May 2016

Elegy for Ebbets

by Michael Steinberg

2002: Two years ago last spring I was in Minneapolis on a Saturday night, looking for something to do. It was early April, a cold, drizzly evening. The writing conference was over, and my plane didn’t take off until the next morning.

“Let’s go see the Twins and the Orioles,” my colleague, Tom Romano, says. “Ripkin’s only three away from his three thousandth. Maybe it’ll happen tonight.”

“Are you kidding?” I say. It’s 35 degrees out there.”

Tom reminds me that the Metrodome’s an indoor stadium. This perks me up a bit. As a kid I used to haunt major league ball parks. When I was 13, my dad and I visited every National League stadium, beginning with the three in New York and ending up in St. Louis. Back then, there were only eight teams in each league.
So it’s not unusual that I lost some passion for baseball when all the domed, Astro turf stadiums were built. Tonight, in fact, will be the first time I’ve ever been inside one.

***

I grew up in New York in the 1950s, an era, according to Roger Kahn, “when the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants ruled the world.” Hyperbole aside, baseball may not have ruled the world, but it surely was a city-wide religion. And its three ball parks were our houses of worship.

Each of the three — Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds, and Ebbets Field were shoe-horned into surrounding neighborhoods. And each had its own idiosyncratic character. The left and right field foul lines at the Stadium were less than 300 feet from home plate, while the left center and right field powers alleys were over 400 feet away. The Polo Grounds was shaped like a horseshoe and had even shorter foul lines — 279 down the left field line, and 257 in right field — while the clubhouse in dead center was almost 500 feet from the plate. Both parks had seating capacities of over 50,000.

But to me, Ebbets was the most alluring of the three. A 32,000-seat bandbox of a park set in the heart of Flatbush, it radiated a cozy intimacy and a quirky ambiance that the others lacked. From the center field bleachers, you could hear left fielder “Shotgun” Shuba yell to center fielder Duke Snider, “I got it, Duke;” and from the upper deck behind first, you could see the grimace on Jackie Robinson’s face as he went head-to-head with umpire Jocko Conlon.

At Ebbets the double-decker grandstand in center field dramatically jutted away to a 40-foot high black concrete scoreboard that extends to a 10-foot vertical screen. Our right fielder, Carl Furillo, “the Reading Rifle,” knew how to play every carom off that wall. Then there was the (seeming) ease with which Duke Snider could crank rainbow home runs over the huge scoreboard.

***

Our cab approaches the Metrodome. Through the mist the stadium looks like a gigantic parachute. Like most domed parks, it’s a generic, multi-purpose structure that houses college and professional football, as well as basketball and rock concerts. Still, I feel a twinge of anticipation when I step up to the outside ticket kiosk and ask for the two best field boxes between home and first. It kicks me back in time to the moment when I bought my first set of tickets at Ebbets Field.

***

My throat tightens with anticipation when the five of us approach the rotunda entrance to the old gray concrete and steel park at 55 Sullivan Place, on the corner of Franklin Avenue. “I’ll get the tickets” I said to my pals. I felt so grown-up, so important, when I stepped up to the General Admission window and squinted through the wire mesh screen where the chubby, bald-headed ticket seller perched. He was wearing a green see thru visor and puffing on a stinky cigar.

Knowing the other guys were watching, I barked out “Gimme your five best general admissions, upper deck between third and home. And not behind a post, okay?”

The guy blows stale cigar smoke in my face, and without looking up he fanned the orange tickets like a deck of cards and pulls four from the middle. “That’ll be six and a quarter, Jack. Step up, pal, who’s next?” he barked, as he slid a small white envelope beneath the wire screen. For a buck and a quarter apiece, we got four upper deck seats, third row, right between third and home.

“These are fantastic. How’d you get ‘em?” asked Heshie.
“Man, I told you I know how to handle ticket guys” I said.

I was 12 when I saw Ebbets Field for the first time. When my four friends, Heshie, Kenny, Sugar, Billy and I passed through the third base portal, I surveyed the field for a long moment, entranced by what I saw: emerald green, manicured grass surrounding a smooth, tan/brown infield; powdered sugar foul lines and chalky, white-wash bases; the imposing right field scoreboard; and multi-colored outfield billboards advertising “Abe Stark: Hit This Sign and Win a Suit,” and “Fill ‘er up with Tydol, ‘Flying ’A.” It was as if I’d stepped through the Looking Glass.

As Ebbets filled up, you could hear the lazy hum and buzz of the pre-game crowd, smell the pungent odor of Schaefer beer, munch on a brown bag of Planter’s salted peanuts, and witness the counter man casually tossing Harry M. Stevens’ hot dogs into a huge bubbling vat.

Then I’d watch, transfixed, as the Dodgers played “pepper” and took pre-game batting practice. From any section of the stands, you’d hear a solid “thwack” as wooden bats connected with horsehide baseballs. The echo reverberated throughout the canyons of the slowly filling ball park. While outside on Bedford Avenue, scruffy neighborhood kids with old leather mitts, camped under the scoreboard, waiting to scramble for batting practice “dingers.”

Throughout pre-game warm-ups, the five of us kept up a steady stream of chatter: quoting stats, playing baseball initials, arguing with neighboring fans about the new pennant race, and reliving “classic” Dodger games from the past. Heshie mentioned Bobby Thomson’s homer. It jump-started me back to that early October afternoon last fall. I was at Hebrew School recess when I heard the news. For the rest of the lesson, I sat under a tree and cried. Even my teacher, Arthur Hoffman, couldn’t coax me inside.

While the others swapped stories, I was remembering an early June afternoon when my dad picked up my brother Alan and me at school, and took us to a day game against the Cubs. It was Alan’s first time at Ebbets. For the first few innings he was flushed both with the euphoria that comes from witnessing your first big league game, and the rush you feel when you’re playing hooky for the first time. By the fifth inning though, he was bored. While my 7-year-old brother nodded off, Carl Erskine retired the last 12 Cubbies to complete the first live no-hitter I ever saw. I still remember how exhilarated I was on the last play of the game. When Eddie Miksis hit an easy ground ball to Pee Wee Reese, I neatly penciled 6-3 in my scorecard and then jumped to my feet to watch as players and fans headed for the mound to celebrate.

***

All throughout batting practice, we stood with our mitts on behind the box seats between third and home, and sometimes when foul balls bounced crazily off the concrete promenade we wrestled for the prized souvenirs with Bensonhurst hoods — guys who sported greasy D. A. haircuts and wore pegged pants, motorcycle jackets, and black shit kickers.

An hour before the game, we drifted over to the right field bullpen to watch “The Knothole Gang,” WOR-TV’s pre-game show. Wearing a Dodger blue warm-up jacket and cap, Happy Felton, the chubby host, introduced Gil Hodges to the TV audience. Gil grabbed a bat and hit a bunch of easy grounders and pop flies to three kids. They were all about our age, and each wore his Little League baseball uniform. One of them in a baggy, “Brooklyn Kiwanis Club” shirt won an autographed baseball. He also got to go to the dugout with Hodges.

We walked away grousing about the injustice. “How is it those kids get chosen for the show?” Billy asked.
Heshie yelled “Hey Happy Man, when do we get to be on?”

Old Hap looked up and smiled at us. Then he turned away, unclasped his microphone and shuffled his cue cards.

As Dodger players perched on the top step of the dugout, a wave of cheers cascaded down from the upper stands. This lets us know that up in “the old catbird seat” behind home, Red Barber has just announced, “And the Dodgers take the field” to everyone listening in on the radio, or watching on TV. While Gladys Gooding played the National Anthem on the Hammond organ, and Lucy Monroe sang “Oh say can you see…” in her high-pitched soprano, I watched fathers in shirt sleeves and fedoras, and young boys with Dodger caps and two toned, reversible jackets tied around their waists, place their hats in front of their hearts and sing along.

On the field, the players stood silent and still. When they too placed their hats over their hearts, I noticed that Pee Wee’s sandy blond hair was thinning, and that the Duke was prematurely graying.

Then Tex Richart’s voice reverberated over the P.A., “Batting first, first for the Giants, Giants, number nineteen, nineteen, Alvin, Alvin, Dark, Dark, shortstop, shortstop.” The home crowd booed loudly when Dark took his practice cuts with his trademark black bat. And they cheered in unison when Don Newcombe threw a called strike on the games’ first pitch. Once everyone settled in and the game was underway, I sat quietly, scorecard resting in my lap, recording each put-out neatly in pencil. In the Giant’s half of the inning, Bobby Thomson flied out to Duke Snider in center field. I looked over to the press box and I imagined Red Barber telling the radio and TV audience that “Thomson’s inning ending fly ball is just an easy can of corn for the Duke.”

***

I’m jolted from my reverie when the Twins’ ticket booth guy asks me for $52. It takes a few seconds for it to register.

“Fift” I start to say, then stop myself.

“I guess I’ve been away from the game longer than I thought,” I tell Tom as we head up the first base ramp.

***

Sometimes at Ebbets, it was fun just to watch the characters in the stands. In the fifth inning of today’s scoreless tie, old Hilda Chester, a stout, white-haired woman dressed like a rag picker, ran through the stands clanging metal cow bells and leading cheers. We stood up and yelled with everyone else. She was accompanied by the Dodger “Sym-Phony,” a group of rag-tag musicians who were all decked out in tattered tuxedos and stove-pipe hats. I instinctively started tapping my toes as they played tinny, off key Dixieland jazz. And during the seventh inning stretch, Gladys Gooding urged the fans to sing along as she played “Follow the Dodgers,” the team’s theme song. Like a church choir, we all joined in.

On this day, Newcombe and the Dodgers beat their nemesis, Sal Maglie. The game winner was a three run homer by Gil Hodges in the bottom of the seventh. As the ball disappeared over the Brass Rail sign in left center field, people behind me began to shower the lower grandstand with confetti; and all around us we saw grown men and women standing on their seats and hugging one another. When the game ended, the exuberant crowd refused to leave until the team emerged from the dugout to wave their hats at us.

Later, we stood at the third base entrance outside the park and watched the younger kids impatiently waiting for the players to come out. A little blond boy in an over-sized Dodger hat yelled “Hey, there’s Pee Wee and Robbie,” and they all milled around their heroes–thrusting scuffed baseballs, Topps bubble gum cards, and black vinyl autograph books at them. Some players signed for a few minutes, then ducked into touring cars or taxis taking them, I imagine, to exotic Manhattan destinations.

During the hot, crowded subway and bus ride home, we’d keep the glow alive by replaying the day’s highlights to one another — complete with simulated crowd noises and sound effects. Heshie would imitate Red Barber saying “Hodges has just parked one in the left field seats, and that’s all she wrote for Maglie.” Some people applauded. Others looked at us like we’re crazy. I didn’t care: the ticket stub in my pocket made me feel a part of an elite, exclusive club.

***

Once we’re inside the Metrodome, I scan the vast, extravagant structure, searching for familiar landmarks. In place of light towers, thousands of high intensity lights line the stadium’s rim. When I look down at the playing surface, I’m disappointed to see that there’s no infield dirt; the playing field is a huge swatch of green artificial turf. It looks like an immense pool table.

And what about the ambiance? Loud, intrusive rock and roll assaults you from all sides — interrupted by infomercials for local automobile dealers, supermarket chains, and real estate agencies. Each sales pitch is accompanied by an animated graphic that appears simultaneously on the four message boards surrounding the playing field. When we aren’t being hyped by the ads, a prerecorded soundtrack keeps informing us about the souvenirs, hot dogs, peanuts, beer, and soda on sale at the concession stands. As I watch batting practice and infield/outfield drills, I wonder how the players manage to screen out all the noise and distractions. Especially the starting pitchers who are warming up in the bullpens.

Even after the first pitch, the merchandising blitz doesn’t let up. The between inning commercials are timed to play at specific intervals. An overhead blimp drops souvenirs into the crowd every three innings. And every other inning, screaming teen aged girls and boys sprint around the perimeter of the field throwing balled-up Twin’s tee-shirts into the stands. As soon as they’re gone, we get another round of loud music. Sometimes, I notice, it gets piped in between pitches.

“God forbid, they should leave you alone for more than 30 seconds,” I say to Tom.
He laughs. “Yeah, maybe they’re afraid you might watch the game.”
“Not much chance of that happening” I say, as I scan the crowd.

I notice that some fans have brought their electronic toys with them. A teenager two rows in front of us is wearing headphones. A middle aged man with his baseball hat on backwards channel surfs on a palm sized TV. The woman to my left is chatting on her cell phone, while her young son plays video games on his lap-top computer. I wonder if there will be a karaoke contest during the seventh inning stretch — just to see who can do the most outrageous rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

One of the things I used to love about watching baseball was the slow, contemplative pace of the game, especially those quiet interludes between pitches, when you could sit back and savor the circus catch or home run you’ve just witnessed. Or you could talk to the people around you and second-guess, even argue about the managers’ strategies and maneuvers.

Everything here, however, is designed to distract you — to pull your attention away from the game that’s unfolding on the field. And if you miss anything, they’ll show it to you again — and again and again and again— on the giant TV screen in center field. I tell Tom that it feels like we’re conducting a field study of professional baseball at the beginning of the new millennium. And in some ways, we are.

***

I grew up playing sandlot baseball and rooting for the Dodgers. Both were a big piece of my adolescent identity. I wasn’t part of the “in” crowd at school. I was chubby, scared to death of girls, and an undistinguished student. So, naturally I felt a simpatico with this team of hopeful underdogs. “Wait ‘til next year” was the fans’ official mantra. And aptly so. Because until they won their first World Series in ‘55, the Dodgers had lost seven straight to the Yankees.

Throughout high school, from June to early September, Ebbets became my sanctuary–a place where I was happy and secure — where I fit in. As an avid Dodger fan, I belonged to a fraternity of like-minded dreamers.
But that abruptly changed in 1957, when Dodger owner, Walter O’ Malley, announced that the franchise would be moving to Los Angeles. The news seemed to have dropped suddenly from the sky. I felt betrayed, stunned. Just like that, I no longer had a refuge, nor a team to root for.

It was purely by coincidence that I happened to end up in L.A. the year after the Brooklyn Dodgers officially became the L.A. Dodgers. In June of ‘58, my parents moved to Los Angeles, and the next fall I enrolled at UCLA where I pitched freshman baseball and wrote sports for The Daily Bruin.

Two years had passed and I was still angry at the Dodgers. When I left New York, I‘d vowed to friends that I wouldn’t go to see them play. But in April of ‘59, Mike Mandell, a fraternity brother, invited me to opening day. Mike’s father, Harry, a minor studio exec at Universal, had managed to score three field boxes behind the Dodger dugout. I thought it over for a few days before my curiosity got the best of me.

The speeches by city officials, turncoat Dodger brass, and a few Hollywood celebs were pompous and self-serving. And except for Duke Snider, Johnny Podres, Gil Hodges, whose best years were behind them, most of the players I remember had either been traded or had retired. Before the move to L. A., Jackie Robinson was sold to, of all teams, the Giants. I inwardly cheered when Robbie decided to leave the game.

The stadium irked me even more than the ceremony. The Coliseum is a 100,000-seat football palace that in the ‘50s and ‘60s housed three teams; UCLA, USC, and the LA Rams. The Dodgers had temporarily moved here because their new park at Chavez Ravine was still under construction. At the local taxpayers’ expense no less.

For my money, the Coliseum was a spectator’s nightmare. The inner structure is a round, dirty white concrete slab with no tiers, no upper deck, and no backs on the bleacher style seats. Like most football stadiums, the interior is a widening band of concentric circles. The higher you sat on the circle, the further away you were from the game.

And what about these oddities? There was more room in foul territory behind the plate than on the entire left side of the field; and the left field wall was only two hundred and fifty feet away from home plate. A wind-blown fly ball to left stood a chance of drifting over the outfield screen. And because the right side of the field angled out away from the plate, a 400-foot fly ball to left or right center was a routine out.

None of it seemed to bother the fans, though. At first, they acted as if they were charmed by what was happening on the field. Every time a player hit a high pop fly, they cheered like it was a home run. But by the third inning, most of the conversation around me was about movie agents, lunch meetings, and script deals. Nobody talked the old Ebbets Field lingo, and only a handful of people took the trouble to score the game. Some of the Hollywood types in fact, couldn’t seem to figure out what the numbers in the score book meant. I wasn’t even tempted to explain it to her.

“How come the first baseman is wearing number 14, and the program says he’s number 3?” asked a peroxide blonde in pedal pushers and spike heels.

I also took note that there were only a handful of fathers and sons in the crowd. At 19, I was one of the youngest males in attendance. Most of the crowd looked like they’d been shipped over from Central Casting. Many of the older men wore garish, flowered shirts and monogrammed sun visors. Some of the younger ones even brought their surf boards. Several women dressed in gauzy see-through blouses, form-fitting short shorts, and tongs. And I saw a few in halter tops and bikini’s. Every two innings, the celebrity wanna-be’s would preen for the TV cameras; and all throughout the game there was an unbroken flow of traffic to and from the concession stands. By the seventh inning of a one run game, the Coliseum was less than half full. When I left that afternoon, I knew I would not return.

In the fall of ‘59, I transferred back to New York and enrolled at Hofstra College. At 20, I was a typical college kid; I went to fraternity parties, slept in, and chased girls. I pitched middle inning relief on the baseball team, majored in English and wrote sports for The Hofstra Chronicle, the school weekly. My vague hope was to someday become a writer and teacher.

The summer before school started, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to major league baseball. When I went to Yankee Stadium, I kidded to friends that I was only there as a tourist. But in the winter of ‘60, I stumbled across a Newsday article announcing the impending demolition of Ebbets Field. How could I not attend? Maybe I’d find some closure here.

1960: A bone chilling, late February morning. For the first time in years, I took the Green Bus and IRT subway to Brooklyn. Alone. I walked down Franklin Avenue and saw the light towers of Ebbets in the gray distance. When I reached Empire Boulevard, I turned left and walked through the marble rotunda, past the boarded up ticket windows, before heading up the third base grandstand ramp.

The first thing I saw when I reached the portal was the huge, black scoreboard in right field. Then I gazed around the outfield for a last look at the old Abe Stark, “Hit This Sign and Win a Suit” billboard, and the fire engine red Tydol Flying A” sign.

I closed my eyes, and for a moment I was 12 years old again. But the reverie ended when I looked out at the brown outfield grass and saw jagged ruts and bare patches, the residue from two years of stock car races and neglect. Then below me, I noticed the shabby looking blue box seats, surrounded by faded, chipped red railings.

A sparse crowd, maybe a few hundred men and three or four women, huddled behind the third base dugout. But they weren’t waiting for autographs. We’d gathered here to witness the demolition of Ebbets Field. In the crowd, I recognized two of the old players; pitcher Carl Erskine, always a winner, always a classy guy, and next to him the unfortunate Ralph Branca. Who’d have expected that kind of loyalty from Branca, a man who was so unfairly maligned by the fans and press? Is it penance he’s seeking here?

Lucy Monroe sang the National Anthem just as she’d done at countless Dodger games. But the speeches were canned eulogies. While some phony Brooklyn politico with bad teeth droned on, informing us — without any sense of irony — that Ebbets Field was now 46 years old, I was thinking about Walter O’ Malley, the owner who sold out millions of naive, loyal, baseball fans like me. I recalled the scene in The Great Gatsby where Jay Gatsby introduces Nick Carraway to Meyer Wolfsheim. Wolfsheim is the character who’s based on Arnold Rothstein, the gambler who’d allegedly conspired to fix the 1919 World Series. As Nick shakes Wolfsheim’s hand he thinks: “It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of 50 million people — with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.”

The demolition crew were fittingly outfitted in Dodger blue wind breakers; and as the giant white-washed, red stitched “headache ball,” crunched into the third base dugout, chunks of concrete and splintered wood flew in all directions. I felt an ache in the pit of my stomach.

I caught my breath and closed my eyes again. This time, I was back in the center field bleachers watching Duke Snider camp under a lazy fly ball. The Duke casually pats the pocket of his mitt, waiting to gather in what Red Barber used to call “an easy can of corn.” Then I imagine I see Jackie Robinson crouched between second and first base, hands on knees, waiting for Newk, Ersk, Padres or “the Preach” to deliver the next pitch.

I was jolted back to the present when the “headache ball “smashed into the right field scoreboard. The concrete beneath me started to quiver. It felt like a minor earthquake.

While I was walking back to the subway, I made a promise not to attend another major league game.

In my senior year of college, I was engaged and making plans to attend graduate school in Michigan. I hadn’t attended a ball game since the demolition. That is, until the Mets happened upon the scene.
When the Mets arrived in the ’62 expansion, their home field was the Polo Grounds, the ancient green walled stadium atop Coogan’s Bluff. Recalling those weekend outings with my dad, I took the Broadway-Seventh Avenue Express and got off at 158th Street. By instinct, I headed east until I saw the horseshoe shaped stadium I remembered so well. I walked down from the platform and sat in the third base lower grandstand– my father’s old seats. I felt like I’d taken a step back in time.

For the first season, I tried to love this new team. But something was pulling against my enthusiasm. I sensed a similar caution in a lot of the old Dodger and Giant diehards. Maybe we were holding back because we knew the Mets would soon be moving to a new park.

We’d been hoping against hope that the Mets would move to Brooklyn, or even Manhattan. But Flushing Meadows? At least the owners were smart enough not to call the team the Flushing Mets.

Sure enough, in ‘63 when the Mets moved into Shea Stadium, the Polo Grounds was razed and replaced by an urban housing project. I’d read somewhere that the wrecking ball that demolished the Polo Grounds was the same one that wiped out Ebbets Field three years prior. And what about this absurdity? Today, a housing project stands where the Polo Grounds used to be. At the exact spot where Thomson took his historic swing is a sign that reads “No ball playing allowed.”

For a time, I felt as if I’d been abandoned again. But soon, my curiosity caught up with me again. On opening day weekend, I went to see the Mets play in their new park.

Shea Stadium sits on a tract of marshland near the old World’s Fair site. There are no row houses, tenement or apartment buildings, no kids playing in the streets, no trees, candy stores, taverns, newspaper or scorecard and peanuts’ hawkers. Without a vibrant urban neighborhood to surround it, the setting had an eerie, hollow ambiance.

The inside of the park was not much more appealing. Unless you sat in the expensive boxes near home plate, you felt like you were in a cavernous football palace, like the Coliseum. The outfield fences had no billboards–just stark, blue walls with orange numbers like “390” and “410” painted on them. The only recognizable links with the ball parks of my youth were the field’s natural grass and dirt.

To me, Shea lacked intimacy, warmth, character. Like many of the newer ball parks, the stadium was designed as a single level concentric circle. Perched high above the playing field were luxurious “sky suites” complete with television sets, sofas, plush carpeting, and wet bars. Inside the stadium, vendors no longer hawked ball park hot dogs, or Dixie cups with wooden spoons, or waxed paper cups of Schaefer beer. Instead they pedaled foot long bratwursts, gourmet ice cream, and premium draft beer served in clear plastic cups. A “brat and brew” were more expensive than the price of a field box at Ebbets Field.

Mets fans were fanatical about their new team; and they were as loyal to their heroes as we were to the old Dodgers. And that’s as it should be. But each time I went back to Shea, the Mets had acquired new players, guys named Smith, and Hunt, and Christopher. Some, like Marvelous Marv Throne berry, even had zany personalities. It was just that I’d never heard of them. And every two weeks, the owners would bring in several new guys.

Sure, they resurrected Stengel, the Duke, and Roger Craig. But it was just to sell tickets. None of them could help this patchwork quilt of a ball club. As a matter of fact, Craig, a proven winner with the Dodgers, lost 20 games in his first season as a Met.

It was a new regime all across the board — and a new era. The announcers, Lindsay Nelson, a network football guy, Ralph Kiner, the old Pirates’ slugger, and side-man Bob Murphy, were knowledgeable enough about the game. But compared to the Old Redhead and Connie Desmond, these three seemed as bland as Cream of Wheat. After a while I even quit scoring the games: I couldn’t keep track of all the new guys. If I was still searching for the old Ebbets Field magic, I knew I wouldn’t find it here. I gave the Mets two seasons before it was time to move on.

In the fall of ‘64, I left for Michigan and quickly got caught up in graduate school, my marriage, and adjusting to the Midwest. But in the spring, a colleague took me to Tiger Stadium, now one of the oldest ball parks in the majors.

I turned off the Lodge Expressway at Grand Avenue, and for a few bucks I parked my car in someone’s back yard. To get to the stadium you had to walk past blocks of wooden row houses, past knots of people sitting on front porches and steps, through twilight streets where kids were playing ball in fenced in school yards and treeless, concrete parks. It reminded me of the old Brooklyn neighborhoods that surrounded Ebbets Field.

Through the night mist and factory smoke I could see in the distance the enormous towers atop the ball park, and the bluish white glow of the stadium’s arc lights. My heart was in my throat. It felt just like the day when my four cronies and I headed down Franklin Avenue to attend our first Dodger game.

Even the crowd at Tiger Stadium reminded me of the old Brooklyn fans: factory rats from nearby automobile plants, newspaper reporters and white-collar guys from downtown office buildings, fathers and sons from the outlying burbs. I sat in the first row of the upper stands, between third and home. From my vantage point, I could see the sweat rolling down Mickey Lolich’s cheeks as he checked the runner at first; and I could hear the infield chatter, as well as the profanities coming from the Yankee dugout. The aroma of stale beer, hot dogs, and popcorn perfumed the chilled night air. Maybe, this was the replacement I’d been searching for.

For the next five seasons, I went back to Tiger Stadium each summer. I even rooted for the team when they won the ‘68 World Series against the Cardinals. But over the next few years, I found myself getting restless and edgy whenever I read the sports pages. In October of ‘69, the “Amazing Mets” became the first expansion team to win a World Series. Why wasn’t I elated? This was a team, after all, that I could identify with. Seven years ago, the Mets were a rag-tag aggregate of rookies and retreads. Their manager, Gil Hodges, was even an old Dodger favorite of mine. My indifference was a bad sign.

By 1970, I was more disenchanted with baseball than I’d been since the Dodgers left Brooklyn. Tiger Stadium and the people were the same. But the game was undergoing big changes.

From the early 60ss on, franchises began building suburban, multi-purpose indoor stadiums. In the middle of the decade the player’s union was established, and for the first time in over fifty years, both leagues had added new teams. Franchises appeared in old minor league towns like Seattle and Kansas City. By the end of the ‘69 season, there were 24 teams — eight more than had existed 10 years ago. Far too many for me to keep track of.

Both leagues had also split into two divisions, East and West; and a playoff round now proceeded the World Series. To encourage more offense, pitching mounds were lowered by several inches. In spring training games, both leagues were already experimenting with designated hitters. Team uniforms had also changed. The baggy flannel grays and whites had given way to form-fitting, brightly colored polyesters. The most flamboyant players even wore flashy white spikes. By the end of the decade, professional baseball had undergone so many transformations that I couldn’t keep up.

None of this should have surprised or upset me. Baseball was simply reflecting the temper of the times. Since the mid-60s, the culture had undergone radical upheavals. Why should professional sports be any different?

By the early ’70s, I was attending fewer and fewer Tiger games. When I did go, I’d often leave before the seventh inning. My excuse was that I wanted to beat the traffic home. Truth is, I’d lost interest in baseball. The two leagues had expanded to twenty-eight teams; there were owner-player lock-outs; Astro-turf and domes were de rigeur; free agency had taken away what little continuity was left; and too many players looked and sounded like rock stars.

In 1974, I got my Ph.D., took a job teaching writing at Michigan State, and began to write. By the end of the decade, baseball had all but dropped out of my life.

Curiously enough, it was writing that led me back to baseball, if only for a short time. In 1984, a play I co-wrote was produced in Chicago. And when rehearsals turned out to be more grim than glamorous, I found myself escaping to the left field bleachers at Wrigley Field.

Like the neighborhoods surrounding Ebbets Field, “Wrigleyville” had that gritty urban feel I used to love: the Addison Avenue “El” rumbling on the overhead tracks; hurly-burly traffic noises outside the park; beer-and-shot- bars where people gathered to talk before and after the game. And on Sheffield Avenue, fans in beach chairs watched from tenement rooftops.

The park itself was a throw-back to the old days: ivy-covered outfield walls and manicured, emerald grass surrounded the infield diamond. Hard-hat “bleacher bums” drank beer and sun bathed in the left field stands. An upper deck grandstand populated by kids and dads in shirt sleeves. It was like being in a time warp. Each time I went to a Cubs’ game, I felt a strange mix of familiarity and contempt. Why couldn’t all ball parks be like this?

After the play closed, I went back to Michigan. Now when I look back on that time, my fondest memories are of not of nights spent at the theater watching the play, but those lazy summer afternoons when I hid out in the bleachers at Wrigley Field.

In the next five years, I got more absorbed in teaching, writing, and travel. My next visit to a ball park, in 1989, came about in a most unusual fashion. Enroute home from a trip to France, my wife Carole and I had an overnight layover in Boston. The plane landed at 6:30 in the evening, and as we were riding the shuttle bus to the airport hotel I overheard two pilots making plans to go to the Red Sox game. We were dog-tired from the flight, yet I was overcome by an impulse to head straight for Fenway Park. Fenway was one of the last of the old urban ball parks. I’d always wanted to see a Red Sox game here. Who knows how much longer this legendary dinosaur will even exist.

Despite Carole’s objections, we dropped our bags at the hotel, rushed to catch the MTA, and arrived just in time for the first pitch. When I saw the vendors selling steamed peanuts outside the park, and the forty foot “green monster” in left field — when I bought two grandstand seats and found that I wasn’t a football field away from the action, when I ate a steamed ball park hot dog and scored every put-out — it was if I’d never fallen away from the game. Carole fell asleep in the fifth inning. I stayed up for the full nine.

As usual, I was buzzed when I left the park. But the feeling lingered for less than an hour. That’s when I knew this was only a one-night stand. I was almost 50 and I was getting on with my life.

By the early-90s, you couldn’t pick up a newspaper or watch a sports show without hearing about free agents, salary caps, and multi-million dollar contracts. The real baseball news was now reduced to the daily box scores.

Once in a while when I needed a break from my writing, I’d peek at the box scores. And a few times during the summer, I’d attend a local minor league or city league game. As for the rest of it, Skydomes, Kingdomes, Astrodomes never inspired me. Neither did the second generation of new stadiums; the cookie-cutter, suburban parks with luxury suites and plastic grass. Nor did I like the network shills who interviewed owners about lockouts and strikes; or millionaire players and agents who’d talk only about thirty million-dollar deals made with teams I’d never heard of. And it occurs to me that for two of the last five years the World Series was won by the Toronto Blue Jays, a team from a foreign country; a franchise that didn’t even exist until I was in my late thirties.

Moreover, the Series’ games I used to look forward to on hot September afternoons are now played at night, in late October, sometimes under retractable “moon roofs.” After the last recap has been broadcast–interrupted by six beer and automobile commercials — it’s usually past midnight, and a light frost has begun to coat the grass on my front lawn. Neighbors who work in the morning, and kids who have to get up for school, have long since fallen asleep. So have I.

Just before the owner’s lock-out of ‘94, I was ready to give up on baseball for good. Or so I thought.
One night, I was watching a ball game on ESPN. And between innings, I found myself getting caught up in, of all things, a beer commercial. It was a scene shot in a bar, featuring two cranky ex-Brooklyn Dodger fans — both of whom were about my age. They were kvetching about the Dodgers’ defection from Brooklyn in ‘57, arguing about how greedy the owners and players had become, and grumbling about what a crime it was that baseball had become such a commodity. Yadada, yadada, yadada, I thought. Same old litany I’d been chanting for the past three decades.

The first few times I thought it was mildly amusing. But after several viewings, the commercial started to irritate me. Before long, I figured out why; I was beginning to identify with the guys in that ad.

Around that same time, I was reading Pete Hamill’s collection of essays and memoirs about New York in the ’40’s and ’50’s. One segment in particular gave me pause. “Why,” Hamill writes, “are the middle-aged almost always talking, at the risk of maudlin cliché, about the old Neighborhood, about places gone and buried, about Ebbets Field and Birdland, the Cedar Tavern and the old Paramount?”

“The reason is simple,” he says: “In those places, they were happy. Sentimentality is always a form of resentment.”

That last phrase hit a nerve. For days afterward, it troubled me that I had become so crotchety about a game I was once on fire for. Perhaps I needed to take a step back and rethink this. Maybe I should give baseball — and myself — one more try.

My reentry began somewhat tentatively. Following the cancellation of the ‘94 World Series, it was still easy to remain cynical and detached from the game. But in the summer of ‘95 — the season that Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive game record — I read that the Oriole’s were playing in a new downtown stadium — a replica of the concrete and steel parks I’d grown up with in the ‘50s. Even the name, “Camden Yards,” called up memories of the old urban ball parks. That same season, ESPN began its “Sunday Night Baseball” series. And as Ripken inched up on Gehrig’s record, I found myself tuning into the late innings of Oriole games and surfing some of the sports talk shows, just so I could keep up with the streak.

My interest waxed and waned over the next two years, but I always managed to perk up right around playoff time. In ‘96, the Yankee’s Series comeback against the Braves caught my attention, but the unscrupulous dismantling of the ‘97 champion Marlins’ soured me on the game once again.

But in 1998, like every other baseball fan in the universe, I got caught up in the McGwire-Sosa home run derby, and the Yankee’s remarkable winning season. And dotted throughout that summer were a series of extraordinary moments. Cub rookie, Kerry Woods struck out 20 men in a game; the Yankee’s David Wells’ pitched a perfect game; and Ripkin’s record breaking hitting streak ended. By the time regular season was over, a half dozen players had hit forty or more home runs, and three of the four pennant races went right down to the wire. When the playoffs and World Series came around, I was hooked.

As the playoffs evolved, I noticed that three of the eight teams — the Yankees, Red Sox, and Cubs — were playing in the same stadiums they’d inhabited since the 20s; two others, the Indians and Rangers, played in parks that were modeled in one way or another after Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, and Wrigley Field. Moreover, of the three remaining play-off teams, the Giants and Padres had reverted back to playing on natural grass. Only the Houston Astros were still housed in a domed stadium — and even that would change within two years.

For the first time in decades, I followed the post season with more fervor and interest than I’d thought myself capable of. But it was during the Cubs-Giants wild card play-off, that I became aware of just how preoccupied I was becoming. I rooted for the Cubs; partly because I loved Wrigley Field, partly because the team’s futility reminded me of the old Dodgers; and partly because the Giants used to be the Dodgers’ old nemesis.

By the middle innings, I found myself admiring the clutch pitching and graceful defensive plays on both sides. I marveled at the hitting talent of Sammy Sosa, and of course, Barry Bonds. I even got teary and nostalgic when during the seventh inning stretch, when comedian Bill Murray, dressed in a Cubs’ jersey and hat, led the crowd in a poignant rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” And I felt a surge of hope and identification when the old Cub veteran, Gary Gaetti, atoned for a costly error by hitting what would turn out to be the game winning homer. I bit my fingernails and paced the room during the tense, dramatic ninth inning, when the Giants almost pulled the game out.

In early October 1998, what mattered most was not the buzz and hype, but the game itself — the human drama, spectacle, and aura. When the season ended, what I recalled most were singular moments like the look of dismay on Padre pitcher Kevin Brown’s face when he served up a game winning homer to the Braves’ Michael Tucker; and the Yankee’s Scott Brosius trying to contain his joy as he completed the last put-out of a remarkable 114-win season. That’s the kind of stuff I used to savor back when I was sitting in the third base upper grandstand at Ebbets.

***

A similar kind of moment keeps Tom and I riveted to our seats at the Metrodome on that blustery March night. It’s the top of the eighth, and Ripkin is only one shy of hit number 3,000. Most likely, this’ll be his last at bat. For once, the crowd is hushed and still. No cell phones ringing, no music blaring, no computer games bleeping. We’re all in this together, holding our collective breath, concentrating on each pitch. When the Twins’ pitcher goes to ball two in the count, even the home fans begin to boo. On the next pitch, a low slider on the hands, Ripkin slices a bleeder to the right side. Everyone groans. It looks like a sure out. But just as the second baseman move over to field it, the ball takes big hop over his shoulder, skids across the carpet, and winds up in short right field. We all stand in unison and cheer. On natural grass, that ball would have been a routine play.

So for that one moment, I don’t hate artificial turf. The Twins first baseman hands the ball to Ripkin, and the umps stop the game. Ripkin holds the ball up and waves his cap to the crowd, exposing a shiny, bald pate.

Kids are jumping up and down on their seats, adults are high fiving each other, and everyone applauds as the hero takes a victory lap around the circumference of the diamond. It’s a spontaneous, unscripted scenario — reminiscent of the old camaraderie I’ve missed for so many decades.

2002: On the flight home, it strikes me that for the last three plus decades I’ve been trying to recapture the feeling of a time and place when a trip to the ball park was a magical journey and a communal ritual; an adventure you’d later brag about under the streetlights, or out on the front stoop.

Well, I’m no longer that 12-year-old kid, and Ebbets Field, the Dodgers, and that bygone world no longer exist–except in my memory and imagination. But the game endures; and people still love to go to the ball park. And who am I to criticize their motives?
These days, I’m learning to look beyond the media circus and corporate P.R. And sometimes, there are moments in between the beer, car, and dot.com commercials when I can appreciate baseball the same way I would an opera, a ballet, or a play.
And whenever I like, I can switch off the TV before the shills and hype artists spoil the afterglow.

Michael Steinberg founded Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction in 1998. He’s written and co-authored five books and a stage play. Still Pitching won the 2003 ForeWord Magazine/Independent Press Memoir of the Year. An anthology, The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers Of/On Creative Nonfiction, with Robert Root, is now in a sixth edition. Currently, Steinberg is the nonfiction writer-in-residence in the Solstice/Pine Manor low residency College MFA program.