Golden Oldie #14

[SWC75]

(This is my review and guide to "Summer in the City New York Baseball 1947-1957', which came out in 2006 and is still avaialbe. I highly recommend it for nostalgic baseball fans.)

The Three Ballparks



I always like to take a look at the background of old pictures to see the setting in which the action took place. Looking through the book “Summer in the City”, I can’t help looking at the three ballparks in which the Yankees, Giants and Dodgers played. I have several books on the old ballparks that describe Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field in detail and have re-read the articles in them. But this new book shows many of the features up-close and I thought I’d write up some information on each that will make the reading of this new book all that more interesting. My other source material is: “Take Me Out to The Ballpark”, by Lowell Reidenbaugh, which was published by The Sporting News in 1983, “The Ballpark Book” by Ron Smith, the same publications’ 2000 update on the theme, “Lost Ballparks” by Lawrence Ritter, (1990), “Green Cathedrals” by Philip Lowry, (1992), “Diamonds”, by Michael Gershman, (1993), as well as other selected articles and publications.






Take me out to the ball park: Reidenbaugh, Lowell: 9780892041015: Amazon.com: Books



The Ballpark Book : A journey Through the Fields of Baseball Magic: Smith, Ron: 9780892047031: Amazon.com: Books



Lost Ballparks: A Celebration of Baseball's Legendary Fields: Ritter, Lawrence: 9780140234220: Amazon.com: Books



Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration of All 271 Major League and Negro League Ballparks Past and Present: Lowry, Philip J.: 9780201567779: Amazon.com: Books



Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark, From Elysian Fields to Camden Yards: Gershman, Michael: 9780395612125: Amazon.com: Books





The Polo Grounds



One of the great sports trivia questions is “Was polo ever played at the Polo Grounds? The answer is “no”. When the Giants first moved to New York City in 1883, (they had been in Troy, New York), they played at a real polo grounds at the corner of 5th avenue and 110th street that was owned by James Gordon Bennett, the famed publisher of the New York Herald. New York City decided to build a road there: they wanted to cut 111th street through to 5th and 6th avenues.

The Giant’s owner, John B. Day, a wealthy manufacturer, had a new place, a genuine baseball park, built for his team in North Harlem, at 8th Avenue, between 155th and 157th street. Since the Giants were famous for playing at “The Polo Grounds”, Day named his new park “The New Polo Grounds”. At this time the original Player’s Association completely broke off from the National league and formed their own league, the Player’s league, (they found their own financial backers), and they naturally put a team in New York. They audaciously built a ballpark right next to the Giants’ new park between 157th and 159th street, on a place called “Coogan’s Hollow”, which was under a hill called “Coogan’s Bluff”, both places being owned by one James J. Coogan. The new place, intentionally bigger and grander than the new Polo Grounds, was called “Brotherhood Park”.

For a time both teams played literally within shouting distance of one another, with the outfields nearly back to back, perhaps 100 feet apart. On May 12th, 1890, Giants slugger Mike Tiernan hit a home run at the New Polo Grounds that landed in the outfield of Brotherhood Park, to the cheers of fans in both stadiums. The Player’s League went out of business after the 1890 season and Day arranged to move his Giants into Brotherhood Park. But he didn’t want to retain that name, so he named the new place after the two places his team had played in before- “The Polo Grounds”.

This Polo Grounds served as the team’s home for 20 years. Originally, it seated only 16,000 fans, the wooden grandstand only extending 20 feet past first and third base. With the “New Polo Grounds” having been torn down, its area was used for parking- and the stabling of the horses that brought the carriages to the games. Some of the wealthier people were allowed to align their carriages around the open outfield, (approximately 500 feet from home plate, so they could be sure to be out of the action), to watch the game in comfort. Eventually bleachers were erected all around the park, increasing its capacity to 23,000. That didn’t count the crowd that gathered on Coogan’s Bluff to watch the games for free.

The largest crowds in baseball at the time came to watch the Giants, especially when John McGraw became manager and Christy Mathewson their star pitcher in 1904. They went on to win the National League pennant that year but the new owner, John T. Brush and McGraw, who was feuding with American League President Ban Johnson, refused to play a post season series against the American League champions, the Boston Red Sox, who had won the first World Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates the year before. But Brush and McGraw, stung by criticism at their refusal to play the American League champions, agreed to do so the next year and the Giants won the second World Series against the Philadelphia Athletics in five games, which Mathewson wrapped up with his third shut out of the series at the Polo Grounds on 10/14/05.

The Giants continued to be very successful, almost winning the pennant from the powerful Cubs in 1908, but losing it in part due to the “Merkle Boner” at the Polo grounds. But disaster struck on 4/14/11, when a fire destroyed most of the stadium, leaving only part of the right field grandstand and center field bleachers standing before it was brought under control. Brush vowed to rebuild the stadium- bigger and grander than before- and grander than the huge new steel and concrete ballparks that had been built in Pittsburgh and Chicago, for the Pirates, (Forbes Field) and the White Sox, (Comisky Park).

The result was the biggest park baseball had ever seen, and one of the strangest, a place full of wonderful and vexing quirks. It was built on the same grounds as the “old” Polo Grounds below Coogan’s Bluff and using the same field plan. It was built in sections, reopening on June 28th with 16,000 seats, 10,000 of which were those left standing from the old ballpark. The owner named his new park “Brush Stadium” but nobody ever called it that. The Giants played there, right? That made it the “Polo Grounds”. By the 1911 World Series, in which the Giants faced the Athletics again, there were 34,000 seats, with the Grandstand extending all the way down the right field line and halfway down the left field line with the old wooden bleachers still in center field. In this Park, the Giants played in -and lost- three straight World Series, to the Athletics, the Red Sox and then the Athletics again, as well as the 1917 series to the future Chicago Black Sox. Then they had a run of four straight pennants from 1921-24, beating the Yankees in that team’s first two World Series appearances, including a sweep in 1922. But the Yankees won in 1923 and the Senators beat them in McGraw’s last World Series in 1924.

During this period the stadium was finally completed, to a capacity of 55,000, with the grandstand extending down both the first and third base line and then out to the centerfield area, in a rectangular shape, opening up to a small centerfield bleacher section which, then in turn was interrupted by a 60 foot building that contained the player’s clubhouses and team offices. Originally, the façade of the Grandstand was decorated by the coats of arms, (they didn’t have logos then), of all the N.L. teams but it proved too expensive to repaint them each year so there were removed in the 1920’s.

The players, after the game, instead of disappearing into the dugout, would walk to centerfield and file up twin staircases to their respective clubhouses, exposing them to the boos and cheers of the fans. The clubhouses were elevated with a single post in the center, in front of which was a monument to Eddie Grant, a former Giants player who had been killed in World War I. There were also eventually, large screens erected at the corners of the bleachers, 16 feet high, to provide better backgrounds of the hitters to see the pitched ball. A tall wall surrounded the field, ranging from 10 feet to 18 feet when there were billboards in the outfield, which were removed in the mid 1940’s. There was also a four-foot wire screen in front of the bleachers in center field on top of a four foot wall. Essentially, any plays made by the fielders had to be made on the field. There would be no robbing batters of home runs in this park.

But home runs did not come cheap unless you hit them down the lines. The centerfield bleachers were 460 feet from home plate. The Grant Monument was 483 from the plate and it was 505 feet to the back of the clubhouse wall, which was the necessary target for a home run to straightaway center field, as there was no “home run line” below it. There were no home runs into the center field bleachers at the Polo Grounds until Luke Easter hit one in a Negro League game in 1948. Joe Adcock duplicated the feat in 1953, the first time it was done in a major league game. Lou Brock, of all people, did it for the Cubs, (before he was traded to the Cardinals two years later), vs. the Mets in 1962. Then Hank Aaron did it the next day, the fourth and last person to hit a center field home run at the Polo Grounds. All four of those blasts landed in the stands. Nobody ever hit the clubhouse building-or over it-on the fly.

The stadium looked, from Coogan’s Bluff, like a giant bathtub, with home plate being where the drain should be. The place looked as if it had been built with some other purpose besides baseball in mind, (polo?), but that was not the case. The outfield stands didn’t form a semi-circle beginning at the foul lines but continued the rectangular box shape, zooming directly out to a genuine right and left field “corner” that was not located at the foul polls but in what would now be called the “power allies”. Modern power alleys are about 375 feet from home plate but these rounded corners were 455 feet from home plate. They were so far away that the bullpens were placed there, with no enclosure around them. During the course of a game, there would be perhaps 30 players on the field- one at the plate, nine in the field and about ten each in the bullpens. The relief pitchers and their catchers could sit there or warm up as needed, knowing that if a ball was hit in their direction, they would have plenty of warning and plenty of time to get out of the way, remove any obstructions, etc. The likelihood was that anything that reached them would be rolling by the time it got there, anyway.

The foul lines intersected the grandstand at a sharp angle. The field was slightly -eyed such that it was 257 feet down the right field line and 279 feet down the left field line. But this was evened up by the upper deck, which in left field, (but not right), extended out over the field by more than 20 feet. A line drive to left had to go 280 feet to make it into the stands. A fly ball had to go only 259 feet to land in the upper deck, frequently producing the sight of an outfielder positioning himself for the catch only to see the upper deck seem to reach out and catch the ball before it reached him for a home run instead of an out.

The close proximity of the stands down the lines and the incredibly distant power allies and center field fence made pull hitting a necessity in this park. Bill Terry, a splendid lifetime .341 hitter who played from 1923-36, all with the Giants, was a 6-1 200 player, a big man for the time. He was also a spray hitter who refused John McGraw’s demand that he learn to be a pull hitter. He hit 154 home runs in his career. Met Ott, only 5-9 170 and not as good a hitter overall at .308 lifetime, also played his entire career for the Giants, 1926-46. But he followed McGraw’s instructions, adopting his famous front leg lift and pulling the ball sharply down the line. He hit 511 home runs, 323 at home, taking advantage of the contours of the big bathtub he played in.

But the most frustrated person in Polo Grounds history had to have been Vic Wertz, who hit a ball 445 feet to center field in the first game of the 1954 World Series. The game was tied 2-2 and two men were on base would certainly have scored had the ball touched the ground. Of course, Wertz himself would have scored in almost any other ball park as it would have been a home run. But Willie Mays caught up with the ball before it dropped, caught it over his shoulder and, in one motion, spun around and threw the ball to second, almost doubling off one of the runners. But it produced an out and held the runners on and neither scored in that inning. The game was still 2-2 in the tenth inning when Giant pinch hitter Dusty Rhodes lofted a pop fly directly down the right field line, exactly 258 feet, where it dropped into the stands for a three run homer that won the game, 5-2 for the Giants. The forlorn Indians outfielder, a reserve named Dave Pope, could only look up at the 12 foot wall that prevented him from making any play on the ball. The Indians had been held scoreless on a 445 foot drive and the Giants had scored three runs on a 258 foot drive to beat them. This stunned the Indians had won an American League record 111 games to beat out the Yankees only to lose in four straight to the Giants, who had won 14 less games in the regular season.

One of the quirks of the ballpark is that the infield was on higher ground than the outfield, which sloped gently down until the center field stands were 8 feet below the level of the infield. When a manager looked on the field, he could typically see only the upper half of his outfielder’s bodies and on the Wertz catch, Leo Durocher would have seen Mays completely disappear, heard a roar and seen the ball suddenly materialize in the sky and land at second base. He would not have known what happened except that Willie Mays was out there so it would not have been hard to figure out.

That was the Giant’s last moment of glory in the big park. They had won the World Series over the Senators in the first post McGraw year, (Bill Terry took over as manager), of 1933, then lost to the first two Joe DiMaggio Yankee teams in 1936-37. Then there followed a long fallow period during which Mel Ott became the team’s manager. When Durocher replaced him in 1949, somebody said it was too bad Ott had lost his job because he was such a nice guy. Leo replied” Nice guys finish last” and had the Giants back in the Series two years later on Bobby Thompson’s famous home run, (a line drive that went under the overhang in left). They lost to the Yankees that year but were back in the Series three years later for the shocking sweep over the Indians.

When Walter O’Malley decided to move the Dodgers to the West Coast, he convinced Giants owner Horace Stoneham to move, too, to continue the rivalry. O’Malley insisted it was a gold mine for the both of them, especially as people were now taking cars to the games, instead of public transportation. Both the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field were built before cars became common and lacked sufficient parking. Los Angeles let O’Malley pick the spot for his new stadium and he chose Chavez Ravine, where the weather was always favorable. Unfortunately, San Francisco insisted the Giant’s ballpark be built on a piece of land owned by one of the local political powers, Candlestick Point, where the temperature even in mid-summer was cold and the weather unpredictable. The Dodgers were a huge success both on the field and at the gate. The Giants were strong early on the field but had trouble drawing fans and fell into mediocrity. They were about to move and end the rivalry several times until PacBell Park was built in a much better location.

Meanwhile the Polo Grounds lay almost abandoned for four years. The football Giants played there until 1956 when they moved to Yankee Stadium. There were some big prize fights but most of those had shifted to Yankee Stadium by then, as well. Ingmar Johansson beat Floyd Patterson in Yankee Stadium in 1959. Patterson won the rematch at the Polo Grounds the next year and the rubber match in Miami Beach in 1961.

Finally, the gap was filled when the Mets were created in 1962. They played their first two seasons at the Polo Grounds before moving to Shea Stadium in 1964. After that the old ballpark’s days were over and it was destroyed with the same wrecking ball, one painted like a baseball, which had been used to demolish Ebbets field in 1960. Just as Ebbet’s Field was replaced by the Ebbets Field Apartments, so the Polo Grounds was replaced by the Polo Grounds Towers, another high-rise public housing complex, like the ones seen next to the old ballpark on page 79, below. I’ll bet they didn’t play Polo there, either.



The most interesting views of the Polo Grounds in “Summer in the City” can be found on the following pages:



The left field line can be seen on page 8. There was no distance marker at the foul line but it was measured at 279 feet. The upper deck extends about 21 feet over the wall the fielder is “crashing against”. Note how the wall quickly extends from 279 to 315 feet, 360 feet, and then 414 feet. The visitor’s bullpen is beyond that at 455 feet, just out of the picture.

The right field line can be seen on page 71. Again, there is no marker at the foul pole but it was measured at 257 feet. Note that the wall is not quite as tall here, (compare it to the fielder in either picture). The wall was 17 feet in left at the foul pole, declining to 12 feet where the grandstand met the centerfield bleachers. It was 11 feet in right field, rising slightly to 12 feet next to the center field bleachers. The picture on page 71 also shows the home team bullpen in right field, complete with an awning providing some shade. Again note how the distances move sharply from 294 feet to 339 to 395 to 449 to 454 just beyond where the relievers are sitting.

On page 78-79 you can see aerial shots of Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds. The shots clearly show the difference between the conventional fan-like shape of Ebbets Field, mirroring the shape of the baseball diamond and contrasting the rectangular shape of the Polo Grounds with the curved grandstand behind home plate suggesting the bathtub appearance. You can also see the incredible amount of foul territory in the Polo Grounds as compared to the narrower area at Ebbet’s Field. I’m also fascinated by the parking arrangements. You can see what O’Malley faced in Brooklyn. There are about 10 satellite parking lots in the blocks adjacent to the stadium, each one, (this is the time of the 1951 Giant-Dodger playoffs), filled to capacity and beyond. The cars look like sardines. There is no aisle between the lines of cars. If you wanted to leave early, forget it. You were getting out when everyone else left, one car at a time. The Giants seem to have a much better situation, with a large parking lot in good order. But on this occasion, there are also cars parked along the street and even along the highway in back, which, looking at a map, is probably Eighth Avenue, which on modern maps becomes St. Nicholas Ave. You can see why Stoneham and especially O’Malley coveted parking space. I have included in my copy of the book a photocopy of picture from one of my other books showing Yankee Stadium in the foreground and, looking west across the Harlem River to the Polo Grounds. It shows how close the stadiums were. When the Giants and Yankees played in the 1923, 36, 37 and 51 World Series, they had only to cross the river to play in the other team’s ballpark. When they played in the 1921 and 1922 World Series, all the games took place at the Polo Grounds. The only other time that all the games in a World Series took place in the same park was in 1944 when the Cardinals and Browns played in Sportsmen’s Park.

On pages 81 and 83 you see shot of the “walk-up staircases leading to the Giant’s clubhouse. The date is October 3rd, 1951, the day of the most famous game ever played in the Polo Grounds. In the first picture, Giant’s fans are cheering on their starting pitcher, Sal Maglie, as he descends to pitch the most important game of his life. In the second one, Bobby Thompson is waving to a vast thong of fans who gathered to cheer him after his home run won the game. In the 1936 World Series, Giant fans were less pleased when Joe DiMaggio made a catch near the steps to the visitor’s clubhouse to end a Series game and ran right up the steps with the ball.

The picture on page 82 gives you another shot of the immense foul territory at the Polo Grounds.

Page 94 shows the players and fans moving toward center field after a game. I have not seen anything that indicates there was a fan’s exit in centerfield but there may have been. Or maybe they just want to commune with the players.

Page 112 shows that there was no outside wall behind the grandstand at the Polo Grounds. You could see buildings that were across the street. This must be one of the apartment buildings at the right of the picture on page 79. The right field stands are also shown to be “open” in the picture on page 172. That shot shows the ramps that the fans used to enter the massive stadium along the right and left field lines.

On page 126 is a shot of Mays’ famous catch of Wertz’s drive in the 1954 World Series. I have seen estimates that Willie is 445, 455 or 460 feet from home plate. The fact that the hitter’s screen in front of him is supposed to be 460 feet from home plate suggests that 445 is probably about right. He’s not at the screen and seems to be more than five feet in front of it, (or his shadow would be on the wall). You can see the Eddie Grant Memorial to the left and the clubhouses with various plaques and windows above it. I have to tell my eyes to see the club house roof in three dimensions. It’s not flat. It slopes back to that uneven screen. A home run over that screen, (and anything hit below that would not have been a home run), would be 505 feet from home plate. In most close-up pictures of that area I have seen, there is some kind of a tarp over the seats you see right above the club house but in World Series shots there are people sitting there. It’s a very narrow strip of a section as the 60 foot building holding the team offices is directly behind it. In the photograph on page 94 you can see a single person standing in that area after a regular season game. In the Mays shot you can see that the area was used for TV cameras, undoubtedly for the occasion of the World Series.

On page 184 is a better shot. Again, the clubhouse roof looks two dimensional until you tell your eyes that there is a roof there, slanting up to the uneven material covering the fence. The heads of a couple of people are visible in the narrow section behind that fence. That’s where you had to hit it to hit a home run to deepest center, which no one ever did. Again the fans are gathering around the players at the steps leading to the clubhouses. If there is an exit there for the fans to leave the stadium, I don’t see it. No one seems to be going there, wherever it might be. It’s certainly not through the clubhouses. I assume the large area with the bars around it on the clubhouse route is some kind of a ventilation fan.

 

[SWC75]

Ebbets Field



One of the early noted professional teams was the Brooklyn Atlantics, who broke the 92 game winning streak of the Cincinnati Redlegs in 1869, (in the first ever extra inning game, the fans being dissatisfied with a tie), and became one of the top teams in the loosely organized National Association of Baseball Teams in 1871. But they faded from view and there was no Brooklyn team when the National League got organized in 1876. When the American Association was formed in 1883, one of its teams was the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, (the Brooklyn teams have had more nicknames- and more colorful nicknames- than any other), who played in Washington Park near the Gowanus Canal on Third Street and Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. Supposedly George Washington had set up his headquarters there during the Battle of Long Island and so they named the place after him. A fire burned down this park in 1889 but the owner, Charley Byrne, rebuilt the place, increasing the grandstand capacity from 1,000 to 3,000. The team, which had become known as the “Trolleydodgers” after the trolleys that carried people to the stadium, led the league in attendance the next year while winning the pennant. Byrne then jumped to the National League the next year and won the pennant there too, an unprecedented feat.

They also won the competition for the fans of Brooklyn against a hastily organized AA team and a Player’s League team, which played at a place called Eastern Park, on Jamaica Bay. After the Player’s League folded, the Bridegrooms moved into Eastern Park. One book I have says this is where the Trolleydodgers name originated. This same book, (“Green Cathedrals”), calls Eastern Park “the Candlestick of the 1890’s”. It was a cold, windy place to play and despite the larger capacity, the Bridegrooms didn’t draw as well there as they had in Washington Park.

Charles Byrne died in 1898 and Charles Hercules Ebbets, who had started out as a bookkeeper when the franchise began in 1883, became president. He wisely moved the team back to Washington Park to draw more fans. He unwisely appointed himself manager, (he’d never played the game), and the team finished tenth that year, which didn’t help the attendance. He sold part of the team to Ned Hanlon, the owner/manager of the Baltimore Orioles, one of the most successful teams of the time.

In those days, the league allowed “syndicate ownership”, which is not the ownership of a team by a syndicate of owners but rather the ownership of more than one major league team by a single owner or group of owners. This allowed the owner(s) to transfer their best players from one team to another and increase their chances of winning the league. They would usually use the larger ballpark for this, leaving the team with the smaller park to languish. This was eventually outlawed after the 1899 Cleveland Spiders went 19-134, (they would have finished 17 ½ games behind the ’62 Mets). But it was still OK when Hanlon took over the Bridegrooms, who were by now being called the Superbas. He transferred the best players from his Baltimore ballclub there and the results were superb. Brooklyn won the National league pennant in 1899 and 1900. After that, due to aging players and raids by the new American League, they faded out of contention. Hanlon then wanted to move the franchise to Baltimore, (his old team there having gone out of business). Ebbets refused and bought out Hanlon in 1905.

By 1912, Ebbets decided the team needed a new, modern ballpark to compete with the large, concrete and steel stadiums that were then being built all over the country. To finance the project, he again sold part of the team to the McKeever Brothers, building contractors who would create the new park. But Ebbets, who had been quietly buying up a dump in Flatbush named “Pigtown” as a site for the field, insisted it be named after him and so it was. The site, just to the east of Prospect Park, was a block bounded by Bedford Avenue, Sullivan Place, Montgomery Place and a street now to be called McKeever Place.

This park, unlike the Polo Grounds, actually looked like a baseball stadium. The stands encircled the field, rather than just containing it. It had an impressive façade, looking like a department store at the main entrance, (behind home plate), which had a large “Ebbets Field” sign at the top of it. The sign was not, as it sometimes looks in photographs, attached to the top floor of the building. Instead it was on a grid, with an open area behind it. Down each baseline were open stands interrupted only by a series of columns atop a high fence. Inside the main entrance was grand rotunda was “an incredible 80 foot circle enclosed in Italian marble, with a floor tiled with the stitches of a baseball and a chandelier with 12 baseball bat arms holding as baseball-shaped globes. There were 12 turnstiles and 12 gilded ticket windows. The domed ceiling was 27 feet high at its center. There was a large, beautiful bronze plaque on the Rotunda interior wall.” The book this quote is from, “Green Cathedrals”, doesn’t tell what the plaque said. Whatever it said, the new stadium was surely quite a change from “Pigtown”.

The double-decked grandstand curved around home plate and all the way down the right-field line. However, in left field, it extended only 30-40 feet past third base down that line. There were no stands in left or center field when the park opened, making for a rather large playing field. The left field fence, 20 feet high, was 419 feet from the plate down the line. In center the same fence was 450 feet away, almost the distance in the Polo Grounds. However, it was only 301 feet down the right field line and 352 to right center, where the wall was 9 feet high. The capacity was 25,000 people. Unfortunately the original building did not contain a pressbox, an oversight Ebbets made up for by removing two rows of seats behind home plate and roping them off. That wasn’t the only oversight. Nobody brought the key to open the park on Opening Day and it had to be sent for. Then the flag-raising ceremony was basically ruined by the fact that nobody had remembered to bring a flag, either, (they eventually found one).

The Dodgers had good success in this new park, winning pennants in 1916 and 1920 although they lost the World Series to the Red Sox and the Indians. In those days, they were often called the “Robins”, after their manager, Wilbert Robinson, Hanlon’s old catcher from his Baltimore Orioles days. Just as another ex-Oriole, John McGraw, became the long time, (1902-32), manager of the Giants, Robinson lent his image and personality to the Robins, (1914-31). After 1920 they fell into a sort of comical mediocrity. They were a second division, (5th-8th) team 14 times from 1921-38, before Leo Durocher was named their manager.

They became famous for their comical ineptitude, just as their successors, the Mets would decades later. Their star, Babe Herman once supposedly had a fly ball bounce off his head, (he spent his life denying it). In a 1926 baserunning disaster, three Robins wound up on third base at the time, causing many a vaudeville comedian, when told that Brooklyn had three men on base, to ask “Which base?” The team became noted for its fans, including Abie the truck driver, who patrolled the upper deck along the left field stands, calling the players “bums”. Robinson offered a free season’s pass to Abie if he would stop his heckling but after a couple quiet days, he could stand it no longer and returned the pass, saying “They’re still bums!”. The team had another nickname. Then there was Hilda Chester, who rang a cowbell constantly from the center field stands. Eddie Battan rooted for the Dodgers in his white pith helmet and Jack Pierce released balloons with his favorite player’s names on them. But the most famous fans were Jack, “Shorty” Laurice, Jerry Martin, Jo Jo Delio, Paddy Palma and Phil Cacavalle, who made up the Dodger “sym-phoney”, a lovably awful band that played throughout the game. Their music has been described as “a herd of elephants with whooping cough”. It was said they made up for their lack of talent with their enthusiasm. Opposing teams might not agree.

At one point, the actor John Forsythe was the PA announcer but the most famous Ebbets Field announcer was John “Tex” Rickard, who was famous for his malapropisms, such as “A little boy has been found lost”. Once, when fans put their brightly colored coats over the left field railing, batters complained it was a distraction. Rickard announced: “Will the fans behind the rail in left field please remove their clothing?” Then there was Gladys Gooding, the organist who played show tunes, (when she could be heard over the sym-phoney), that seemed to punctuate the action. She played “Follow the Dodgers” when the team took the field, “Mexican Hat Dance” to get the fans clapping and “This Nearly Was Mine” after a loss. She both played and sang the national anthem before each game. She later became the answer to another great sports trivia question, being the only person who played for the Dodgers, the Knicks and the Rangers. It was also said she played for the Dodgers for 17 years and never made an error.

In 1926, the grandstand was extended around the left field foul line and in 1931 all the way to center field. This turned the place into a “bandbox” type park, with the outfield distances now became 348 down the left field line, 365 to left center and 389 feet to center field, probably the shortest center field fence in major league history. The right field fence was rebuilt, allegedly because Babe Herman, the Dodger slugger of the time, broke too many windows across Bedford Avenue. It was now 297 feet down the line, with a huge scoreboard that jutted out 5 feet from the fence and a 38 foot wall that was concrete for the first 19 feet and screening the top 19 feet, with a ledge at the top of the concrete. Besides that, the bottom section was “bent”, rising on an incline for 9.5 feet before going straight up. The Dodgers’ first right fielder was none other than Casey Stengel, who 40 years later took a young Mickey Mantle out there and explained how to play a ball off a concave fence. Mantle seemed amazed that he knew anything about it: had Casey ever played the game? Stengel grumbled to reporters: He thinks I was born 60!”

There was an even more vexing problem in deepest center, which was often in play due to its short distance. The stands did not quite fit together there, resulting in a little three-sided cubbyhole. There was almost no foul territory because the stands were built so close to the field. The bullpens were simply a pitcher’s mound and plate along the right and left field lines. Unlike the Polo Grounds where the pitchers could warm up in relative safety because they were 455 feet from home plate, here they were perhaps 250 feet from home plate and an extra player was sent down there with them, (besides the catcher), to stand behind him and warn him if balls were being hit his way. Eventually, in 1929, a permanent press box was built under the upper deck behind home plate.

The park was also famous for its many colorful billboards, the most famous of which was for Abe Stark’s tailor shop at the base of the right field scoreboard. It read “Hit Sign, Win Suit”. Stark rarely had to pay off as it was at the base of the wall and first Pete Reiser, then Dixie Walker, then Carl Furillo protected the front of it, all great fielders. Columnist Dick Young mentioned that those fellows had saved Abe a lot of money over the years and maybe Stark should make Furillo, the current resident of right field a suit. Stark made good on that request, in exchange for a half dozen autographed baseballs. Stark became so famous through his sign that he eventually got elected Borough President of Brooklyn. The there was the Schaefer Beer sign at the top of the scoreboard indicated hits or errors by having the “h” or the first “e” light up.

That scoreboard had a large clock above it. On May 30, 1946, a drive by Bama Rowell of the Braves broke that clock. Brooklyn native Bernard Malamud later incorporated a similar event in his book, “The Natural”. In the early 40’s Lonnie Frey of the Reds hit a ball that hit the screen in right and rolled down to the top of the concrete fence, where there was that small ledge. It kept bouncing around while the poor right fielder, (probably Walker), waited for it to roll off the top of the fence so he could field it. It never did and Frey got an inside the park home run. Pee Wee Reese got a similar four-bagger on 10/1/50 in the game against the Phillies that would decide the pennant, (Dick Sisler hit a homer in extra innings to win it for the visitors).

They say that if you are number two, you try harder. When you are #3, (in stadium size and initial success, at least), you try even harder than that. The Dodgers were the first New York City team to broadcast their games over the radio, (hiring Red Barber in 1938), the first to have night baseball, (the night of Johnny Vander Meer’s second no-hitter for the Reds that year), and the first to televise a game, (Barber doing the commentary), in 1939. A less successful innovation was yellow baseballs, which supposedly could be easier seen than white. But the players and fans disliked them. The ultimate innovation, of course, came when the Dodgers singed Jackie Robinson to break the color line in 1946. Several of the early black stars of the major leagues played in Brooklyn, including Robinson, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe and Joe Black. The Dodgers swiftly became the favorite team of the nation’s blacks. Meanwhile, Ebbets Field, located in the “Borough of the Churches”, became known as “The Cathedral of the Underdog”

These innovations were the ideas of two magnificent egoists who got control of the ballclub. Larry McPhail came over from Cincinnati in 1938 and was replaced by Branch Rickey when McPhail entered the Army in 1942. Perhaps McPhail’s biggest innovation was giving Leo Durocher his first managerial job, (he was also their starting short stop until Pee Wee Reese showed up in 1940). Under Leo’s guidance, the Dodgers won their first pennant in 1941with 100 wins. The next year they finished second to the Cardinals but won 104 games, the second most the Dodgers have ever won, (the Cardinals went 106-48, the Dodgers 104-50). After the war, they lost a playoff to the Cardinals in 1946, won pennants in 1947 and 1949, lost to the Phillies in the final regular season game in 1950, lost the playoff to the Giants on Bobby Thompson’s home run in 1951. They then won pennants in 1952 and 1953, winning a franchise record 105 games the latter year. But all those pennant winners played the Yankees in the World Series and all of them lost. The Dodgers finally broke through with a win over the Yankees in 1955 but lost to them again the next year. Durocher had left the team after a suspension for accusing McPhail, who as now a co-owner of the Yankees, of associating with gamblers, (“Conduct Detrimental to Baseball). Burt Shotton replaced him, Charley Dressen replaced Shotton and then Walter Alston replaced Dressen. All were successful, each winning at least one pennant. Integration and the farm system Rickey built up, on the Cardinal’s model, kept fueling the Dodger’s success.

Walter O’Malley had taken over the ownership in 1950 and fired Rickey. His Dodgers continued to have great success on the field but, despite the reputation of the wildly devoted Brooklyn fans, attendance at the old park declined throughout the 50’s. The reason was the increasing reliance on the automobile. The park had been built where it was because no less than 9 trolley lines could bring people to that location. But when people started suing their cars to go places, the stadium became obsolete. O’Malley actually tried to resolve the problem by getting a new stadium built. One proposal, by Buckminster Fuller, was a 55,000 seat domed stadium at Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, north of Prospect Park. That would have been a quantum leap from cozy little Ebbets Field. But that fell through and so did every other proposal to save the Dodgers. Eventually, O’Malley decided to move the team to Los Angeles and convinced Horace Stoneham to move the Giants to San Francisco. Both teams played their last games in their old stadiums in September, 1957. Ebbets Field was demolished to make way for the Ebbets Field Apartments in 1960 and the Polo Grounds followed four years later.



The most interesting views of Ebbets Field in “Summer at the Ball Park” can be found on the following pages:

On Page 24, a cop is chasing a gate crasher through the concourse behind the stands at Ebbets Field during the 1947 World Series. He never caught him, according to the caption.

Page 47 shows the main entrance with the Ebbets Field sign above the rotunda and the columns down the right field line, behind the stands. Too bad there are no shots of the Rotunda itself. There aren’t any in any of my books.

On Page 51 we see a rare shot of the area behind home plate at Ebbets, taken from the center field seats. You can see the precarious-looking pressbox hanging from underneath the upper deck. On the next page you see additional press boxes below the roof on the upper deck and along the third base line.

Page 78, again, is the aerial shot showing all the parking problems. It also shows how close the fans were to the action, compared to the Polo Grounds on the next page, as well as the limited foul territory. You can make out the bullpen pitcher’s mounds with their twin rubbers in the corners, just in foul territory down both lines. You can also see the open area behind the large “Ebbets Field” sign over the main entrance.

On pages 98-99 we see the many colorful billboards along the left field fence. Page 134 also has a good shot of the left field billboards.

Page 100 shows the “cubbyhole”, (my term), in centerfield where the left-center bleachers, built after the rest of the ballpark, awkwardly meet the right-center wall. Note the small fenced in area on top of the second wall of the cubbyhole. It seems to have a few balls in it, along the fence, perhaps deposited there by Duke Snider, who is seen whirling like a dervish trying to keep up with the various bounces of the ball, which is presently located behind him, under the 376FT. sign. The positioning of the cubbyhole can be seen in the photo on page 166.

Page 115 shows the left and centerfield stands at Ebbets but the real interest lies in the contraption in the center of the picture. This is how pitcher’s speed was measured before there were JUGS guns. Bob Feller points out that you had to throw a strike back then to get measured at all. Now you can throw it over everybody’s head and if it’s 100 miles and hour, that’s your rating. Maybe they need to bring the “cathode ray oscillograph” back.

Page 131 shows the area behind home plate. Note what appears to be a plate behind the catcher’s head. With a magnifying glass I was able to find what appear to be two plates- or a plate and a rubber- behind home plate along the fence on page 78. This may be where starting pitchers warmed up before the game.

Pages 162 and 165 show a good view of the concave wall in right field. Page 165 also shows the scoreboard with the Abe Stark sign and the Schaefer sign, (note the different looking letters “h” and “e”).

Page 164 shows a good shot down the left field line. Note how close the fans are and look at the tight little corner in left field. Page 166 has a nice shot from the roof behind the plate. The batter in the page 164 shot is Joe Adcock. You hear all the time how well Stan Musial did at Ebbets Field but even he never had a series like the one Adcock had from July 30 to August 1st, 1954. On 7/30, he had three hits: a homer a double and a single. On 7/31 he hit 4 home runs off of four different pitchers and a double to set a record with 18 total bases. On 8/1 he hit a double and then got beaned and carried off the field on a stretcher. Them was the days.

Page 178 shows Ebbets Field being “fogged out” in one of its final season games.

Page 188 shows the field in ruins during demolition.

Page 159: The Trill of Victory. Page 105: The Agony of Defeat.

 

[SWC75]

Yankee Stadium



The history of New York City baseball is inextricably bound with the city of Baltimore and the Orioles. The Mets won their famous series against the Orioles. The Brooklyn Dodgers imported the top players from the Baltimore Orioles of the 1890’s and won a couple of pennants with them. Ex-Orioles John McGraw and Wilbert Robinson became the long-time managers of the Giants and Dodgers, respectively. Of course, Babe Ruth was a native of Baltimore. And the team he played for was once known as the Baltimore Orioles.

When the American league was formed in 1901, its President, Ban Johnson, wanted to put teams in all the major cities. When the National league had abandoned the city or had changed the name of their team there, the new league named their team after the old one to try to draw away its fans. The Chicago Cubs were originally the Chicago White Stockings. So Johnson put a team in Chicago called the White Sox, (in the new parlance). The team that became the Boston Braves was originally the Boston Red Stockings. So the American League created the Boston Red Sox. The St. Louis Cardinals were the St. Louis Browns before they changed their colors. So the new league created a new St. Louis Browns. The owner of the New York Giants, Andrew Freedman, however was politically connected, (Tammany Hall), and prevented Johnson from establishing a team in New York.

In Baltimore, the Orioles had gone out of business when Ned Hanlon transferred their best players to his new team in Brooklyn. So Johnson created a new Baltimore Orioles team for the American league. It wasn’t very good so it didn’t draw much and in 1903 Johnson decided to find a way to move the team to New York.

He sold the team to some front men who were actually working for “Big Bill” Devery, one of Manhattan’s biggest gamblers and Frank Farrell, owner of 250 pool halls. These men were as well connected politically as the Giant’s new owner, John T. Brush. They found a lot on the banks of the Hudson River, northwest of the Polo Grounds between 165th and 168th street and Broadway and Fort Washington Avenue. (looking at the photocopy of the picture of Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds I have included, Hilltop Park, if it had not been torn down, would have been directly in line with the two ballparks at the river’s edge at the top of the picture). They rented this land from the New York Institute for the Blind, (which should have given them an unlimited supply of umpires). This was the highest spot on Manhattan Island, with a fine view of the Hudson River and the New Jersey Palisades. It was decided to call the place Hilltop Park and the team the New York Highlanders.

In the dead ball era, when nobody thought in terms of home runs, the distances didn’t matter much. Hilltop Park had a centerfield fence that was 542 feet away, (the Red Sox at that time played in the Huntington Avenue Grounds where center field was a astonishing 635 feet away!). It was 365 down the left field line and 400 down the right field line. There was also a swampy area in right field that had not been properly drained. At first they simply roped it off and it was ground rule double if the ball was hit beyond the rope. Then they tried constructing a wooden platform over it. Finally they just indented the fence around it. This, however was often obscured as the management, for big games, allowed fans to sit in the outfield, where they could watch the game behind ropes. The normal capacity of the park was 16,000 but in some games, 30,000 fans were in attendance.

The lease ran out after 10 seasons. The Yankees had rented Hilltop to the Giants when the Polo Grounds burned down in 1911 and the Giants returned the favor by allowing the Yankees to co-habit their park, a cozy arrangement that lasted another ten years. Hilltop Park was torn down and replaced, for a time by a Tabernacle put up by ex-major leaguer Billy Sunday, the leading evangelist of the day. Eventually the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital was constructed on the site.

It was decided that since the team was no longer in Hilltop Park, the name “Highlanders” was outmoded. A contest was run to find a new team nickname. The winner was “The Yankees”. But the Yankees were just as mediocre as the Highlanders had been and the Giants consistently outdrew them. The team was sold by Devery and Farrell to “Colonels” Tillinghast L’Hommedeau Huston and Jacob Ruppert in 1915. Ruppert bought Huston out in 1923 to become the sole owner. Before that he had spent a big chunk of their money to obtain the services of Mr. George Herman Ruth, originally, as the Yankees were, a native of Baltimore. He promptly started shattering home run records while the Yankees won their first three pennants in his second, third and fourth years. Meanwhile John McGraw’s Giants were winning pennants in all those years as well, (they won 4 in a row from 1921-24). Those first two years, the entire World Series was played in the Polo Grounds and the Giants won both series, the second a sweep.

But McGraw wasn’t happy. With Ruth hitting all those home runs, an abomination of the “inside baseball” game McGraw had always advocated, the Yankees for the first time began outdrawing their landlords. McGraw wanted them out. “If we kick them out, they won’t be able to find another location on Manhattan Island. They’ll have to move to the Bronx or Long Island. The fans will forget about them and they’ll be through.” A mildly inaccurate assessment.

The two colonels first looked at a lot in Long Island City, Queens, then made a deal for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Grounds in Upper Manhattan which fell through when the shocked trustees found out that alcohol would be sold and consumed on the grounds. “Colonel Huston, who was an engineer and architect then devised a plan to build a stadium over the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks at Eighth Avenue and 32ed Street

The Pennsy was willing but…just as the deal was about to be closed, the War Department stepped in and killed it. The space was to be reserved indefinitely for anti-aircraft gun emplacements.” (This is from “Diamonds”.) One has to wonder why the War Department was concerned about anti-aircraft guns in 1923 when they were telling Billy Mitchell that aircraft weren’t much of a weapon.

Finally they found a ten acre plot deliciously just across the Harlem River from the Polo Grounds in a corner of the William Waldorf Astor estate. That sounds grand but actually the site was a lumberyard surrounded by a huge rock field. The virtues of the site were the excellent bedrock and the many roads that ran by the place. The Colonels wanted to build the largest stadium in America, topping the Polo Grounds, and, indeed, Yankee Stadium was the first edifice in this country to be called a “stadium”. The White Construction Company excavated 25,000 cubic yards of earth to lay the foundation, then used 45,000 cubic yards of dirt to grade the site. They put up 2,200 tons of structural steel and 3,000,000 board feet of lumber to form 28,000 cubic yards of concrete reinforced by 8000 tons of steel. 116,000 square feet of sod was used to top the playing field. 950,000 board feet of fir brought in via the Panama Canal were used to construct the bleachers. 400,000 pieces of maple and 135,000 individual steel casings and more than a million brass screws were used to construct 58,000 seats. The job was done in only 284 working days to be ready for the opening of the 1923 season.

There was a plan for completely enclosing the park, much in the style of stadiums created decades later but this was dropped in favor of having the three concrete decks, (this was the first three decker stadium in America as well), which extended down to the right and left field corners, (as can be seen in the photograph of the two ballparks I have included with this write-up- it was taken four days after Yankee Stadium opened). In the winter of 1927-28, the three decks were extended around the right field corner, increasing the capacity to 67,000. A unique cooper façade was built around the roof of the three decks, which added to the stadium’s grandeur and became a trademark.

The original dimensions of the park were 280 feet down the left field line, 460 feet to left center, 490 feet to deepest center, 429 feet to right center and 295 feet down the right field line. When the 1928 alterations were made, the distance down the left field line was increased to 301 feet, still rather small compared to modern parks. There were no monuments in center field but there was a flagpole. It was 25 feet in front of a trapezoid that went back to 490 feet. Originally, there was a cinder track around the stadium, put there for the bicycle races that were all the rage at the time. This was hedge against the considerable investment- to give the Colonels and additional source of revenue. It wasn’t needed and disappeared after a few years. The foul area was extensive behind home plate but narrow down the lines. In 1937, the outfield fence was redone, with the centerfield wall being brought in to 461 feet and the flagpole moved to 10 feet inside of that. That year Joe DiMaggio caught a Hank Greenberg drive on the other side of the flagpole. Willie Mays was not the only centerfielder who knew how to go and get the ball.

The first monument was constructed in 1932 to honor Miller Huggins, the Yankee’s manager through most of the 20’s, under the flagpole. It was later joined by monuments to Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth in 1941. According to “Green Cathedrals”, “Casey Stengel once watched a long drive to center go past his center fielder and rattle around behind the monuments while his outfielder had trouble picking it up. Finally Casey yelled ‘Ruth! Gehrig! Huggins! SOMEBODY! Throw that darned ball in here now!” Green Cathedrals also says that the 461 foot mark, which was to the right of the flagpole and monuments, was not really in deepest center field, which was not actually measured and may have been as far from home plate as 475 or even 480 feet, which would make it almost as far as the clubhouse in the Polo Grounds.

The new park was called “The House That Ruth Built” because his popularity made it possible and even necessary. However, the park was not necessarily favorable to him, even if the right field stands were also known as “Ruthville.” Playing in the Polo Grounds in 1920-22, Ruth hit 75 home runs at home and 73 on the road. In the first three years in Yankee Stadium he hit 54 home runs at home and 58 on the road. This includes the times of his “bellyache” and his suspension for barnstorming. In 1926-28 he hit 80 home runs at home and 81 on the road. All told, in 12 seasons in Yankee stadium the Babe hit 259 homers at home and 252 on the road. The right field stands were also sometimes known as “Gehrigville” but Big Lou hit only 9 more homers at home than on the road in his career, (251-242), all of it as a Yankee in the Yankee Stadium era. Joe DiMaggio, a righthanded batter, was much more affected by the stadium, hitting only 148 of his 361 homers there. Mickey Mantle hit 266 home runs at home and 270 on the road. One player who was clearly helped out by the dimensions of the stadium was Yogi Berra, who had had the opposite of DiMaggio’s numbers almost exactly, 210 at home and 148 on the road. I don’t have Roger Maris’ full numbers but people might be surprised that in his two MVP years, 1960-61, he had 43 home runs at home and 57 on the road, (these numbers courtesy of Bill James’ 1984 Baseball Abstract). In 1965 Charley Finley, claiming that the Yankees won all those pennants because of their short right field fence, constructed a small bleacher area in Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium, which he called the “Pennant Porch”, the front of which was 296 feet from home plate. The A’s didn’t win any pennants with it and the Commissioner ordered it torn down. My theory is that the greatest home run hitters were spray hitters, not pull hitters, with the power to hit it out to all fields and that a short right field fence was more than offset by “Death Valley” in left. If the Yankees wanted to help out their greatest sluggers, they would have been better advised to use more conventional distances.

During the 1937 renovation, two auxiliary scoreboards were put on the right and left field fences: you can see the right field score board in the famous shot of Don Larsen throwing the last pitch in his 1956 perfect game. Yankee Stadium was the only one of the three New York City ballparks where an outfielder had a shot at robbing someone of a home run, as Al Gionfriddo did to Joe DiMaggio in the 1947 series, (a play which for some reason does not appear in “Summer in the City”). The uneven fence ranges from 4-13 feet at various locations. The main scoreboard was a large box-like structure in right field with a clock in a vertical extension slightly off-center and a large “Ballantine Beer” sign below it. Passengers on an elevated train running beyond the center field bleachers could get a quick view of the game or, if they got off at the local train station, could climb on the roof and watch the game.

The Ballpark Book says “Early Yankee Stadium commanded a reverence that differentiated it from other arenas of its generation. Whereas Ebbets Field, located across the East River in Brooklyn was known for its rollicking fun and zany characters, visitors to Yankee Stadium behaved with a more reserved dignity, a “we’re better than you” arrogance supported by the quiet, businesslike manner in which their team went about winning pennants and championships. Ebbets was a cozy home-style ballpark; Yankee Stadium was a massive corporate-minded stadium.” The team, however, was nice enough to allow the same fans to come on the field after the game and walk to a center field exit to leave so they could get a taste of what it was like to be on the field. (Judging from the pictures, the Giants may have had the same arrangement but I still don’t see where the exit is.

However, the Yankees were not above a little chicanery. When Jimmie Foxx complained that the fans in center field made it difficult to see the ball coming out of the pitcher’s hand, the Yankee’s created the first “hitter’s background”, a green curtain that could be raised or lowered as the occasion demanded. The occasion for raising it was when the Yankees were batting. The occasion for lowering it was when the opposition was batting- or if a Yankee hit a long drive that had a chance to go out, (which was exceedingly rare at that distance). It was finally removed to create more seats for the World Series. But it was probably the inspiration for Bill Veeck’s later innovation in Cleveland, where he created an outfield fence that could be hydraulically moved in and out depending on who was at bat. The Commissioner didn’t think much of that, either.

There has been a historical debate about whether anyone has ever hit fair ball out of Yankee Stadium. The fact that no one has even alleged that Babe Ruth ever did in his dozen years there illustrates how difficult such a feat would be. Mickey Mantle is said to have come the closest, with a shot that bounced off the right field façade at a spot about 360 feet from home plate but 108 feet up, (and still rising). He missed hitting it over the roof by about 6 inches.

Negro League fans have claimed for years that their hero, Josh Gibson, hit a ball fair and over the left field pavilion just inside the foul pole at the 301 foot mark. This is supposed to have taken place in 1934, according to Green Cathedrals and three different Negro League veterans at a 1982 convention claimed to have seen it. However, in the book “Josh Gibson: A Life in the Negro Leagues” by William Brashler, the leading source for this story is Jack Marshall of the Chicago American Giants, who said he had played in the first game of a four team doubleheader and was in the stands to watch the second. However published box scores for the only two such events played that year in Yankee Stadium do not show any home runs hit by anybody in the games involving Gibson’s team, much less Josh himself. Judy Johnson, who played third place for the Crawfords, was quoted as saying “Josh hit the only ball I ever read of that went out of Yankee Stadium.” Cool Papa Bell was their center fielder and later said he heard Josh had hit one out of Yankee Stadium after he left the Crawfords. He was with them the entire 1934 season. It’s understandable that Negro Leaguers and their fans would want their answer to Ruth to have achieved something that Ruth could not do.

Mantle himself said he saw someone hit a fair ball out of the stadium- and it wasn’t him. It was the later 60’s and the Yankees were playing the Senators, with both teams near the bottom of the standings late in the year, just playing out the string. Frank Howard hit a drive that went out of the park, just inside the left field foul pole. Roy White agreed, saying he didn’t move a muscle when the ball was hit but just looked up to see how far it would go. Both he and Mantle remember hundreds of fans combing the left field third deck looking for the ball and not finding it. It was a foggy day and the umpire ruled the ball foul. The Yankees were not going to argue and the Senators, just wanting the season to end, didn’t either. Green Cathedrals points out that neither Gibson’s alleged drive or Howard’s shot, (both of which supposedly went out at about the same spot), are as impressive as Mantle’s shot, which was father out into fair territory and which some estimate would have gone 620 feet.

For the 1976 renovation, the grandstand was rebuilt without all the supports that were necessary in 1923. The fences were moved out to 312 in left and 310 in right and in to 430 in deep left, 417 in center and 385 in deep right, with the monuments now in “monument park”, which also contains tributes to Ruppert, his first GM, Ed Barrow, DiMaggio, Mantle, Stengel, Joe McCarthy, Thurman Munson and two Popes, who had visited the place: Paul VI and John Paul II. The fences were further adjusted in 1988 to 318 in left, 314 in right, 399 in deep left and 408 in centerfield, making Yankee Stadium for the first time similar to the dimensions in most major league parks. The façade was moved from the grandstand to the center field bleachers, although it is not the same facade, being made of plastic, rather than cooper. As The Ballpark Book says: “They are illusions that mask what is really a facsimile of the old Stadium”

Mike Lupica wrote: “It is such a sad baseball thing to see Yankee Stadium getting smaller and smaller somehow with each new season…There was a time you could stand at home plate and look out at the monuments and they would be so far out there it seemed like the next stop on the #4 train.” George Vecsey wrote: “The new breed of players feel like tourists visiting a temple in Egypt or an amphitheater in the old Roman Empire or the Chan Dynasty statue in Vietnam, only able to wonder what it was like when the warriors and the high priests and the performers and the people were in their glory years.” We can see that in “Summer in the City”

The most interesting views of Yankee Stadium in “Summer in the City” can be seen on the following pages:



On the title pages, we see a panorama of the stadium taken from the centerfield bleachers. You can see the narrowness of foul territory down the lines, the lowness of the walls in right and left. But look at the curve of the wall in left field, to the right of the picture. Instead of curving toward the camera it flies right out of the picture. That’s the “death valley” that Joe DiMaggio faced each time he came to the plate.

Page 14 shows the gentle slope of the Yankee Stadium bleachers. In “Diamonds” the author says “The old ballparks had gradual rakes, a nautical term taken from the slant or incline from the vertical, as a ship’s mast. Architects spent much of the 1970’s and 1980’s designing grandstands that had steeper rakes because they were built without supporting posts.”

Page 21 shows the peculiar idea of “SRO” at the stadium. This is what happens when 73,000 people show up at a stadium that seats 67,000.

On page 29 we see a shot of left field taken from the first base line. Note how rapidly it recedes from the 301 mark in the corner. On page 144 we see this area from a closer perspective, with Sandy Amoros making his famous catch in the 1955 series in front of the foul pole. On page 40 we see the same fence in the background, farther down, next to the bullpen game. Here it is 402 feet away. That gate is where Al Gionfriddo caught DiMaggio’s ball in the ’47 series.

On page 42 we see the Steve Bartman’s of the era managing to allow Jack Phillips of the Yankees to catch a foul pop. Compare the height of that fence to the height of the wall of the Polo Grounds as seen on page 71

Page 49 shows the right field auxiliary scoreboard, often shown with Don Larson on the mound, making his last pitch with all those zeros behind him. A shot of Larson pitching that game is on page 160 and also the back cover. This shows the first pitch of that game. It also shows the deepest part of the stadium in back of him, the 457 foot sign, the flagpole and the Huggins, Gehrig and Ruth Monuments. The 461 mark was to the right of the picture but, according to “Green Cathedrals”, the actual deepest part of the stadium was right behind the flag and monuments and may have been as far as 480 feet away.

Pages 62-63 have two interesting shots. According to the captions, they appear to be of the same play but the first shot looks like a day game and the second like a night game. The difference is the exposures, obviously. The photographer of the second shot must be just out of the first shot to the left, looking down the third base line. The background of the hulking grandstand affects the shot as well. Notice how close a photographer would get to the action on the field in the days before the zoom lens. In some shots, (pages 101, 122, 125 and 164 are good examples), you see squares or circles next to the baselines that appear to be in the wrong spot for an on deck circle or coach’s box. I suspect they may have been designated areas where photographers were permitted to place themselves to get an action shot.

Page 76 shows Mickey Mantle attempting to rob Eddie Robinson of the White Sox of a home run in the right field corner, (Joe DiMaggio was still in center). Again, it shows the shortness of the fence compared to the Polo Grounds, (page 71) and Ebbets Field, (page 165).

Page 86 shows the center field bleachers looking from the right field corner. It shows the sharp corner behind the flag pole. That’s where the distance may have been 480 feet. It also shows a small band playing in front of the pole. Presumably this is before the game, not during it!

Page 104 has a shot of the main scoreboard behind the centerfield bleachers. My cousin Larry, when he leafed through the book, noticed the beer signs first, (including Ballantine, here). I guess he’s tried most of them in his time.

Page 116 is an overhead shot of Yankee Stadium, a sort of companion piece to the shots of Ebbetts Field and the Polo Grounds on pages 78-79, although this was taken two years later. Note that the parking seems better organized. No one is parking on the streets. You can see the wide warning track that still circumnavigates the field. The dimensions of the field are hard to see due to the shadows but note how the left field fence curves out from the foul pole rather than heading straight for center. Note that the stadium has solid walls all the way around and is a building, rather than just a ballpark. You can see extensive foul territory behind the plate that narrows to nothing part of the way down the third base line.

Joe DiMaggio, long retired, watches the 1957 World Series from a corner of the grandstand behind and to the left of home plate on page 186. Again note all the foul territory at that spot. See how the outfield fence rises in the background from 4 to 13 feet. Over Joe’s left shoulder we can see where Gibson’s and Howard’s home runs supposedly went out. You can see that the right field grandstand extended farther out into fair territory than the left field grandstand and Mantle’s 1963 homer almost went over that.