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Don Zimmer is chuckling. Entertaining himself with nothing more than the memories of his youth — the 81-year-old baseball lifer still sees it all so clearly.
The championship-deprived Brooklyn Dodgers have finished a Saturday afternoon game against the Phillies, and the Dodgers infielder is heading to Coney Island with pitcher Johnny Podres. It’s a typical night. They walk along the boardwalk, ride the Cyclone and talk with fans, capping the night by playing a ball-throwing game and cleaning out every teddy bear from a game booth, which the duo then distribute at the next day’s game as gag gifts.
Zimmer leaves for Ebbets Field from his apartment in Bay Ridge, with a carpool rotated among Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Carl Erskine and Russ Meyer. Well-wishers seemingly are omnipresent on the way to the gas station, where they park the car beyond right field. Inside, the adulation is even greater.
After 63 years in professional baseball, Zimmer still can’t remember seeing or feeling anything like his time in Brooklyn.
“We had it so good. It would be pretty tough to find a better place to play than Brooklyn,” Zimmer said. “You couldn’t go anywhere in Brooklyn without [people] recognizing you. I was a humpty, but I was recognized as much as anyone else. Dem Dodgers, dem dodgers. We had a lot of fun. They were great fans and we had great teams. That helps a little bit, too.”
The firsthand stories, belonging to an increasingly exclusive fraternity, get rarer by the day. And though the nostalgia of the team and the time still resonate, it is no longer the necessity it once was.
On Thursday, the Brooklyn Nets play their first regular-season game and return professional sports to the borough for the first time since the Dodgers abandoned their hopelessly devoted fans after the 1957 season.
“I am really surprised it happened, but I am so happy,” said Joan Hodges, the widow of Dodgers legend Gil, who has lived in the same apartment in Brooklyn since 1962, on a block named after her husband. “Brooklyn, to me, there’s no place like it. It’s not baseball, but they’re going to have great, loyal fans. That it will have, because that’s the kind of people that live here.”
People like Brooklyn Dodgers fan and East New York native Rick Goldstein.
“When the Dodgers left, it tore the heart out of Brooklyn,” Goldstein said. “I think this is great for Brooklyn. For the Nets to come, it’s fabulous. It’s just funny that Brooklyn now has cache. It’s gotten to be a hip place to be.”
Times have changed. At the intersection where former Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley wanted to build a dome to replace Ebbets Field, to keep one of sport’s most beloved teams at home, the team of perhaps the region’s least fervent fan base was granted land to build the $1 billion Barclays Center.
After more than three decades playing in a blind spot, the Nets have become the trendiest team in sports by relocating to the trendiest borough. If the preseason is any indication, the arena will be filled to the rafters in black and white this season, buoyed by the curiosities a new arena provides.
Brooklyn pride is ubiquitous, but doesn’t necessarily equate to pride in the Nets. A new address is no promise of passion. There’s a reason there aren’t many epics written about the Giants and the Polo Grounds, which legendary Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully notes is due to, “the difference between liking very much and love.”
“The fans ownership of a team has to be earned,” said Erskine, the former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher who threw two no-hitters. “I don’t think you can just declare that this is gonna happen. I think it can happen, but we’re in a whole new culture.
“Pro athletes now, most of them are millionaires. I think when we played, we had more identification with the average guy, average worker. We struggled with pay. We made more than the average worker, but now there’s a cultural divide. There’s not the same bonding from a cultural standpoint because the culture’s different.
“As an old-timer, I’m careful to say that we were better. As far as sports, it’s stronger than ever. Fans are still devoted to teams. In Brooklyn, there is maybe a hunger that’s built over these many years, and let’s hope that happens.”
The Dodgers shared a special relationship with the residents.
“I always felt that the borough looked upon the Dodgers as the answer to all the high buildings in New York and the jibes from the Yankees fans,” said Scully, the radio voice of the Dodgers since 1950. “For many, many years, especially during the war years, if you mentioned the word Brooklyn, people laughed. In the movies, you might find a bunch of G.I.’s and the one who was loud or raucous or rough-talking, he was always from Brooklyn, so people made fun of Brooklyn. I think the people relied on the Dodgers to give them some self-respect. I think that’s why the relationship was so great and so deep and lasted so long. If the Nets can get that same feeling, I think it’ll be a great story.”
The Dodgers now have been at Chavez Ravine longer than they were at Ebbets Field, but to Brooklyn Dodgers fans, the franchise was forever frozen. While reminiscing, the present tense will sometimes sneak into conversation, as if Jackie Robinson is taking a big lead off first base or a weekend series with the Giants is approaching.
The Dodgers make memories shared by thousands seem remarkably intimate, while displaying an enthusiasm that hasn’t waned over five decades. The team left, but the feelings remain. Long Island or California or Florida are just places they live. Brooklyn is home.
“Brooklyn, as opposed to Manhattan in the ’30s and ’40s, we were all first-generation Americans, and what better way to get assimilated than to root for the home team,” said 75-year-old Marty Adler, founder of the Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Fame. “When you went to big cavernous Yankee Stadium, you could see Phil Rizzuto smiling. At Ebbets Field, you could see Pee Wee Reese smiling and sweating at the same time. There was a closeness. In the neighborhood, you just walked from one block to another and all the radios were on. You didn’t have to know the guy, you’d ask, ‘Hey, what’s the score?’ This is what we did.”
The line separating player from fan was little more than a uniform and clubhouse access. Goldstein remembers watching players come to a batting cage on Pennsylvania Avenue, throwing to kids in the neighborhood.
Erskine lived in Bay Ridge and rented the same apartment each season upon joining the club in 1948, nearby those of Reese, Meyer, Snider and Rube Walker. When the games were over and the players went home, the celebrations were often just getting started.
“For a decade we lived in the same neighborhood and became a part of the community,” Erskine said. “When I pitched a good ballgame, I’d come back to the neighborhood and they’d have a street party, a little band playing, and we’d have a big celebration. It was a love affair. When it came down to ownership, that borough, that city of Brooklyn, probably claimed more ownership over a team than almost any city. It was a special time. In 1951, when we lost to the Giants, I can tell you this for absolute fact, the players themselves hurt more for the fans than we did for ourselves.”
“They were accessible. People could identify with these players,” Goldstein said. “This was our own. That’s what made them unique. They didn’t live in Manhattan. They lived with us. Everyone knew where Gil Hodges lived. They embraced Brooklyn and they were embraced.
“The difference between then and now is money. They didn’t make the money compared to today’s standards, so they had to work a real job in the offseason. We were blue collar. The Yankees were elite. They were efficient and successful, but they weren’t warm. Brooklyn was warm. That’s why they were loved. They were like your cousin, like your neighbor.”
The times were good and the players were better. From 1941 until their move, the Dodgers won seven National League pennants, showcased numerous Hall of Famers, sparked social change with the integration of Robinson and captured their lone World Series title in 1955.
Soon after, the rumors started. No one could imagine the Dodgers actually leaving Brooklyn, so common logic stated they wouldn’t. But Robert Moses exerted the influence that continually shaped New York and denied O’Malley his dome dream, setting the stage for the shock and anger that slowly turned to resignation and sadness as the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.
“It still gets to me. It’s still sad,” Goldstein said. “We just suffered. It was absolutely devastating. I think Brooklyn never recovered from that loss because you lost your identity.”
“I always kind of related our departure in Brooklyn to a young person who dies too early in life,” Erskine said. “The memory is still fresh. People still remember the young life, the young vibrant experiences with that person. It was like snatching a person away before their time.
“I hope that Brooklyn fans who will never be able to forgive the move will see that Mr. O’Malley’s intent was very honorable and that he wanted desperately to stay in Brooklyn and he had a vision for this site. I hope that softens the blow a little bit for the O’Malleys. Maybe kind of in a romantic way it’s brought some closure, some poetic justice for the O’Malley family.”
Ebbets Field was going to come crashing down, it was just a matter of when. With the growth of television, the rise of ticket prices and the birth of luxury suites, Scully admits that the allegiance could have been “watered down” even if the team remained in Brooklyn.
It is a Brooklyn that couldn’t have lasted. It cannot be recreated — only reimagined. Deron Williams doesn’t have to be Duke Snider. It is unlikely that Gil Hodges Way will be joined by Joe Johnson Junction.
When the Dodgers left, a borough was robbed of what defined it. With the Nets arriving, the slate is clean and the potential is powerful.
“It gives us some form of new identity,” Adler said. “I hope and I pray that the Nets fill the void that was left with basketball. I think it’s good for basketball. I think it’s good for the borough. Brooklyn was the Borough of Churches and the altar was home plate at Ebbets Field. We’ll just bring it over to halfcourt at Nets games. We’ll bring our hearts there.”
The Nets have invited several former Dodgers players and family members to the first game at the Barclays Center.
History will be embraced, but can now cede the spotlight. After 55 years, the next act finally has arrived. The Nets have a chance to be something great. They will just be something different.
“It’s certainly not the Brooklyn it was,” Hodges said. “It’s hard to describe, it’s a whole different world. It’s very different, but Brooklyn will never die. When you got fans like you get here, it’s going to be pretty good. … Who knows what will happen? Wouldn’t it be nice if we became champions again?”
howard.kussoy@nypost.com