1.
Ebbets Field
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Ebbets Field was a Major League Baseball stadium in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York City. It is known mainly as the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team of the National League, from 1913 to 1957, Ebbets Field was demolished in 1960 and replaced by apartment buildings. Ebbets Field was bounded by Bedford Avenue on the east, Sullivan Place on the South, Cedar Street on the west, and Montgomery Street on the north. The land included the site of a garbage dump called Pigtown, because of the pigs that once ate their fill there and the stench that filled the air. Construction began on March 4,1912, and the cornerstone, a piece of Connecticut granite that held newspapers, pictures of players, cards, telegrams. At the cornerstone laying ceremony, Ebbets said that the ballpark was going to be ready for play on September 1, when the park was opened, it was discovered that the flag, keys to the bleachers, and a press box had all been forgotten. The press box level was not added until 1929, the seating area was initially a double deck from past third base, around home plate, and all the way down the right side. There was an open, concrete bleacher stand extending the rest of the way down the base side to the outer wall. The right field wall was high due to the short foul line necessitated by the street immediately beyond it. The ballpark was built on a piece of ground. The right field wall made up the difference, as the right corner was above street level. The left field corner was below street level, and there was an incline or terrace running along the field wall. Ebbets Field was the scene of early successes, as the Robins. The seating area was expanded in the 1920s, a time for baseball when many ballparks were expanded. By the 1940s, a big scoreboard had been installed in right field, however, additional rows of seating across left field reduced that area by about 15 feet, to the delight of right-handed sluggers. The parks first night game was played on June 15,1938, johnny Vander Meer of the visiting Cincinnati Reds pitched his second consecutive no-hitter in that game, a feat that has never been duplicated in Major League Baseball. It was also in 1938 that Hilda Chester, one of the earlier sports superfans became a regular attendee when Larry MacPhail brought Ladies Days to Ebbets Field, after the early successes of the Dodgers, the team slid into hard times. The Dodgers won pennants in 1941,1947,1949,1952,1953,1955 and 1956, Ebbets Field also hosted the 1949 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
2.
Brooklyn
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Brooklyn is the most populous borough of New York City, with a Census-estimated 2,636,735 residents in 2015. It borders the borough of Queens at the end of Long Island. Today, if New York City dissolved, Brooklyn would rank as the third-most populous city in the U. S. behind Los Angeles, the borough continues, however, to maintain a distinct culture. Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves, Brooklyns official motto, displayed on the Borough seal and flag, is Eendraght Maeckt Maght which translates from early modern Dutch as Unity makes strength. Since 2010, Brooklyn has evolved into a hub of entrepreneurship and high technology startup firms. The history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years, the neighborhood of Marine Park was home to North Americas first tidal mill. It was built by the Dutch, and the foundation can be seen today, however, the area was not formally settled as a town. Many incidents and documents relating to this period are in Gabriel Furmans early compilation, what is today Brooklyn left Dutch hands after the final English conquest of New Netherland in 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo–Dutch War. The English reorganized the six old Dutch towns on southwestern Long Island as Kings County on November 1,1683 and this tract of land was recognized as a political entity for the first time, and the municipal groundwork was laid for a later expansive idea of Brooklyn identity. On August 27,1776 was fought the Battle of Long Island, the first major engagement fought in the American Revolutionary War after independence was declared, and the largest of the entire conflict. British troops forced Continental Army troops under George Washington off the heights near the sites of Green-Wood Cemetery, Prospect Park. The fortified American positions at Brooklyn Heights consequently became untenable and were evacuated a few days later, One result of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 was the evacuation of the British from New York City, celebrated by residents into the 20th century. The New York Navy Yard operated in Wallabout Bay for the entire 19th century, the first center of urbanization sprang up in the Town of Brooklyn, directly across from Lower Manhattan, which saw the incorporation of the Village of Brooklyn in 1817. Reliable steam ferry service across the East River to Fulton Landing converted Brooklyn Heights into a town for Wall Street. Ferry Road to Jamaica Pass became Fulton Street to East New York, Town and Village were combined to form the first, kernel incarnation of the City of Brooklyn in 1834. Industrial deconcentration in mid-century was bringing shipbuilding and other manufacturing to the part of the county. Each of the two cities and six towns in Kings County remained independent municipalities, and purposely created non-aligning street grids with different naming systems and it later became the most popular and highest circulation afternoon paper in America. The publisher changed to L. Van Anden on April 19,1842, on May 14,1849 the name was shortened to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, on September 5,1938 it was further shortened to Brooklyn Eagle
3.
Walter O'Malley
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Walter Francis OMalley was an American sports executive who owned the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers team in Major League Baseball from 1950 to 1979. For this, he was vilified by Brooklyn Dodgers fans. However, Pro-OMalley parties describe him as a visionary for the same business action and he was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame for his contributions to and influence on the game of baseball amidst allegations that his family donated money to get him into the Hall of Fame. OMalleys Irish father, Edwin Joseph OMalley, was politically connected, first, he became an entrepreneur involved in public works contracting, and then he became an executive with the Dodgers. He progressed from being a lawyer to being both the Dodgers owner and president, and he eventually made the business decision to relocate the Dodgers franchise. Although he moved the franchise, OMalley is known as a businessman whose major philosophy was stability through loyalty to, OMalley ceded the team presidency to his son, Peter, in 1970 but retained the titles of owner and chairman of the Dodgers until his death in 1979. He bequeathed the team to his children Peter OMalley and Therese OMalley Seidler upon his death in 1979, Walter OMalley was the only child of Edwin Joseph OMalley, who worked as a cotton goods salesman in the Bronx in 1903. Edwin OMalley later became the Commissioner of Public Markets for New York City, OMalley grew up as a Bronx-born New York Giants fan. He frequently attended Giants games at the Polo Grounds with his uncle Clarence, OMalley was a Boy Scout who rose to the rank of Star. OMalley attended Jamaica High School in Queens from 1918 to 1920, at Culver, his baseball career was ended with a baseball that hit him on the nose. Later, he attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1926 as the senior class Salutatorian, at Penn, he was initiated into Theta Delta Chi, and he also served as president of the Phi Deuteron Charge. Upon his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and he was also Junior and Senior class president. Edwin OMalleys dry goods business was failing and Walter had to run the business. On September 5,1931, he married Katherine Elizabeth Kay Hanson and they had two children, Therese OMalley Seidler and Peter OMalley. Kay had been diagnosed with cancer in 1927 before the engagement and had to have her larynx removed. She was unable to speak above a whisper the rest of her life, Edwin OMalley encouraged Walter to break off his engagement, and after Walter refused his parents did not attend the wedding. OMalley was a smoker, who golfed occasionally, but more commonly gardened for recreation, in 1944, he remodelled his parents summer house in Amityville, New York and relocated his family there from Brooklyn. The house was next door to the house Kay had grown up, as a family man, he attended church regularly, attended Peters football games at LaSalle Academy, chaperoned his daughters dances
4.
World Series
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The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball in North America, contested since 1903 between the American League champion team and the National League champion team. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a playoff. As the series is played in October, during the season in North America. As of 2016, the World Series has been contested 112 times, with the AL winning 64, the 2016 World Series took place between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs. Seven games were played, with the Cubs victorious after game seven, the final score was 8–7, the game went into extra innings after a tied score of 6–6. This was the third World Series won by the Cubs, as well as their first title since 1908, in the National League, the St. As of 2016, no team has won consecutive World Series championships since the New York Yankees in 1998,1999, all championships were awarded to the team with the best record at the end of the season, without a postseason series being played. From 1884 to 1890, the National League and the American Association faced each other in a series of games at the end of the season to determine an overall champion. These series were disorganized in comparison to the modern World Series, the number of games played ranged from as few as three in 1884, to a high of fifteen in 1887. Both the 1885 and 1890 Series ended in ties, each team having won three games with one tie game, the series was promoted and referred to as The Championship of the United States, Worlds Championship Series, or Worlds Series for short. In his book Krakatoa, The Day the World Exploded, August 27,1883, Simon Winchester mentions in passing that the World Series was named for the New York World newspaper, but this view is disputed. Until about 1960, some sources treated the 19th-century Series on a basis with the post-19th-century series. After about 1930, however, many authorities list the start of the World Series in 1903, following the collapse of the American Association after the 1891 season, the National League was again the only major league. The league championship was awarded in 1892 by a playoff between half-season champions and this scheme was abandoned after one season. Beginning in 1893—and continuing until divisional play was introduced in 1969—the pennant was awarded to the club in the standings at the end of the season. For four seasons, 1894–1897, the league played the runners-up in the post season championship series called the Temple Cup. A second attempt at this format was the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup series, in 1901, the American League was formed as a second major league. No championship series were played in 1901 or 1902 as the National and these series were arranged by the participating clubs, as the 1880s Worlds Series matches had been
5.
New York Yankees
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The Essendon Football Club is a professional Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League, the sports premier competition. Formed in 1871 as a club and playing as a senior club since 1878. It is historically associated with Essendon, a suburb in the north-west of Melbourne, dyson Heppell is the current team captain. A founding member club of both the Victorian Football Association, in 1877, and the Victorian Football League, in 1896, the club claims to have over at least one million supporters Australia wide. Essendon has won 16 VFL/AFL premierships which, along with Carlton, is the most of any club in the competition, the club was founded by members of the Royal Agricultural Society, the Melbourne Hunt Club and the Victorian Woolbrokers. The Essendon Football Club is thought to have formed in 1872 at a meeting it the home of a well-known brewery family, the McCrackens, whose Ascot Vale property hosted a team of local junior players. Robert McCracken, the owner of several city hotels, was the founder and first president of the Essendon club and his son, Alex, Alex would later become president of the newly formed VFL. Alexs cousin, Collier, who had played with Melbourne, was the teams first captain. The club played its first recorded match against the Carlton second twenty on 7 June 1873, Essendon played 13 matches in its first season, winning seven, with four draws and losing two. The club was one of the junior members of the Victorian Football Association in 1877. During its early years in the Association, Essendon played its matches at Flemington Hill. In 1878, Essendon played in the first match on what would be considered by modern standards to be a field at Flemington Hill. In 1879 Essendon played Melbourne in one of the earliest night matches recorded when the ball was painted white, in 1883 the team played four matches in Adelaide. In 1891 Essendon won their first VFA premiership, which they repeated in 1892,1893 and 1894, one of the clubs greatest players, Albert Thurgood played for the club during this period. Essendon was undefeated in the 1893 season, at the end of the 1896 season Essendon along with seven other clubs formed the Victorian Football League. Essendons first VFL game was in 1897 was against Geelong at Corio Oval in Geelong, Essendon won its first VFL premiership by winning the 1897 VFL finals series. Essendon again won the premiership in 1901, defeating Collingwood in the Grand Final, the club won successive premierships in 1911 and 1912 over Collingwood and South Melbourne respectively. The nickname first appeared in print in the local North Melbourne Advertiser in 1889 and it was known firstly as Essendon Town and, after 1905, as Essendon
6.
Baltimore Orioles
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The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball as a member of the American League East division, Louis, Missouri to become the St. Louis Browns. After 52 often-beleaguered years in St. Louis, the franchise was purchased in November 1953 by Baltimore business interests led by Clarence Miles, the franchise officially moved to Baltimore for the 1954 season and adopted the historic Orioles name in honor of the official state bird of Maryland. The Orioles name had also used by several previous major and minor league baseball clubs in Baltimore. Nicknames for the team include the Os and the Birds, the Orioles experienced their greatest success from 1966 to 1983, when they made six World Series appearances, winning three of them. The franchise has won a total of nine division championships, six pennants. The Orioles are also known for their successful stadium, the trend-setting Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The modern Orioles franchise can trace its roots back to the original Milwaukee Brewers of the minor Western League, the Brewers were there when the WL renamed itself the American League in 1900. At the end of the 1900 season, the American League removed itself from baseballs National Agreement, two months later, the AL declared itself a competing major league. As a result of several shifts, the Brewers were one of only two Western League teams that didnt fold, move or get kicked out of the league. In its first game in the American League, the team lost to the Detroit Tigers 14–13 after blowing a lead in the 9th inning. To this day, it is a league record for the biggest deficit overcome that late in the game. During the first American League season in 1901, they finished last with a record of 48–89 and its lone Major League season, the team played at Lloyd Street Grounds, between 16th and 18th Streets in Milwaukee. The Miles-Krieger -Hoffberger group renamed their new team the Baltimore Orioles soon after taking control of the franchise, the name has a rich history in Baltimore, having been used by a National League team in the 1890s. In 1901, Baltimore and McGraw were awarded a franchise in the growing American League. After a battle with Ban Johnson, the Head of the American League in 1902, McGraw took many of the top players including Dan McGann, Roger Bresnahan and Joe McGinnity to the New York Giants. As an affront to Johnson, McGraw kept the black and orange colors of the New York Giants, which San Francisco wears to this day. In 1903, the rest of the team was transferred to New York where they were nicknamed the Highlanders until circa 1912, as a member of the high-minor league level International League, the Orioles competed at what is now known as the AAA level from 1903 to 1953
7.
Roy Campanella
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Roy Campanella, nicknamed Campy, was an American baseball player, primarily as a catcher. The Philadelphia native played for the Negro leagues and Mexican League for several seasons before entering the minor leagues in 1946 and he made his Major League Baseball debut in 1948. His playing career ended in 1958 when he was paralyzed by an automobile accident, widely considered to be one of the greatest catchers in the history of the game, Campanella played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s and 1950s. After he retired as a player, Campanella held positions in scouting and he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969. Campanellas father John was the son of Sicilian immigrants and his mother Ida was African American. Therefore, he was prohibited from MLB play before 1947. Campanella began playing Negro league baseball for the Washington Elite Giants in 1937 after dropping out of school on his sixteenth birthday, the Elite Giants moved to Baltimore the following year, and Campanella became a star player with the team. In 1942 and 1943, Campanella played in the Mexican League with the Monterrey Sultans, lázaro Salazar, the teams manager, told Campanella that one day he would play at the major league level. Campanella moved into the Brooklyn Dodgers minor league system in 1946 as the Dodger organization began preparations to break the MLB color barrier with Jackie Robinson, for the 1946 season, Robinson was assigned to the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers affiliate in the Class AAA International League. Meanwhile, the team looked to assign Campanella to a Class B league, the Nashua team thus became the first professional baseball team of the 20th century to field a racially integrated lineup in the United States. Campanellas 1946 season proceeded largely without racist incidents, and in one game Campanella assumed the managerial duties after manager Walter Alston was ejected and this made Campanella the first African-American to manage Caucasian players of an organized professional baseball team. Nashua was three runs down at the time Campanella took over and they came back to win, in part due to Campanellas decision to use Newcombe as a pinch hitter during the seventh inning, Newcombe hit a game-tying two-run home run. Jackie Robinsons first season in the major leagues came in 1947 and he played for the Dodgers from 1948 through 1957 as their regular catcher. In 1948, he had three different uniform numbers before settling on 39 for the rest of his career, Campanella played in the All-Star Game every year from 1949 through 1956. His 1949 All-Star selection made him one of the first four African-Americans so honored and he hit home runs in five straight games in 1950, the only other Dodgers to homer in five consecutive games are Shawn Green, Matt Kemp, Adrian Gonzalez, and Joc Pederson. Campanella received the Most Valuable Player award in the National League three times, in 1951,1953, and 1955, in each of his MVP seasons, he batted more than.300, hit more than 30 home runs and had more than 100 runs batted in. His 142 RBI during 1953 exceeded the record of 130. Today it is the second most in history, Tommy Davis breaking it with 153 RBI in 1962
8.
Jackie Robinson
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Jack Roosevelt Jackie Robinson was an American professional baseball second baseman who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era. Robinson broke the color line when the Brooklyn Dodgers started him at first base on April 15,1947. The Dodgers, by signing Robinson, heralded the end of segregation in professional baseball that had relegated black players to the Negro leagues since the 1880s. Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, Robinson had an exceptional 10-year baseball career. Robinson played in six World Series and contributed to the Dodgers 1955 World Series championship, in 1997, MLB universally retired his uniform number,42, across all major league teams, he was the first pro athlete in any sport to be so honored. MLB also adopted a new tradition, Jackie Robinson Day, for the first time on April 15,2004. Robinsons character, his use of nonviolence, and his unquestionable talent challenged the basis of segregation which then marked many other aspects of American life. He influenced the culture of and contributed significantly to the Civil Rights Movement, Robinson also was the first black television analyst in MLB, and the first black vice president of a major American corporation, Chock full oNuts. In the 1960s, he helped establish the Freedom National Bank, in recognition of his achievements on and off the field, Robinson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and Presidential Medal of Freedom. Robinson was born on January 31,1919, into a family of sharecroppers in Cairo and he was the youngest of five children born to Mallie and Jerry Robinson, after siblings Edgar, Frank, Matthew, and Willa Mae. His middle name was in honor of former President Theodore Roosevelt, after Robinsons father left the family in 1920, they moved to Pasadena, California. The extended Robinson family established itself on a residential plot containing two small houses at 121 Pepper Street in Pasadena, Robinsons mother worked various odd jobs to support the family. Growing up in poverty in an otherwise affluent community, Robinson. As a result, Robinson joined a gang, but his friend Carl Anderson persuaded him to abandon it. In 1935, Robinson graduated from Washington Junior High School and enrolled at John Muir High School, recognizing his athletic talents, Robinsons older brothers Mack and Frank inspired Jackie to pursue his interest in sports. At Muir Tech, Robinson played several sports at the varsity level and lettered in four of them, football, basketball, track and he played shortstop and catcher on the baseball team, quarterback on the football team, and guard on the basketball team. With the track and field squad, he won awards in the broad jump and he was also a member of the tennis team. In late January 1937, the Pasadena Star-News newspaper reported that Robinson for two years has been the athlete at Muir, starring in football, basketball, track, baseball
9.
Walter Alston
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Walter Emmons Alston, nicknamed Smokey, was an American baseball player and manager in Major League Baseball. He is best known for managing the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers between 1954 and 1976, Alston signed 23 one-year contracts with the Dodgers. He had a calm, reticent demeanor, for which he was also known as The Quiet Man. Alston grew up in rural Ohio and lettered in baseball and basketball at Miami University in Ohio, though his MLB playing career consisted of one game and one at-bat with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1936, he played and managed for several seasons in minor league baseball. His service included a stint as manager of the Nashua Dodgers and he was promoted to manage the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1954 after several successful seasons in Brooklyns Class AAA minor league teams. As a major league manager, Alston led Dodgers teams to seven National League pennants and his 1955 team was the only World Series championship team while the club was in Brooklyn, they clinched the NL pennant earlier in the calendar year than any previous pennant winner in league history. Alston retired with more than 2,000 career wins and managed NL All-Star teams to seven victories and he was selected as Manager of the Year six times. Alston was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983 and he suffered a heart attack that year, was hospitalized for a month and was unable to attend his Hall of Fame induction ceremony. He never fully recovered and he died at a hospital in Oxford, Alston was born in Venice, Ohio. He spent much of his childhood on a farm in Morning Sun, when Alston was a teenager, the family moved to Darrtown, Ohio. He attended Milford Township High School in Darrtown and he received the nickname Smokey as a high school pitcher, owing to the speed of his fastball. He graduated from school in 1929 and married longtime girlfriend Lela Vaughn Alexander the next year. In 1935, Alston graduated with a degree in arts and physical education from Miami University in Oxford. He said that finances were a challenge in college and that he had paid his way through school by playing pool and he lettered three years in both basketball and baseball. Alston played minor league baseball as an infielder for the Greenwood Chiefs and Huntington Red Birds in 1935 and 1936, for the 1936 Huntington team, he hit 35 home runs in 120 games. Alstons only major game was with the St. Louis Cardinals on September 27,1936. He later described his major league playing career to a reporter by saying, Well, I came up to bat for the Cards back in 36 and he also committed one error in two fielding chances at first base. Alston returned to the minor leagues after his brief MLB appearance and he split the 1937 season between the Houston Buffaloes and Rochester Red Wings, hitting for a combined.229 batting average
10.
Home run
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In modern baseball, the feat is typically achieved by hitting the ball over the outfield fence between the foul poles without first touching the ground, resulting in an automatic home run. There is also the home run, increasingly rare in modern baseball. When a home run is scored, the batter is credited with a hit and a run scored. Likewise, the pitcher is recorded as having given up a hit, a batted ball is also a home run if it touches either foul pole or its attached screen before touching the ground, as the foul poles are by definition in fair territory. A batted ball that goes over the wall after touching the ground is not a home run. A fielder is allowed to reach over the wall to attempt to catch the ball as long as his feet are on or over the field during the attempt. If the fielder successfully catches the ball while it is in flight the batter is out, however, since the fielder is not part of the field, a ball that bounces off a fielder and over the wall without touching the ground is still a home run. A home run accomplished in any of the above manners is a home run. This stipulation is in Approved Ruling of Rule 7.10, an inside-the-park home run occurs when a batter hits the ball into play and is able to circle the bases before the fielders can put him out. Unlike with a home run, the batter-runner and all preceding runners are liable to be put out by the defensive team at any time while running the bases. This can only happen if the ball does not leave the ballfield, with outfields much less spacious and more uniformly designed than in the games early days, inside-the-park home runs are now a rarity. They are usually the result of a ball being hit by a very fast runner, either way, this sends the ball into open space in the outfield and thereby allows the batter-runner to circle the bases before the defensive team can put him out. The speed of the runner is crucial as even triples are relatively rare in most modern ballparks, all runs scored on such a play, however, still count. An example of an unexpected bounce occurred during the 2007 Major League Baseball All-Star Game at AT&T Park in San Francisco on July 10,2007, by the time the ball was relayed, Ichiro had already crossed the plate standing up. This was the first inside-the-park home run in All-Star Game history, Home runs are often characterized by the number of runners on base at the time. A home run hit with the bases empty is seldom called a one-run homer, with one runner on base, two runs are scored and thus the home run is often called a two-run homer or two-run shot. Similarly, a home runs with two runners on base is a three-run homer or three-run shot, the term four-run homer is seldom used, instead, it is nearly always called a grand slam. Hitting a grand slam is the best possible result for the turn at bat
11.
History of the Brooklyn Dodgers
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The teams name derived from the reputed skill of Brooklyn residents at evading the citys trolley streetcar network. The team is noted for signing Jackie Robinson in 1947 as the first black player in the major leagues. Brooklyn was home to numerous clubs in the mid-1850s. Eight of 16 participants in the first convention were from Brooklyn, including the Atlantic, Eckford, Brooklyn helped make baseball commercial, as the locale of the first paid admission games, a series of three all star contests matching New York and Brooklyn in 1858. The Excelsiors no longer challenged for the championship after the Civil War. The Eckfords and Atlantics declined to join until 1872 and thereby lost their best players, the Eckfords survived only one season and the Atlantics four, with losing teams. When the Mutuals were expelled by the league, the Hartford Dark Blues club moved in, changed its name to The Brooklyn Hartfords and played its home games at Union Grounds in 1877 before disbanding. Byrne arranged to build a grandstand on a lot bounded by Third Street, Fourth Avenue, Fifth Street, and Fifth Avenue, the Grays played in the minor Inter-State Association of Professional Baseball Clubs that first season. Doyle became the first team manager, and they drew 6,431 fans to their first home game on May 12,1883 against the Trenton team. The Grays won the title after the Camden Merritt club disbanded on July 20. The Grays were invited to join the American Association for the 1884 season and they lost the 1889 World Series to the New York Giants and tied the 1890 World Series with the Louisville Colonels. Their success during this period was partly attributed to their having absorbed skilled players from the defunct New York Metropolitans, in 1899, the Grays merged with the Baltimore Orioles, as Baltimore manager Ned Hanlon became the clubs new manager and Charles Ebbets became the primary team owner. The team name, Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers, was coined in 1895, the nickname was still new enough in September 1895 that a newspaper could report that Trolley Dodgers is the new name which eastern baseball cranks have given the Brooklyn club. Some sources erroneously report that the name Trolley Dodgers referred to pedestrians avoiding fast cars on street car tracks that bordered Eastern Park on two sides, however, Eastern Park was not bordered by street-level trolley lines that had to be dodged by pedestrians. The name was shortened to Brooklyn Dodgers. Other team names used by the franchise that finally came to be called the Dodgers were the Grooms, the Bridegrooms, Wards Wonders, the Superbas, and the Robins. All of these nicknames were used by fans and newspaper sports writers to describe the team, the teams legal name was the Brooklyn Base Ball Club. However, the Trolley Dodgers nickname was used throughout this period, along with nicknames, by fans
12.
Gil Hodges
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Gilbert Ray Hodges, ne Hodge was an American Major League Baseball first baseman and manager who played most of his 18-year career for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers. He was inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame in 1982, Hodges is generally considered to be the best defensive first baseman in the 1950s. He was an All-Star for eight seasons and a Gold Glove Award winner for three consecutive seasons, Hodges and Duke Snider are the only players to have the most home runs or runs batted in together during the decade with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Hodges was the National League leader in double plays four times and in putouts, assists and fielding percentage three times each. He ranked second in NL history with 1,281 assists and 1,614 double plays when his career ended, Hodges also managed the New York Mets to the 1969 World Series title, one of the greatest upsets in Fall Classic history. In 2014, Hodges appeared for the time as a candidate on the National Baseball Hall of Fames Golden Era Committee election ballot for possible Hall of Fame consideration in 2015. He and the candidates all missed getting elected. The Committee meets and votes on ten selected from the 1947 to 1972 era every three years. Hodges was born in Princeton, Indiana, the son of coal miner Charles and he had an older brother, Robert, and a younger sister, Marjorie. The family moved to nearby Petersburg when Hodges was seven and he was a star four-sport athlete at Petersburg High School, earning a combined seven varsity letters in football, baseball, basketball and track. He declined a 1941 contract offer from the Detroit Tigers, instead attending Saint Josephs College with the hope of becoming a collegiate coach. Hodges spent two years at St Josephs, competing in baseball, basketball and briefly in football and he was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943, and appeared in one game for the team as a third baseman that year. Hodges entered the United States Marine Corps during World War II after having participated in its Reserve Officers Training Corps program at Saint Josephs. He served in combat as a gunner in the battles of Tinian and Okinawa. Hodges only appearance in the 1947 World Series against the New York Yankees was as a hitter for pitcher Rex Barney in Game seven. As a rookie in 1948, he batted.249 with eleven home runs, on June 25,1949, he hit for the cycle on his way to his first of seven consecutive All-Star teams. For the season, his 115 RBI ranked fourth in the NL, defensively, he led the NL in putouts, double plays and fielding average. Facing the Yankees again in the 1949 Series, he batted only.235 but drove in the run in Brooklyns only victory
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