The ghosts of Flatbush

Fifty years ago today, the Dodgers played their last game in Brooklyn.

When former Dodgers pitcher Danny McDevitt threw a ceremonial first pitch to ex-batterymate Joe Pignatano at a Brooklyn Cyclones minor league game in June, more than 7,900 fans cheered the re-enactment of the final pitch at Ebbets Field.

It's a fitting footnote that the crowd was larger than the attendance at the actual event -- only 6,702 showed up 50 years ago tonight for the Dodgers' last game in the historic ballpark in Flatbush.

A half century after the club's move to Los Angeles, the legend of the Brooklyn Dodgers remains as magical as one of Duke Snider's home runs onto Bedford Avenue.

Other relocated teams, such as the Boston Braves, Philadelphia Athletics and even the New York Giants are almost forgotten, but the "Bums" live on in a series of books, DVDs, television shows, apparel and autograph signings that tap into the nostalgia of a bygone era in the borough.

"There's a mystique there that will probably never be caught again," says John Miley, the Evansville, Ind., collector/vendor of original radio broadcasts whose inventory includes about a dozen Brooklyn games from the 1950s.

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The Cyclones, a New York Mets Class A affiliate, heralded the return of professional baseball to Brooklyn in 2001 when they opened KeySpan Park in Coney Island, about 71/2 miles from where Ebbets Field stood. The New York-Penn League team, which has led all short-season teams (mid-June to early September) in attendance every year, plays strongly to the Dodgers connection with promotions tying into the tradition. This year's giveaway: an Ebbets Field model.

"Every year we've had a former Dodger come back and do something at the ballpark," says general manager Steve Cohen, 40, a Brooklyn native. In addition to McDevitt and Pignatano, Don Newcombe returned and was honored this year.

Cohen says most of the former Brooklyn players still living have visited, as well as the widow of first baseman Gil Hodges, Joan, who still lives in Brooklyn, and Rachel Robinson, Jackie's widow.

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As the 50th anniversary clicks by and boomers who can remember going to the iconic park in Flatbush age, the connection becomes one or two generations removed and might fade.

"I can't get a public school named after Pee Wee Reese," an exasperated Marty Adler, 70, founder of the Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Fame, says of the late Baseball Hall of Fame shortstop. "They don't remember baseball. People ask, 'Pee Wee, how short was he? Was he a pitcher?' There's no base any more."

Pignatano says youngsters in Brooklyn talk about the Dodgers but, "Are they interested? I don't know. All the kids I talk to about the Dodgers are Mets and Yankees fans ... They don't even know who I am."

Cohen notes a significant segment of Brooklyn's population wasn't in the country when the Dodgers played here.

The Cyclones are doing their part to preserve the legacy with the Brooklyn Baseball Gallery at their park. Adler has contributed many Dodger artifacts. The most historic are the spikes from Erskine's 1956 no-hitter and the catcher's mitt from Mickey Owen's legendary passed ball in the 1941 World Series.

About 3,000 school children visit the small museum each offseason, watching a film on the Dodgers and often hearing Adler speak. "It's like educating an entire generation," he says.

ESPN's Rob Neyer wrote about visiting the old sites of Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds awhile back. Go read and wallow in the nostalgia.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on September 24, 2007 to Baseball