Who Hit Abe Stark’s Iconic Sign at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn?

Had he achieved his dream of becoming New York mayor, Abe Stark would probably be best remembered for that. Instead, most people remember Stark because of his iconic sign at Ebbets Field. This article is #2 in a series of three about the Brooklyn clothier-turned-politician and that sign. It focuses in detail on the sign itself and its history – featuring in-depth research into who achieved the feat of hitting the sign. For a biography of Abe Stark and his life and times, click here. For a history of ballpark signs that offered prizes to fans, click here.

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Johnny Moore, Jim Gilliam, Gino Cimoli are three of the players known to have hit Abe Stark’s “hit sign, win suit” sign at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. And yes, they did win a suit from Stark’s clothing store. (Trading Card Database)

 

An advertisement that adorned the right field fence in Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers – “Hit Sign. Win Suit. Abe Stark. 1514 Pitkin Ave. Brooklyn’s Leading Clothier” – is likely the most famous sign in baseball history. Dodger fans and players alike rejoiced when a batter managed the rare feat of hitting the sign on a line drive and winning a new suit.

Although the Dodgers left Brooklyn after the 1957 season, the Stark sign, located at the bottom of the scoreboard, is often referred to in books and memoirs about Brooklyn and the Dodgers with a sense of nostalgia or heartbreak.1 Stark, who opened his clothing store in 1914, was well-known as a generous philanthropist and civic activist whose store attracted not only customers but also Brooklynites who were down on their luck and needed a job or charity. But the Ebbets Field sign made Stark an even more famous public figure and helped catapult his political career as president of the New York City Council (1954-1961) and borough president of Brooklyn (1962-1970).

In 1938, a cartoon in The New Yorker by George Price depicted a sign on an outfield fence with the message, “Hit This Sign and Abe Feldman will give you a suit absolutely free.” Backing up the outfielder reaching for a ball was an elderly man in a suit and bowler hat – clearly Abe Feldman – with a baseball glove on each hand, guarding the fence to keep the ball from hitting the sign. 2 The sign was satirized by a syndicated Bugs Bunny cartoon in 1956. 3 It is in the background of Norman Rockwell’s famous 1948 painting, “The Three Umpires,” which was on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on April 23, 1949. In his book The Great American Novel (1973), Philip Roth created a character, Abe Ellis, based on Stark. 4

But the sign that lives in so many memories was apparently not Stark’s first advertisement at Ebbets Field. According to Bob McGee, author of a definitive history of the beloved Brooklyn ballpark, in the 1920s Stark rented space on its right field wall to advertise his clothing store. It was located where the Bull Durham tobacco company had rented space since the day the ballpark opened in 1913. That sign covered the whole right field wall, top to bottom, and was about 150 feet  wide, from the foul line to right center.5 Overton Tremper, an outfielder for the team (then called the Brooklyn Robins) in 1927 and 1928, told McGee (in a letter) about a Stark sign along the right field foul line.6 The right-field foul line was only about 300 feet from home plate, so the sign was relatively easy to hit.7

Besides Tremper, McGee’s primary source for the existence of this earlier sign is Murray Rubin, whose father worked at Stark’s clothing store from 1919 until it closed in 1959. He told McGee: “Many balls hit the original Stark sign. My father told me that on some evenings, he altered more suits for players than for paying customers.”

Verifying the existence of that sign has been challenging. There are no photographs of, or news stories about, a Stark sign in that location in the extensive Newspapers.com database that includes many New York newspapers, including several in Brooklyn, or the New York Times archives. Several collectors of old Brooklyn photographs could not find any photos of an earlier Stark sign.

Whether or not Stark had a large sign along the right-field foul line, his famous advertisement below the scoreboard was not the only sign he sponsored at Ebbets Field. At some point in the late 1920s or early 1930s, Stark shared a sign on the outfield wall with another Brooklyn clothier, Mac Oster. A photo in the Brooklyn Times Union from June 11, 1932 – of a fight on  the field between Dodgers and Cubs players – clearly reveals an outfield sign with both Stark and Oster’s names along with the store’s Pitkin Avenue address.8 Several photos of Manhattan College football games (played at Ebbets Field from 1923 to 1931), reveal the same Stark/Oster sign.9 As late as October 28, 1935, Brooklyn Times Union columnist Bill McCullough wrote, “Stark and Mac Oster, Brooklyn clothiers, owe Johnny Moore of the Phils, a suit … Johnny hit their sign at Ebbets Field the last day of the season.”10 The sign is near the center field exit gate. McGee suggests that the sign dates from 1931 or after, when the center field stands were completed.11  

 

The Ebbets Field scoreboard, shown here during the 1949 World Series, displayed Abe Stark’s “hit sign, win suit” sign from 1931 to 1957. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

 

The Iconic Sign – and Who Hit It

In 1931, the Dodgers expanded Ebbets Field to add more seats, going from 25,000 to 32,000. The expansion changed the configuration of the outfield fences, including the placement of a new scoreboard. Stark approached Harry M. Stevens, who had the  contract at Ebbets Field with the Dodgers to sell peanuts, hot dogs, and other concessions, and apparently was also responsible for finding businesses to rent advertising spaces in the stadium. Stark recalled that “[Stevens] said nobody had ever asked for it. He didn’t think it was a good spot, but I did. I bought it. I knew it would be a tough spot to hit.”12

The area Stark rented was below the scoreboard. It was smaller (three feet by 30 feet) than his earlier sign(s). It included the words “Hit Sign, Win Suit. Abe Stark. 1514 Pitkin Ave., Brooklyn’s Leading Clothier.” The Dodgers initially charged him $275 a year for the sign. By 1957, the team’s final season at Ebbets Field, Stark paid $2,500 to rent that space.

The sign was visible to the fans seated in every part of the ballpark. But situated  at  ground level, it was hard for batters to hit. A batter had to slug a hard line drive to hit the sign. The distance to the scoreboard was 344 feet to the left side and 328 on the right.13

It isn’t clear who made the rule that a hitter had to hit the sign on the fly. Bill Roeder, a veteran reporter for the New York World Telegram, recalled that one Pirates player hit the sign on a bounce. Roeder called Stark and suggested that the hit should be worth at least a pair of pants or a jacket. Stark said, “Tell him to come to the store tomorrow. I’ll give him a pair of slacks.”14

Between 1931 and 1957 the Dodgers played 2,101 regular season games at Ebbets Field. Hitters for the Dodgers and their opposing teams had 143,991 at-bats in those games.15 The number of hitters, and which hitters hit the sign, are matters of dispute.

To answer those questions, this analysis utilized the Newspapers.com database (which includes hundreds of newspapers from across the U.S. and Canada, including the Brooklyn Eagle and   New York Daily News, and several smaller New York papers, as well as the archives of the New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Post.  Separately and in combination, we used a variety of combinations of search words and phrases, such as “Abe Stark,” “Stark,” “sign,” “suit” “free suit,” “Ebbets Field,” and others to find news stories reporting on Dodger games at Ebbets Field. Retrosheet was used to account for specific players identified in books and news stories to verify if they played games in Ebbets Field and had an outfield hit.

Some newspaper reporters, columnists, and others claimed that no batter ever hit the sign. Longtime Detroit sports columnist Joe Falls wrote, “Nobody ever won so much as a vest…Nobody ever hit the sign. Nobody came close.”16 Columnist Jerry Green wrote that Stark “never gave a free suit to a ballplayer.”17 Brooklyn native Larry King, who became a well-known newspaper columnist and TV interviewer, wrote that “no player ever hit” the sign.18

Some sources are vague about the number but claim that, as one source suggested, it was “one of baseball’s rarest feats.”19 A columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News wrote that “a visiting player didn’t have a prayer of hitting sign, winning suit.”20 Murray Rubin, whose father worked at Stark’s store, told author Bob McGee that after Stark moved the sign to below the scoreboard, “my dad rarely saw any players.”21

Other sources claim that it was a more frequent occurrence. In 1942 the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported: “Each season between 6 and 15 suits are gifted. Last year was the first time that the sign was not hit – ironically enough, during the season the Dodgers won the pennant.”22 In 1945, Stark said he gave away five suits a year,23 a number he repeated in 194924 and 1953 interviews.25 Stark may have thought he gave away lots of suits, but even five suits a year is likely an exaggeration.

In 1949, Stark claimed that Mel Ott was the first one to do it – and did it twice.26 In 1966, he told a reporter that Ott did it “twice in one game.”27 This allegedly irked Stark, since Ott was the star slugger on the rival New York Giants. In 1954, Oscar Goldman, who managed Stark’s store, repeated his boss’s claim about Ott.28 A 1956 story about Stark claimed, “Former Giant player Mel Ott won the first two suits the first season.”29 Echoing Stark and Goldman, McGee, in his history of Ebbets Field, wrote that Ott “was the first to oblige, winning the first two suits during the 1931 season.”30 One baseball blogger wrote: “Stark only had to award one free suit to an opposing player: Mel Ott of the Giants.”31 Despite these repeated references to Ott, there is no evidence in daily news reports that Ott ever hit the sign.

Goldman also claimed that Cubs slugger Hack Wilson “did it two, three times and we had to make up a suit special for him. We had nothing to fit a little guy like him with shoulders like an ox. Gil Hodges we had to do special, too.”32 But, here again, there is no corroborating evidence that either Wilson or Hodges hit the sign. It is unlikely that newspapers would have uniformly ignored Ott, Wilson, or Hodges banging a hit off Stark’s sign.

In Green Cathedrals, Philip Lowry wrote: “Woody English of the Dodgers was the only batter to ever hit it, on June 6, 1937.”33 For The Greatest Ballpark Ever, McGee interviewed English, who claimed to have hit the sign three times. He may have done so, but there’s no evidence of it in the daily news reports. English did hit the sign twice, however. Both the Associated Press and the New York Times reported that English hit a double against the Reds’ Johnny Vander Meer in June 1937.34 Neither mentioned if English’s double came off the Stark sign, but the Brooklyn Citizen wrote that English “hit the suit sign below the scoreboard in right field in the third inning, thereby winning a suit of clothes.”35 A few weeks later, the Times reported that English “bounced a two-bagger off the low sign on the score board to win a suit of clothes” against the Phillies on August 19.36

But English wasn’t the first. Based on news reports, Phillies outfielder Johnny Moore was the first, and he did so on September 29, 1935. The New York Daily News mentioned that Moore hit the scoreboard but didn’t mention the Stark sign. The reporter simply wrote, “In the seventh Johnny Moore rapped the second Philly hit with a looper against the scoreboard.” It wasn’t until almost a month later that columnist Bill McCullough reported that Moore had hit the sign. 37

Joe Stripp, a Dodger infielder, was the second player verified as having hit the sign.  On May 13, 1936, the New York Herald Tribune noted that Stripp “gets a suit of clothes for hitting an advertiser’s sign in the first inning. He ought to give the vest to Pepper Martin, the right-fielder having tumbled in a vain attempt to knock  the drive down.”38

English was next. Then Dodger outfielder Gibby Brack hit the sign in 1937.39 The following season, Johnny Hudson, a Dodger infielder, hit the sign twice in one homestand – against the Pirates on July 29, 1938, and against the Reds a week later on August 6, 1938, according to news reports. Stark once claimed that Hudson “hit it three times in one year”40 and McGee asserted that Hudson hit the sign three times.41 But there’s no corroborating evidence that he hit the sign a third time.42

News stories verify that between 1940 and 1952, Herman Franks,43 Red Schoendienst,44 Erv Palica,45 and Hank Thompson46 earned suits. On August 16, 1953, the Herald Tribune reported that “Hal Rice won a suit of clothes with his double to right center in the third when the ball bounced off the Abe Stark advertisement which says ‘Hit Sign, Win Suit.’”47 A week later, a Pittsburgh Press columnist confirmed Rice’s achievement.48 Two weeks later, the Williamsburg News reported that “Abe Stark will have one suit less in his Pitkin Avenue store now that Hal Rice, of the Pittsburgh Pirates, banged a hit off his famous ‘Hit Sign-Get [win]  Suit’ sign at Ebbets Field. Hal expects to collect the next time his team is in town.”49 Retrosheet confirms that Rice hit a double in a game on Saturday, August 15.

On June 19, 1954, the Herald Tribune noted that Dodger infielder “Jim Gilliam won himself a suit by doubling past Hank Sauer to hit the Abe Stark sign under the scoreboard in right field.”50 The same day, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that “Jim Gilliam’s double was worth a suit, though, even if it did bounce off Hank Sauer’s glove.”51 The game highlights, as reported in the Daily News, include  “Gilliam’s leadoff double hit free-suit sign in right. Tough year for Abe Stark. To get even, he may have to get his city council to slap a new tax on two base hits.”52 In fact, only one other player, the Cincinnati Reds’ Wally Post, hit the sign in 1954.53

In May of that year, Bill Roeder’s syndicated story claimed that Dodgers slugger Duke Snider hit the Stark sign, but he wasn’t specific about when it occurred. According to Roeder, Cubs outfielder Hank Sauer misjudged the ball, allowing it to strike the sign. So, “an ordinary out became a $150 tropical worsted.”54 A column that week by the Daily News’ Dick Young joked: “Next time [the] Cubs come to Ebbets Field, don’t be surprised to see Abe Stark out at the park early, teaching Hank Sauer how to protect that sign. Hank should have caught [the] drive that won Snider a free suit.”55 But a month later on June 19, the Eagle reported that Snider hit a ball that struck  the Stark sign on a bounce, and therefore “doesn’t count, not even a pair of slacks.”56 The claims about Snider are after-the-fact and vague  regarding  the date and game  of his purported feat.

In his 1993 autobiography, former Dodger pitcher Rex Barney wrote, “Nobody ever hit it, except once that I know. I think it was Erv Dusak of the Cardinals who hit a line drive that headed straight for it. The Dodgers had a big lead at the time, so Carl Furillo pretended he had slipped and the ball hit the sign, and the fans went crazy. Players on both teams were laughing and cheering. I remember Furillo patting that sign at the start of every inning.”57 In an interview that same year, however, Barney had a different memory. He told a reporter that the only player to hit the Stark sign was the Philadelphia Phillies’ Ron Northey, and only because Furillo slipped going after the ball.58

There’s no evidence from news stories that either Dusak or Northey ever hit the sign. To the contrary, in 1947 Eagle sports columnist Tommy Holmes reported that Dusak, then playing for the Pirates, had robbed the Dodgers’ Pete Reiser of an extra-base hit as well as a free suit of clothes.59

Furillo claimed that “Once Elmer Valo misjudged a line drive I hit to right-center and the ball sailed over his head and off the sign. I remember that when I went to collect the suit, they wanted to give me one of the cheap suits. I looked around and took one of the good ones.”60 During his 20-year major-league career, Valo played only nine games with an opposing team at Ebbets Field – all as a right fielder with the Phillies in 1956. In five of those games, Furillo was hitless, according to Retrosheet. He hit two home runs but  no doubles or triples. He singled to right field on July 1 and August 11. Could one of these have been the hit that, in Furillo’s memory, Valo misjudged? There’s no mention of Furillo hitting the Stark sign, or even hitting the scoreboard, in any newspaper reports of those games. 61

On September 15, 1956, Daily News columnist Dick Young wrote that “Cubs claim Walt Moryn has suit coming for hitting Abe Stark’s sign during July 28 game. Stark was in Europe at the time, but he should deputize someone to watch out for such important matters.” Young’s column appeared seven weeks after that game. According to Retrosheet, Moryn had two singles to right field in that game against the Dodgers, but the news stories about that game did not mention whether the balls hit the sign or even the scoreboard.62

In a 1987 interview, Chuck Tanner, who played for the Milwaukee Braves and Chicago Cubs between 1955 and 1958, claimed that he hit a line drive “right in the ‘Abe Stark.’” 63 After hitting the sign, Tanner claims he took the subway to Stark’s store. He recalled that “Furillo or somebody else” had warned him: ‘When you go in there, don’t take the first one. Tell ‘em you want the good ones.’ And I did that. They took me in the back and I got a good suit, about a $100 suit.”64 Tanner’s memory may be accurate, but there’s no news story verifying that he ever hit the Stark sign.

In 1987, former Dodgers general manager Buzzie Bavasi told a columnist  that Dick Williams, who played for the Dodgers between 1951 and 1956, hit the Stark sign in a game against the Braves.65 No evidence exists to substantiate this assertion.

News stories and books mention 24 batters who allegedly hit the sign. Only 15 of these hitters (who hit the sign a total of 17 times) can be confirmed through the daily stories about games that mention the batter and the fact that he hit the Stark sign.

 

Verified Players Who Hit the Abe Stark Sign at Ebbets Field

Date	Player	Team	Batting Side
1935-09-29	Johnny Moore66	Phillies	LH
1936-05-12	Joe Stripp67	Dodgers	RH
1937-06-06 and 1937-08-19	Woody English68	Dodgers	RH
1937-06-07	Gibby Brack69	Dodgers	RH
1938-07-29 and 1938-08-06	Johnny Hudson70	Dodgers	RH
1940-05-15	Herman Franks71	Dodgers	LH
1948-09-17	Red Schoendienst72	Cardinals	Switch
1950-07-09	Erv Palica73	Dodgers	RH
1952-08-31	Hank Thompson74	Giants	LH
1953-08-15	Hal Rice75	Pirates	LH
1954-06-18	Jim Gilliam76	Dodgers	Switch
1954-06-22	Wally Post77	Reds	RH
1955-07-01	Johnny O’Brien78	Pirates	RH
1956-04-29	Charlie Neal79	Dodgers	RH
1957-08-08	Gino Cimoli80	Dodgers	RH

 

The other nine batters may have hit the sign, but these cannot be confirmed from daily sports pages. Columnists, fans, and Stark himself mention them, but often through the haze of memory or hand-me-down myths, without specifying the date or even the year.

 

Players Who May Have Hit the Sign but Aren’t Verified

Player	Team	Batting Side
Mel Ott81	Giants	LH
Hack Wilson82	Cubs	RH
Erv Dusak83	Cardinals	RH
Gil Hodges84	Dodgers	RH
Duke Snider85 (1954)	Dodgers	LH
Carl Furillo86 (1955)	Dodgers	RH
Walt Moryn87 (1956-07-28)	Cubs	LH
Chuck Tanner88 (1957)	Braves/Cubs	LH
Dick Williams89	Dodgers	RH

 

Sportswriters occasionally recounted how outfielders robbed hitters of a free suit by their adept fielding. They also wrote about how misjudgments by outfielders led to fly balls that hit the Stark sign. For example, a 1939 New York Times story reported that Dodger outfielder Art Parks “robbed [Frank] Demaree of a hit and a suit of clothes with a leaping one-hand catch of Frank’s drive. The ball was headed directly for the suit sign at the base of the scoreboard when Art snared it.”90 A Daily News story from 1952 reported that Giants infielder “Hank Thompson gets a free suit for hitting clothing sign at the base of [the] scoreboard in [the] ninth. And he should give the extra pair of trousers to Furillo for not catching it.”91 In a 1957 game against the Giants, the Dodgers’ Gino Cimoli belted a hit against the Stark sign. Newsday columnist Stan Isaacs wrote: “Bobby Thomson, who played the ball badly, commented, ‘I deserve the pants.’”92

Besides its difficult location, another reason the sign was hard to hit was that Dixie Walker and Furillo patrolled right field with skill. Walker played for the Dodgers from 1939 until 1947, and Furillo was a Dodger from 1946 until the Dodgers’ final 1957 season in Brooklyn. Walker was the starting right fielder beginning in 1941 and Furillo took his place starting in 1948. Oscar Goldman, who managed Stark’s store, recalled that Walker once made a spectacular catch that kept a ball from hitting the sign. A writer suggested that Walker rated at least a pair of slacks. “We even threw in a sports jacket,” said Goldman.93

A 1947 Daily News story reported: “In addition to being robbed of [a] homer, [Bill] Nicholson was beat out of suit of clothes when Walker made [a] sensational one-handed grab of Bill’s liner to deep right in [the] eighth. If Dixie hadn’t nailed it, [the] ball would have banged against [the] Abe Stark sign at [the] bottom of [the] scoreboard and Nick would have won himself a suit. Abe should at least give Dixie [a] pair of slacks for [the] save.”94

Furillo said: “I don’t recall a ball ever hitting the sign when I was in right field. I asked the man for a pair of pants or something for guarding the sign, but he never gave me anything. Dixie Walker, I think, wangled a few pair of slacks for his work out there.”95

In 1989, columnist Bill Conlin wrote that “Carl Furillo played that historic rightfield wall…with the zeal of a medieval knight who had sworn an oath to die for his king. He was Abe Stark’s Sir Galahad.” Conlin quoted, a longtime top Dodgers executive, Buzzie Bavasi, who claimed that “in 12 years Abe never gave a suit  away, not as long as Carl was playing right.”96

Like many other claims regarding Stark’s sign, Bavasi’s statement is inaccurate, but it reflects how the haze of memory can distort reality, even if the reality itself cannot be totally confirmed with interviews, archives, and other historical documents.

 

Acknowledgments

This article was reviewed by Rory Costello and Bill Lamb and fact checked by Larry DeFillipo.

 

Notes

1 For their book about Ebbets Field, John Zinn and Paul Zinn interviewed Sam Bernstein, who recalled attending Dodgers games with his father, who said “The smartest man was that Abe Stark, because of that sign, ‘Hit Sign, Win Suit.” It was under the scoreboard, and it was hard to hit.” His father also recalled: “I never shopped there because he was too expensive.” John G. Zinn and Paul G. Zinn, editors, Ebbets Field: Essays and Memories of Brooklyn’s Historic Ballpark, 1913-1960 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2013), 180. For his book Bums, Peter Golenbock interviewed a Dodgers fan named Bobby McCarthy, who had similar memories of going to Ebbets Field with his father. McCarthy also recalled the Stark sign, pointing out that the sign was difficult to hit and made even harder because “the right fielder was stationed right in front of it.” Peter Golenbock, Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 2000), 8.

2 Price was a frequent cartoon contributor to The New Yorker. See Lee Lorenz, “George Price,” New Yorker, January 30, 1995. Some claim that the cartoon includes elements of anti-Semitism by depicting a Jewish businessperson as stingy and conniving, both well-worn stereotypes about Jews.

3 This cartoon was syndicated in many newspapers around the country on August 14, 1956, including many far from Brooklyn, such as the Great Falls (Montana) Leader: 6.

4 Frank Ardolino, “’Hit Sign, Win Suit’: Abraham, Isaac, and the Schwabs Living over the Scoreboard in Roth’s ‘The Great American Novel,’’’ Studies in American Jewish Literature, Vol. 8, No. 2, Fall 1989, 219-223.

5 John Zinn, “Of Sacks and Suits,” A Manly Pastime – a Baseball History Blog, February 13, 2015. https://amanlypastime.blogspot.com/2015/02/of-sacks-and-suits.html; Bob McGee, The Greatest Ballpark Ever: Ebbets Field and the Story of the Brooklyn Dodgers (New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 2005), 112.

6 McGee, The Greatest Ballpark Ever, 112. Thanks to Bob McGee for sending me a copy of Tremper’s letter.

7 McGee, The Greatest Ballpark Ever, 63 and 113.

8 “Dodgers and Cubs Rushing to the Aid of Their Fighting Brethren,” Brooklyn Times Union, June 11, 1932: 2A.

9 Amy Surak, director of the archives at Manhattan University (formerly Manhattan College), provided the photos of the Manhattan [College] football team playing at Ebbets Field. The archives describe these photos as from the “1920s-1930s.”

10 “Dodgers Win, Then Tie: Mungo Fans 15 Phils,” New York Daily News, September 30, 1935: 46; “Mungo Whiffs 15 as Dodgers Win lst, 2-0; Tie in 2d,” New York Daily News, September 30, 1935: 46; Bill McCullough, “Between Innings,” Brooklyn Times Union, October 28, 1935: 2A. Mac Oster may have been Stark’s partner in the clothing store for a period of time, but his specific relationship with Stark and the years that both names adorned the sign are not clear.

11 Email from Bob McGee, July 22, 2025.

12 Stan Isaacs, “Remember Abe’s ‘Suit’ Sign at Ebbets Field?” Newsday, September 23, 1966: __.

13 Philip Lowry, Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration of Major League and Negro League Ballparks (New York: Walker & Company, 2006), 38.

14 Isaacs, “Remember Abe’s ‘Suit’ Sign,” above; Dick Young, “Navratilova Wedding Planned; Nolan Looks Maryland Bound,” Lima (Ohio) News, December 27, 1981: 3. During the 1955 Yankees-Dodgers World Series, a wire service story noted that Yankee catcher “Yogi Berra missed winning a suit by about five feet when his line single in the fourth inning hit the scoreboard above a haberdasher’s advertisement.” See “Martin Not Too Convincing; Stanky Warns Pee Wee,” Louisville Courier-Journal, October 3, 1955: 4. The caption of an Associated Press photo from a 1950 game, syndicated in many newspapers around the country, read: “If close ones count, Dodgers’ center fielder Duke Snider may be sporting a new suit in the near future.” The photo showed Phillies right fielder Bill Nicholson chasing “the Duke’s double off the Ebbets Field scoreboard in the seventh inning.” The caption implies that Snider’s hit struck the sign on a bounce rather than a direct hit – otherwise, he’d had definitely been entitled to a free suit. “One Way of Acquiring a Wardrobe,” Hartford Courant, July 11, 1950: 20.

15 Thanks to Kevin Johnson for providing this data, which he calculated from Seamheads.com databases.

16 Joe Falls, “Kingdome Could Use Abe Stark’s Old Sign,” Detroit Free Press, July 15, 1978: 1C.  Eleven years earlier, Falls wrote that he’d never seen anyone hit the sign. Joe Falls, “Domed Stadium Shuts Out Fun,” Detroit Free Press, January 31, 1967: 10.

17 Jerry Green, “It’s Difficult to Forget ‘Dem Bums,’” Newsday, May 17, 1984: __.

18 Larry King, “Dear Old Ebbets Field Stirs Fond Memories,” Miami Herald, April 10, 1968: 11-F.

19 Charlton’s Baseball Chronology https://thebaseballchronologyhome.wordpress.com/2018/11/02/1930-1939/; Elliot Rosenberg, “Big Town Replay,” New York Daily News, March 11, 2003: 55.

20 Stan Hochman, “This Can’t Compare,” Philadelphia Daily News, October 13, 1989: 136.

21 McGee, The Greatest Ballpark Ever, 112.

22 Clifford Evans, “Ears to the Ground,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 21, 1942: 11.

23 “Today’s Profile,” Brooklyn Eagle, June 8, 1945: 6; Zinn, “Of Sacks and Suits,” above; John Scullin Jr., “Abe Start Keeps His People in Mind,” Staten Island Advance, January 21, 1968: 13.

24 Mary Braggiotti, “Harmony Under the Stars in the Dodgers Lair: Close-up of Abe Stark,” New York Post, June 6, 1949: 33.

25 “Stark a Brooklyn Clothier and Civic Groups Leader,” New York Herald Tribune, November 4, 1953.

26 Braggiotti, “Harmony Under the Stars in the Dodgers Lair,” above.

27 Isaacs, “Remember Abe’s’ Suit’ Sign,” above.

28 “Sports of the Times,” Philadelphia Daily Times, Monday, May 31, 1954.

29 “Happy Birthday Abe Stark,” Greenpoint (Brooklyn) Home News, September 27, 1956: 4.

30 McGee, The Greatest Ballpark Ever, 112.

31 “Uncle Mike’s Musings,” October 8, 2016. https://unclemikesmusings.blogspot.com/2016/10/october-8-1956-60-years-since-perfect.html

32 “Sports of the Times,” above.

33 Lowry, Green Cathedrals, 40.

34 Roscoe McGowen, “Reds Overwhelm Dodgers 9 to 2,” New York Times, June 7, 1937: 21.

35 Lee Scott, “Dodgers’ Pitching Situation Hopeless with Mungo and Butcher Not Available,” Brooklyn Citizen, June 7, 1937: 6: __.

36 Roscoe McGowen, “Mungo Fails Against Phils 7-5, After Hoyt Pitches 3-0 Triumph,” New York Times, August 20, 1937: 11.

37 “Dodgers Win, Then Tie: Mungo Whiffs 15,” above. Bill McCullough, “Between Innings,” Brooklyn Times Union, October 28, 1935: 14. Mac Oster was Stark’s partner in the clothing store for some period of time. At some point, Oster’s name even appeared on the sign, but his specific relationship with Stark and the years that both names adorned the sign are not clear.

38 Arthur E. Patterson, “Brooklyn Pummels Dizzy Dean as Brandt Stills St. Louis Bats,” New York Herald Tribune, May 13, 1936: __.

39 According to the Brooklyn Citizen, “Gilly Brack won himself a suit when he hit the sign in right field in the first inning.” Lee Scott, “Roy Henshaw Regains Confidence After His Seven-Hit Victory Over Red,” Brooklyn Citizen, June 8, 1937: 6.

40 Isaacs, “Remember Abe’s ‘Suit’ Sign,” above.

41 McGee, The Greatest Ballpark Ever, 126.

42 “Hudson was mentioned in a 1938 Eagle story that highlighted Stark’s philanthropy as well as his sign. It reported: “Abe Stark, the Brownsville clothier playing host to a party of crippled children at yesterday’s game, saw Johnny Hudson hit his sign under the scoreboard with the double that tied the score in the sixth…And that won a suit of clothes for Jawn.” See “Encore for Bam, Ducky,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 30, 1938: 10.

43 Roscoe McGowen, “Wyatt Is Pounded as Reds Win, 5 to 2,” New York Times, May 16, 1940: 30; Lee Scott, “Sudden Collapse of Brooklyn ‘Big Three’ Bitter Blow to Pilot Durocher,” Brooklyn Citizen, May 16, 1940: 6.

44 ‘Sizzling Cards Clip Bums,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 18, 1948: 2-6; “Did You Know?” New Brunswick (New Jersey) Home News Tribune, February 2, 2003: B5.

45 Bill Lauder Jr., “Dodgers Beat Phils, 7-3, on Palica’s Hurling, Batting,” New York Herald Tribune, July 10, 1950: 17; Lester Rodney, “Dodgers Turn on Phils, 7-3,” (New York) Daily Worker, July 10, 1950: 12.

46 Dana Mozley, “Hodges Now Rated Best .250 Hitter in Baseball,” New York Daily News, September 1, 1952: 38.

47 Bob Cooke, “Brooklyn Drubs Bucs for 7th in Row, 14-6,” New York Herald Tribune, August 16, 1953.

48 Les Biederman, “The Scoreboard,” Pittsburgh Press, August 22, 1953: 6.

49 Barney Ains, “Brooklyn’s Sports Parade,” Williamsburg (Brooklyn) News, September 4, 1953: 5.

50 Harold Rosenthal, “Hodges Blasts Pair, Drives 4 Runs Over,” New York Herald Tribune, June 19, 1954: __.

51 “Hodges Keeps Hitting in Runs for Dodgers,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 19, 1954: 8.

52 Dick Young, “Diamond Dust,” New York Daily News, June 19, 1954: 260.

53 “With Two Pants?” New York Daily News, June 23, 1954: 76.

54 “Here’s Stark Fact: Double Suited Snider,” Miami News, May 25, 1954: 12A; “Sports of the Times,” above.

55 Dick Young, “The Sports of Kings and Queens,” New York Daily News, May 27, 1954: 108. Snider confirmed that story in interviews with Young and with Dave Anderson 26 years later. Dick Young, “’Dook” Recalls Good Times,” (Cocoa) Florida Today, January 10, 1980: C1; Dave Anderson, “The Duke and Ebbets Field,” New York Times, January 10, 1980: __.

56 “Hodges Keeps Hitting,” above.

57 Rex Barney, with Norman Macht, Rex Barney’s Thank Youuuu for 50 Years in Baseball from Brooklyn to Baltimore (Centreville, Maryland: Tidewater Publishers, 1993), 39; Jay Kay, Baseball Fever Blog, April 23, 2007 https://www.baseball-fever.com/forum/the-teams-of-yesteryear/brooklyn-dodgers/24748-hit-sign-win-suit

58 Mel Antonen, “Behind the Seams,” USA Today, July 13, 1993: 11C.

59 Tommy Holmes, “Bucs Can Trade in Behrman for Rickey’s $50,000,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 3, 1947: 13.

60 Isaacs, “Remember Abe’s ‘Suit’ Sign,” above; Kay, Baseball Fever Blog, above.

61 Furillo provides a good illustration of the difficulty of identifying players who hit the Stark sign. A wire service story of the fifth game of the 1955 World Series between the Yankees and Dodgers, published in newspapers around the country, mentions in passing that “Dodger outfielder Carl Furillo won a suit when he hit the sign.” But no news story of that game, nor Retrosheet’s inning-by-inning account of all three games played at Ebbets Field, suggests that Furillo hit a line drive off the Stark sign. In the eighth inning of that game, Furillo “singled to second,” according to Retrosheet. He hit a double in the third game, but, according to both Retrosheet and a newspaper report, it was hit deep to left field, not in the vicinity of the sign under the scoreboard. In the same game, Furillo hit a liner to right center, but Mickey Mantle made a one-handed catch to get him out. “Martin Not Too Convincing,” above; “The Play by Play,” Binghamton (New York) Press, September 30, 1955: 1__; Howard Sigmund, “Podres Quells Yankee Bats for 8-3 Win,” Buffalo Evening News, September 30, 1955: 1.

62 Dick Young, “Diamond Dust,” New York Daily News, September 15, 1956: 28.

63 Stan Isaacs, “Harris ‘Lost’ a Single and Gino Won a Suit,” Newsday, August 9, 1957: 17C.

64 Jim Donaghy, “Spirit at Ebbets Field Stored in Old Dodgers’ Memories,” St. Joseph (Missouri) Gazette, September 24, 1987: 28. Newsday’s Dodger beat reporter mentioned Tanner’s hit in 1957. See Isaacs, “Harris ‘Lost’ a Single,” above.

65 Larry Henry, “New Scoreboard Stirs Old Memories,” (Everett, Washington) Daily Herald, June 11, 1987: 10.

66 “Dodgers Win, Then Tie: Mungo Whiffs 15,” above; McCullough, “Between Innings,” above.

67 Patterson, “Brooklyn Pummels Dizzy Dean,” above; “Diamond Dust,” New York Daily News, May 13, 1936: 60; Bill McCullough, “Dodgers’ Captain Is Too Erratic in Role of Infielder,” Brooklyn Times Union, May 14, 1936: 1A.

68 Scott, “Dodgers’ Pitching Situation Hopeless,” above; Lee Scott, “Diminutive Southpaw Chalks Up Second Win; English Against Delivers,” Brooklyn Citizen, June 8, 1937: 6, _________; McGowen, “Mungo Fails Against Phils 7-5,” above; Rosenberg, “Big Town Replay,” above.

69 According to the Brooklyn Citizen, “Gibby Brack won himself a suit when he hit the sign in right field in the first inning.” See “Diminutive Southpaw Chalks Up Second Win,” above.

70 “Encore for Bam, Ducky,” above; Roscoe McGowen, “Traffic Jams Bring 7-6 Dodger Defeat,” New York Times, July 30, 1938: 6; Tommy Holmes, “Craft Homers with Bags Full in First Inning,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 7, 1938: 2D.

71 McGowen, “Wyatt Is Pounded,” above; Scott, “Sudden Collapse of Brooklyn ‘Big Three,’” above.

72 ‘Sizzling Cards Clip Bums,” above.

73 Lauder, “Dodgers Beat Phils, 7-3,” above; Rodney, “Dodgers Turn on Phils, 7-3,” above.

74  Mozley, “Hodges Now Rated Best .250 Hitter,” above.

75  Biederman, “The Scoreboard,” above; Ains, “Brooklyn’s Sports Parade,” above.

76  Rosenthal, “Hodges Blasts Pair,” above; Young “Diamond Dust,” above.

77 “With Two Pants?” above. (The photo caption says “Furillo plays the ball off the right field wall where it says, ‘Hit Sign Win Suit’ on Wally Post’s double in 3d. Good way to be baseball’s best dressed.”

78 Jack Hernon, “Law Tames Dodgers with Seven-Hitter, 3-2,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 2, 1955: 10; Lester J. Biederman, “Law Beats Dodgers (By Inches),” Pittsburgh Press, July 2, 1955: 6.; “Did You Know?” above.

79 Dick Young, “Bucs Shell Bums’ Hurlers, 10-1, 11-3,” New York Daily News, April 30, 1956: C24.

80 Dick Young, “Shades of JC! Jints Drop Dodgers 5 Behind, 12-3,” New York Daily News, August 9, 1957: 39; Bob Milburn, “Sport-O-Scope,” San Angelo (Texas) Evening Standard, August 13, 1957: 2B; Isaacs, “Harris ‘Lost’ a Single,” above.

81 “Here’s Stark Fact,” above; McGee, The Greatest Ballpark Ever, 112; “Uncle Mike’s Musings,” October 8, 2016. https://unclemikesmusings.blogspot.com/2016/10/october-8-1956-60-years-since-perfect.html; “Happy Birthday Abe Stark,” above; Isaacs, “Remember Abe’s ‘Suit’ Sign,” above.

82 “Hack Wilson Hit It, Too,” (Chester, Pennsylvania) Delaware County Daily Times, May 24, 1954: 16.

83 Barney, Rex Barney’s Thank Youuuu, 38.

84 “Hack Wilson Hit It, Too,” above; “Here’s Stark Fact,” above.

85 “Here’s Stark Fact,” above; Dave Anderson, “Uncle Sam Beckons Dick Williams,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 20, 1954: 18.

86 Kay, Baseball Fever Blog.

87 Young, “Diamond Dust,” September 15, 1956, above.

88 Isaacs, “Harris ‘Lost’ a Single,” above.

89 Henry, “New Scoreboard Stirs Old Memories,” above.

90 Roscoe McGowen, “Dodgers Triumph Behind Casey, 5-1,” New York Times, August 18, 1939: 12.

91 Mozley, “Hodges Now Rated Best .250 Hitter in Baseball,” above.

92 Isaacs, “Harris ‘Lost’ a Single,” above.

93 “Sports of the Times,” above.

94 Dick Young, “Flock, Better Mudders, Oozes Past Cubs, 5-2,” New York Daily News, May 2, 1947: 17.

95 Kay, Baseball Fever Blog.

96 Bill Conlin, “Burying Another Boy of Summer,” Philadelphia Daily News, January 27, 1989: 103.