I was 12 years old in 1948 when my daddy took me to my first baseball game at Ebbets Field. Up 'til then, I had to be satisfied listening to the games on my portable radio, sitting on the "stoop" of our Brooklyn home on hot summer days. No air-conditioning back then, but nobody seemed to notice the heat.
The size of the stadium amazed me, all those happy, shouting fans, the players in their white baggy uniforms with blue lettering that said "Dodgers" across the front. The summer air was filled with the smell of hot dogs.
I was the only girl in our family back in those days—had three boy cousins who rooted for the Yankees and teased me real bad about the hopeless Dodgers.
The Dodgers were so named because back in Brooklyn a long time ago, trolley cars were how people got around. But you had to be careful crossing the streets and folks were always "dodging" trolley cars.
It was an exciting game back then. The players were paid well, but they were people just like us. They lived in our neighborhoods and they set a good example for all the kids. Sometimes they played great, most times terrible. We loved them however the game turned out. They were "dem Bums" and they belonged to us. My favorite was a shortstop named Pee Wee Reese. He was a southerner from Louisville, but he became a good friend of the first black player, Jackie Robinson. He was a great fielder, making impossible plays on hard-hit balls that whizzed by him at shortstop. I remember players like Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Carl Furillo, Roy Campanella and Ralph Branca. I recall a scrappy manager named Durocher.
I suppose there were players who smoked and drank too much in those days, but they stayed on the right side of the law and we didn't hear much about such goings on. They didn't need rehab for drug problems and they didn't get arrested for committing crimes. Different people playing a different game back in those days.
I don't watch baseball much anymore. The Dodgers are gone. When I do catch a game sometimes and see the word "Dodgers" on a uniform, my heart skips a beat. Then I remember they belong to Los Angeles.