There Used to Be a Ballpark

 

Look closely... that flagpole carries quite a story.  Once placed just outside Brooklyn, New York's much beloved Ebbets Field, it again greets sports fans -- instead of the Dodgers, it welcomes those who cheer for pro basketball's Nets.
After the iconic ballpark was demolished, it lived on after being donated to a nearby VFW post, at a building that held several other purposes over the decades.  Nearly 50 years later, then-Nets owner Bruce Ratner obtained the pole for Barclays Center to unite the borough's old sports tradition with its new one.  
Ironically, the arena stands on the parcel of land Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley once envisioned as the next home of his baseball team.  But when O'Malley, failed to gain title to the land, he began to look elsewhere, landing in Los Angeles in 1958, and opening Dodger Stadium there four years later. 
It took more than 50 years and a totally different cast of characters for pro sports to return to Brooklyn -- along with a reminder of its rich baseball history.
Ebbets Field's legacy -- as well as that of its rival venue in Manhattan The Polo Grounds -- is honored in the Joe Raposo song, "There Used to Be a Ballpark," which Frank Sinatra introduced in 1973.


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