Ken Burns' Baseball: Goodbye to the Old Ballparks
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ธ.ค. 2022
- September 24, 1957: The last game was played at Ebbets Field. The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-0 on a 5-hit shutout by rookie lefthander Danny McDevitt. The Dodgers finished the season in Philadelphia, with a loss, a win and a loss against the Phillies. That loss in the season finale may have confused Burns when he wrote the text for the miniseries.
September 29, 1957: The New York Giants played their final game, at the Polo Grounds. They lost 9-1 to the Pirates. Like the Dodgers, the Boston Braves and the Philadelphia Athletics, they moved from a cramped old ballpark tucked away in a neighborhood you had trouble parking in (and might not have been safe in) to a city that had built a new stadium on the edge of town with lots of parking. This would also have been the case had they moved as planned to Minneapolis, where they had their top farm team.
But Dodger owner Walter O'Malley, greedy as ever, wanted to save money on travel costs, so he conned Giant owner Horace Stoneham -- Charles "Chub" Feeney was his son-in-law, and later President of the National League -- into moving to San Francisco instead. So O'Malley -- not New York Mayor Robert Wagner, who managed to get re-elected in 1957 anyway, not City building boss Robert Moses, who refused to build the domed "Brooklyn Sports Center" that O'Malley wanted to be given -- was the man most responsible for both teams moving to California.
In 1972, Roger Kahn, who had covered the Dodgers for the New York Herald Tribune in 1952 and '53, and the Giants in '54, wrote "The Boys of Summer," boosting the already-existing nostalgia for the Dodgers. The Giants never got such a book, not even from Angell, who was interviewed here. So they have become rather lost: Pretty much the only thing anybody knows them for today are the Bobby Thomson home run and the Willie Mays catch.
Crystal's question, "What's gonna happen?" received answers that were less than satisfactory. Most of the stadiums of the 1960s and '70s were also built for football, which made them bad for baseball; and were built on the edges of cities or in the suburbs, keeping that revenue away from downtown or neighborhoods, where it was needed. The closing of the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1966 was part of a devastation of industry in the New York Tri-State Area, and did more to kill "the old Brooklyn" than losing the Dodgers did. And rising crime in America's cities made things worse yet. By the time the expansion Mets got good in 1969, New Yorkers needed a "miracle." - บันเทิง
Funny and curious how these sorts of videos talking about the good old days of baseball hit me with emotion. And Billy Cristal and his youth memories of the game! Brings all kinds of emotions to me and I love it
This reality is what makes Wrigley and Fenway so special. Somehow, when all the other ballparks fell victim, they've endured.
Exactly. When the 1967 season dawned, there were still 5 other MLB stadiums that opened before World War I, and Fenway and Wrigley weren't considered special. Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey was asking for a new ballpark, and threatening to move. Can you imagine the Red Sox sharing a Veterans Stadium-type facility with the Patriots in Foxboro? If they still made it to the 1975 World Series, Fisk's 310-foot drive might have dropped at 328 feet in front of the pole and been caught by George Foster, and then who knows how that game would have ended.
That 1967 season made Fenway special, just as 1969 made Wrigley special, even though the Cubs failed.
@@UncleMikeNJ I am a Red Sox fan and Fisk's homerun was a gift really. The Reds conceded the game in extra innings to rest their bullpen knowing winning the series was the goal. Had he wasted his best arms out of the bullpen he would have lost the World Series. The ball Fisk hit was a cookie over the plate and if it did go foul the next one would have cleared the centerfield wall. The wall cost the Red Sox as much as it has gained. See Bucky Dent. So I don't buy your argument.
@@StanSwan
I don't buy your bullshit rant. I guess we're even.
@@TheBatugan77 You will never be even with anyone who knows baseball. Just a sad troll. I pity you.
@@TheBatugan77 Poor baby. No one cares.
Definitely feeling the comments from Billy Crystal being a Oakland A's Fan right now.
The A’s were The Bay for the longest time. I love the Giants, but The Coliseum was the last place working class families could see a game.
@@eliquate that mcgwire, canseco, henderson era really hit different.
@@eliquate Working class families (some of them, anyways) can still go to games. More importantly, people -rich and poor - can see many more games on television today (2023), than say in 1970, when it was one day a week (Saturday) with Curt Gowdy on the NBC Game of the Week. Prior to 1958, aside from the St. Louis Cardinals, NO teams - NONE - were located west of the Mississippi.
I can still remember the smell of the outfield grass and the buzz of the A’s signing away Jermaine Dye in the heat of a summer pennant race. Sadly, never again, but I’ll never forget.
@@jamesanthony5681 that's just total horseshit and misinformation.
1:48 always chokes me up. I wasn't born until December 1966 but in spite of that, my love for nostalgia, I cannot help but get choked up when I see that sign that says "NEXT GAME DODGERS VS". Something so haunting about that. But if you think about it, 44 years was a long time for an old ballpark I'd say. I write this in April 2024, 44 years ago was 1980 which is just astonishing to me as I remember 1980 like it was only yesterday. And soon, fans in Oakland will come to realize similar heartbreak. Baseball may still be a game, but Major League Baseball is and always shall be first and foremost a business.
There was a similar photo taken at the last game at Forbes Field. The fans were tearing apart the scoreboard, which had a sign, still intact, saying, "NEXT GAME HERE PITTSBURGH." It was June 28, 1970, and the Pirates had swept a doubleheader from the Chicago Cubs. The next game would be in Pittsburgh, but on July 16, at Three Rivers Stadium.
Baseball is to America, as Soccer is to England. It is the everybody sport, with teams formed by working men that are full of history. Its foundation began in the working class communities where small teams were formed and brought a deeper sense of community. The destruction of old ballparks is a tragedy, because it's the erasure of a teams history and humble roots.
It’s enough to bring tears.
Beautiful. Brings a tear to my eye. Unfortunately capital triumphs over all.
Baltimore tried to go back to the old Ball Park way with Camden yards. Went there to see my Tigers play....beautiful ball park.
I felt the same way when Qualcomm.. stadium was torn down when the chargers moved to los Angeles.😢
The House that Tony Gwynn and Ladanian Tomlinson built. Shame it's gone but the multi purpose era is over.
Major League Baseball.......where the customer is always wrong.
Al Schmenglawitz
from their ashes rose the Mets
My FATHER would have fainted in witnessing this insult and infirmity to Brooklyn and the GREAT EBBETS Field ...... which should have remained packed with LOYAL FANS .... though not rewarded on the field of play THEY STEADFASTLY REMAINED FANS of the DODGERS ! The dirty dealing National League Taking BOTH Dodgers and then Giants to the Left Coast was a crime my Father never reconciled ! I can hear him still ..... from the living room SHOUTING THOSE BUMS !!!!! and more I will redact from commentary. Hated them since. Became a YANKEE Fan in 1956. He was unhappy there as well. GBjj
Polo grounds
I wish I was old enough to have gone to Ebbets Field and seen Dem Bums play ball
Mickey only
You can see the decline of society with this video…. We went from rooting for small town/city teams to Hollywood being at the games and the leisurely game becoming commercialized. Sad when you can look back and see the downfall….
Decline of society? Prior to 1947 it was a closed shop, not open to players of color. And prior to 1958, aside from the Cardinals, no teams existed west of the Mississippi.
So, youre upset that more black and Brown ppl play baseball?
I can see your POV. As a white man, you want your sport to remain mostly white and clean...
You dislike other colors playing your beloved baseball
@@christianmendozatapia295how the hell did you ascertain that from this comment?
@@christianmendozatapia295
What a duushy comment.
Henever talkabout jack tobins7❤on or brooklyn 🌁 ers
Nothing......nothing....is as it was. Baseball is no different. How many teams in the playoffs now? Rediculous.
Nobody cares what Bill Crystal has to say about anything. What makes him an authority?
Ken Burns cared.
Jesus Cares
The fact that he had been going to Major League Baseball games since 1956, and had seen all the greats since then. Also, Crystal was a very good player in high school on Long Island, so he probably knew the game in ways that other interviewees, like Donald Hall and Doris Kearns Goodwin, for all the knowledge that they did have, didn't know.
@@UncleMikeNJ He was a Yankees fan and that was it. He's not a baseball authority. I am tired of him showing up on all of these shows where they talk about the Yankees and Mickey Mantle. He's a Hollywood actor. His opinion means nothing.
He's a celebrity so he knows everything. @@dennis3178