100 Years Ago Today 8/31/1920: Brooklyn Robins Take Back First Place As September Looms

From the desk of: FINGERPRINTS OF THE BUMS

100th Anniversary

BROOKLYN ROBINS
1920 National League Champions

Game #126: Tuesday, August 31, 1920 - BR
Brooklyn Robins vs. St. Louis Cardinals
Sportsman's Park

First Place Brooklyn Robins Achieve Victory Number Seventy with Twenty-Nine Games Left to Play 

Message to Uncle Robbie: Don't look back or you just might see who is behind you.

After all, New York City is still John McGraw's empire.  But it's also a not so subtle reminder that the National League pennant is up for grabs. 

If over these last five months you've remained a member of the staunch Brooklyn skeptics and Robins naysayers, then perhaps Tuesday's contest finally swayed you into believing this surprisingly irrepressible team - virtually unchanged from last season - genuinely stands poised to win another National League pennant.  From the lips of yours truly to the ears of Charlie Byrne!  But the McKeever Brothers and Charlie Ebbets himself believe this to be true.  Fans filing into 55 Sullivan Place in exponentially record numbers are all the proof they need.

With Tuesday's 5-2 victory at Sportsman's Park the Robins finish the month of August with a modest 14-13 record.  However, the true significance of Tuesday's game is that it marks Brooklyn's seventieth victory of the regular season.  It's one win above last season's total; thirteen more than achieved in 1918; and presently matches their 1917 output.  Only difference being this year's Robins still have twenty-nine games left to play.  Everything now points back to 1916 when the Robins win 94 games and capture the pennant by a 2.5 game margin over Philadelphia.  It may take that many wins if not more in order to keep at bay the defending champion Cincinnati Reds and surging New York Giants.  But make no mistake, the road to the pennant presently courses through Brooklyn, as both Cincinnati and the New York Giants visit Ebbets Field in late September.

Back on the field, the Robins lose their series against St. Louis but at least salvage a victory in their final visit this season to Sportsman's Park.  Unlike yesterday Brooklyn stays a step ahead of the Cardinals with a 2-1 lead after three, trading runs in the sixth, then closing with two more runs in the seventh en route to a 5-2 final.  Bernie Neis getting a start in center field goes 2 for 5 with two runs batted in.  Hi Myers, Ed Konetchy and Pete Kilduff also drive in a run apiece.  Starter Jeff Pfeffer improves to 12-8 with a 2.90 ERA, after yielding two runs on seven hits and no walks with four strikeouts through a full nine.  Boston's extra-inning triumph over Cincinnati coupled with Brooklyn's victory once again gives the Robins a half-game lead over the Reds. 

Meanwhile, the New York Giants lose yet again at Forbes Field placing them two games out of first.  We know Wilbert Robinson and John McGraw are no longer the close friends they once were.  It seems the only things they have in common theses days are their respective issues playing Pittsburgh.

• RECORD: 70-55 (.560)
• 1st Place; 0.5 GA

Ebbets Field ~ 100th Anniversary

 

55 Sullivan Place

Brooklyn, N.Y.

 

Picture From Brooklyn Spectator

 

100th YEAR ANNIVERSARY

1913  ~  2013

 

By 1912, Charles Ebbets entered into partnership with brothers, Stephen and Edward McKeever.  The three bought out departing partner, Henry Medicus.  Mr. Ebbets and the McKeever Brothers then entered into a 50/50 partnership and established the Brooklyn Baseball Club, Inc.  The team's nickname widely became recognized as the Dodgers (shortened from Trolley Dodgers) around this time.

 

On April 9, 1913, the gates opened to the newly completed Ebbets Field; the Brooklyn Dodgers new home.  Roughly 12,000  fans  endured rain to witness their Brooks lose 1-0 to the Philadelphia Phillies.  The Dodgers posted a 65-84 record in 1913, finishing  sixth in the circuit.  Inside their new park and in front of Brooklyn's faithful, they only managed to play .382 baseball, with a 29-47 mark.

BROOKLYN'S STARTING NINE

C - Otto Miller

1B - Jake Daubert

2B - George Cutshaw

SS- Bob Fisher

3B - Red Smith

OF- Casey Stengel

OF - Zack Wheat

OF - Herbie Moran

*

SP - Pat Ragan

SP - Nap Rucker

SP - Frank Allen

SP - Cliff Curtis

 

 

Ebbets Field originally opened to accommodate 18,000 patrons, with standing room for 3,000 more.  The Dodgers drew 347,000 fans during Ebbets' inaugural season.  By the 1950's, up to 32,000 fans could fit into an increasingly undersized Ebbets Field.  Of course, the park famously opened with no flag to run up the pole.  Apparently, no one considered building a press box.  And someone forgot the keys to unlock the bleacher section.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1925, owner Charles Ebbets passed away.  Eleven days later, Edward McKeever passed away as well.  Both rest eternally in Brooklyn.  Charles Ebbets is buried at Greenwood Cemetery; Edward McKeever at Holy Cross Cemetery.

 

 

 

 

 

Pictured above, blueprint representation of Ebbets Field.  Below, seats from Ebbets.

 

 

 

Stephen McKeever continued running the club until his passing after the 1937 season.  With his death came the end of an era, and the beginning of another.  The regime that brought the Dodgers into a new century gave way to the Branch Rickey-Walter O'Malley era that would transform the Dodgers into baseball's World Champions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On September 24, 1957, roughly 6,700 fans showed up to watch the last ever Brooklyn Dodgers game at Ebbets Field.  Danny McDevitt pitched a complete game, five hit shutout.  He walked one and struck out nine batters.  In the line-up playing for Brooklyn that day, was Roberto Clemente.  The 1957 team was minus the retired Jackie Robinson.  However, many of Brooklyn's favorites would go on to continue their careers in Los Angeles.  The 1957 team also had on it a young Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale.
 

 

In the winter of 1960, Brooklyn's beloved old ballpark arrived upon its fateful date with the same  wrecking ball that destroyed the Polo Grounds.  Ebbets was unmercifully reduced to rubble forty-eight years after hosting its first baseball game.  Within two more years, an apartment complex came to dominate the former parcels of land Charles Ebbets spent a small personal fortune amassing in an area of Brooklyn, not too kindly referred to as Pigtown.

 

 

 

 

The view down Bedford Avenue today.

 

 

 

The Bedford Avenue Bums may have moved three thousand miles away to Los Angeles.  The spirit of the Brooklyn Dodgers however, is still very strong throughout the Borough of Kings..

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Earlier this year, the flagpole which stood atop the Ebbets Field scoreboard made a grand re-appearance in the Borough, and now resides at its new home in front of Barclays Center; Brooklyn's new arena which occupies the location Walter O'Malley wanted to build a new park for the Dodgers.  Sharon Robinson, daughter of Jackie and Rachel Robinson, was on hand for the flagpole dedication.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike.BTB