FIELD OF MEMORIES: Gil Hodges and Jackie Robinson (inset bottom left & inset top, left) and the stadium they played in, Ebbets Field (above), will be the subjects of a postcard show at The New Yorker hotel next month. (
)
The Brooklyn Dodgers, who crushed the hearts of loyal city fans nearly 60 years ago by abandoning Ebbets Field for the bland riches of Los Angeles, will resurface in Manhattan next month — in classic postcards.
The unique historical presentation is being offered at The New Yorker hotel on West 34th Street, where visitors can view scores of postcards of the Boys of Summer and their former stadium, which opened 100 years ago this month.
The event is part of the International Postcard Show & Sale being sponsored by the Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City from May 17 through May 19, according to Hy Mariampolski, a show spokesman.
Mariampolski said the Brooklyn Dodgers’ enduring appeal is due to the innocence of a bygone era.
“This was when ballplayers were more than just ballplayers, it was when ballplayers were heroes and role models,’’ he said.
“They weren’t just athletes under contract. They lived in the neighborhood and sometimes went out drinking with fans after the game. They were among us. Fans would invite them to their places to meet their wives and kids.”
Mariampolski, a Park Slope, Brooklyn, resident, has thousands of postcards in his collection, some of which will be displayed.
One of his rarest postcards shows Park Slope’s Washington Park, where the Dodgers played in 1909, four years before they opened Ebbets Field.
A keynote presentation will take place May 18, featuring Ronald Schweiger, Brooklyn’s official historian, who will trace the zany and colorful history of “The Bums” and Ebbets Field through the postcards.
“These postcards are history that is brought alive,” said Schweiger, who has devoted a portion of his home’s basement to an impressive collection of Brooklyn Dodger memorabilia, some of which he’ll bring to the postcard show.
The Dodgers began playing in LA in 1958, and Ebbets Field was razed two years later.
The Dodgers broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947 with second baseman Jackie Robinson, as depicted in the current movie “42.”
Ultimately, however, it was the players’ particularly close relationship with their fans that set them apart, Schweiger believes.
“They stuck around, and you felt you knew them personally,” he said.