether the people who played during that period at this, I guess, cavernous feeling, even though it wasn't relatively big compared to other major league parks, whether they enjoyed the experience, whether they were able to kind of imagine what it was like to be a dodger, or whether it just felt empty and hollow. And this is an old place. Who cares about this old joint? It's on its way out.
[00:45:04] Speaker F: The impression I got from everything I read and the people I talked to is that they regarded as a real treat, even though the Dodgers were gone, even though the place felt kind of hollowed out. And one of the stories I heard, I got an email from a guy who played youth ball there in 1959. He was probably around 13 years old. And one of the images he remembers was that the bullpen phone was just wires in the dugout. The handset wasn't there anymore. It was just wires sticking out of the wall. But nonetheless, he said what Ted Schreiber said, too, that the field was beautifully maintained and it was a treat to play on.
[00:45:41] Speaker B: And that's due to babe hamburger. Must have taken a lot of pride in keeping, you know, as good as it could look.
[00:45:52] Speaker F: Yeah, he and his guys sure did. Well, you remember, we were hoping to have his daughter on, but she left it in our hands because she doesn't own a computer, she doesn't run on email, but she's a joy to talk to. And she was telling me more about her dad and about how he was Brooklyn guy through and through. But then the other interesting thing I found that she told me was that even though he worked for Walter O'Malley and could have felt like as many Brooklyn Knights did, that Walter O'Malley was the devil. He never demonized Walter O'Malley. He never had any malice toward him.
[00:46:28] Speaker B: I imagine all the ads, the iconic ads for Schaefer beer and Abe Stark hit the ball, hit the sign with a suit. Yeah. These were still up at the time, right?
[00:46:41] Speaker D: They were the scoreboard pictures I've seen.
[00:46:43] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:46:44] Speaker C: Do you know if the scoreboard was.
[00:46:45] Speaker F: Operating for the baseball games? I expect it was. I'm not sure if they had. That's a good question, because it would probably have still been a manual scoreboard as opposed to an electric scoreboard. And I wonder if they did hire somebody to put up the score and put up the numbers. That never occurred to me.
[00:47:03] Speaker B: Right. Do you know if the public address system was running at that point?
[00:47:10] Speaker F: Possibly, but that's another aspect I never thought to.
[00:47:14] Speaker B: Well, and Michael just showed us a picture of Roy Campanella. On the field. That was that iconic photo.
[00:47:21] Speaker D: Yeah, I noticed there is a schaefer's beer ad right to the left of Lucky's taste better and to the right of brass rail restaurants.
Now I want to go try a shafer beer. After knowing, after you've been singing the song, we've been performing it, and I'm like, I need to try a shafer beer. But I was curious, has anyone revived that beer in Brooklyn and over the Rhine, Cincinnati, there was an older beer company that got.
They brought back one of the old flavors about 1012 years ago, and they found the recipe or something like that and started making it again.
[00:48:09] Speaker F: Was it Hudapole or Shane link?
[00:48:12] Speaker D: I don't know if it's Hudapole.
It's been a while because I played for one of their grand openings.
But there's a lot of different old beers that have been brought back in Cincinnati, and I'm just trying to remember which one that one was specifically.
[00:48:28] Speaker F: I tasted Schaefer. It's not worth reviving.
[00:48:31] Speaker D: It's not worth reviving.
[00:48:32] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:48:32] Speaker F: Well, I remember it was on the market. I remember they had some funny ad campaigns in the late seventy s and early eighty s, and it was a met sponsor for a number of years, too, so I remember it well. But it was basically a boring and mediocre mass market beer.
[00:48:48] Speaker D: Okay. Yeah.
As many of them can be when you're selling them, probably at a game, because there's a cost, a high cost for a more affordable, less spectacular beverage yields some better profits, I'm sure.
[00:49:07] Speaker F: Well, it was before the whole craft brewery thing came in, too.
[00:49:10] Speaker D: That's true.
[00:49:11] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:49:12] Speaker D: Yeah. I do love the dedication to any team. You show up all weather, whether the field is in 100% working order or if parts of it are falling apart.
It's a beautiful story, and it's a beautiful thing that we humans can do to support something that other humans are doing.
[00:49:40] Speaker F: Well, I'll tell you something else. Saber has a book project in the works about notable games at Ebots Field, and I've had the pleasure of writing about the first game that was played there in 1913, and also the last game that was played there in 1957, the last Dodgers game.
They're tight game stories of 1500 words or so. That's the format. And apparently the organist, her name was Gladys Gooding.
She'd gotten in her cups during that last game, and the more music she played was just really somber and melancholy and just nobody wanted to hear it. She was putting a damper on the whole crowd, what there was of it.
[00:50:21] Speaker B: Goodness.
[00:50:23] Speaker C: Michael was talking a moment ago about.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: The people, these, these diehards. And I think really what spoke to me so much about your piece was that you were writing about the most devoted of the diehards, the people that showed up after the team was gone, after the fight was lost, that they were so devoted to the Dodgers that they were willing to make sure that Abbotsfield, that their home had some dignity as it was being ushered out of existence.
[00:50:57] Speaker F: Well, the phrase I use, if I recall correctly, was the most loyal foot soldiers were still at their posts.
[00:51:03] Speaker B: It's a fantastic piece, and I'd recommend that we'll put it in the show notes. But if anybody's hearing this, is it sabr.org?
[00:51:15] Speaker F: That's right.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: And then they can just put in the search function. Twilight at ebitsfield.
[00:51:22] Speaker F: That's right, because there's a search box called search, the research collection and Twilight. If you put in Twilight ebotsfield, that ought to bring it up.
[00:51:32] Speaker B: Before we go, anything that you'd like to plug, anything you're working on now that you'd like to mention?
[00:51:38] Speaker F: No, I'll just say,
[email protected]. That's the Sabre website, and you can always, membership isn't free, but if you're devoted to baseball, if you're a baseball fan, there's plenty of information to be found and plenty of ways that you can contribute.
[00:52:00] Speaker B: All right, Rory Costello of the bioproject at the Society for American Baseball Research.
[00:52:07] Speaker C: Thank you, Rory.
[00:52:08] Speaker B: Much appreciated for taking so much time to talk to us about your fascinating piece.
[00:52:13] Speaker F: My pleasure. It's been fun, guys. Thanks.
[00:52:29] Speaker A: Well, that was a fun interview. We're laughing because we just did the ad where we're paying bills.
Do come to us with any actual products. If you would like to support this podcast, we would be in your debt. Actually, we're already in debt. Yeah, but, Rory, thank you for this wonderful interview.
[00:52:55] Speaker B: Thank you, Rory.
[00:52:56] Speaker A: And you were a champ to talk about baseball while a wayward, washed up, 39 year old cello player listened and tried to ask a question or two that may be related.
[00:53:13] Speaker B: So thank you. Goodness.
[00:53:15] Speaker C: Well, you're a good sport, Michael. And Rory, you're a good sport, too, for letting us write a song about your piece.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: We are going to play the song for you. So here is Flatbush Sunset featuring Aaron Nathans on piano, Michael Ronstead on cello, Aaron Nathan's on lead vocal, and Michael Ronstadt on harmony vocals.
[00:53:35] Speaker B: Here we go.
[00:53:49] Speaker E: In this diamond shaped tomb, there's a maintenance room where we watch our old friends on tv there they dance on the mound but out here there's no sound just a ballpark with old vacant.
[00:54:12] Speaker B: Seats.
[00:54:15] Speaker E: The club moved out west now there's four of us left in the morning we'll chalk out the line.
[00:54:28] Speaker B: And.
[00:54:28] Speaker E: We'Ll keep the lawn mowed like the boys are out on the road and we'll welcome them home anytime where the Duke ones hit bombs there's the team from St. John's at the park they spent weekends as boys they walk the outfield at night they stare up at the lights but they have to imagine the noise any odd high school squad, they can rent this old yard but just for a limited time.
[00:55:18] Speaker B: The boys.
[00:55:19] Speaker E: Won the big game while we tend the low flame there'll be no suit if you hit the significant where Gil Hodges once played their day soccer games and I wince they tear up the.
[00:56:04] Speaker B: Grass.
[00:56:06] Speaker E: Kotchman's thrill on our show brings in plenty of dough but I can't bear to look at the crash.
[00:56:19] Speaker B: The.
[00:56:19] Speaker E: Lease is almost up no schaefer beer in my cup but the Kansas City.
[00:56:27] Speaker C: Monarchs are in town.
[00:56:32] Speaker E: It'S Jackie's old team from the great negro leagues Satchel's come to close the place down.
[00:56:43] Speaker F: And.
[00:56:44] Speaker E: When the last pitch is thrown and the teams have gone home I'll tie up the front gates with Twine.
[00:56:56] Speaker B: Could.
[00:56:56] Speaker E: Have gone to LA, but I decided to stay tell my boys I'll be home before nine they won the big game but there'll be no parade in Brooklyn, this hometown of mine.
[00:57:41] Speaker A: Wonderful.
[00:57:41] Speaker D: That was awesome, that is.
[00:57:43] Speaker A: Aaron, I'm glad you debuted your piano skills.
[00:57:47] Speaker C: How did it sound?
[00:57:49] Speaker A: I liked it.
[00:57:50] Speaker C: You always get me out of my comfort zone and make me do things.
[00:57:54] Speaker B: That I'm not good at.
[00:57:56] Speaker A: Just like the whale watch.
[00:57:58] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:57:58] Speaker A: You did it. You survived me. Started just like, presumably. Yeah. We haven't done it yet, but we're assuming we survive.
[00:58:07] Speaker D: Knock on.
[00:58:09] Speaker A: There you go.
Yeah. What's the word of the day? I'm going to start.
[00:58:14] Speaker B: Go ahead.
[00:58:15] Speaker A: Coffee.
I have two kinds in front of me. I have old dunkin'donuts, coffee with almond milk, and then I have black coffee. From where?
[00:58:25] Speaker C: Third Cliff bakery.
[00:58:27] Speaker A: Third Cliff Bakery.
It's a good combo because I'm going back and forth and I will stay awake today.
Drove a lot from Cincinnati to here yesterday and the night before.
That's my word of the day. Coffee is keeping me going.
[00:58:44] Speaker C: All right, well, my word of the day is.
[00:58:50] Speaker A: Outfielder, which is a position in hockey where they hold the stick upside down exactly.
[00:59:00] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:59:01] Speaker A: There we go. You've been listening to the Nathan's and Roncast supported by Michael Roncat Meow.
[00:59:10] Speaker D: Peace.
[00:59:28] Speaker A: Itself to rest.
A soft wind bends the slender blades of the dune grasses in the west and it a pale cloud to pink and fame.
