April 9, 1913: Brooklyn falls in first regular-season game at Ebbets Field

The iconic main entry of Ebbets Field was located at the intersection of Sullivan Place and Cedar Street (later renamed McKeever Place). (Photo: SABR-Rucker Archive)

Brooklyn got a day’s head start on the rest of the majors in the 1913 season. Opening Day for the other 14 big-league teams came on April 10 that year, but the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper campaigned successfully for the spotlight to shine on the borough’s brand-new ballpark: Ebbets Field. As Eagle sportswriter Thomas S. Rice later recalled, “The opening was a civic as well as a sporting event and we of the Eagle wanted all the baseball owners, managers, players, past stars, public officials and as many other persons of note as could be rounded up to be there with no responsibility for attending openers elsewhere.”1

As that story was developing, Rice also covered it for The Sporting News. The early-opening plan originated with his boss, Eagle sporting editor Abe Yager. Yager had originally hoped for Brooklyn to play against the archrival New York Giants, but he withdrew that idea because it would have taken the shine off the Giants’ opener at the Polo Grounds on April 10. He then proposed that Brooklyn play the Philadelphia Phillies in a home-and-home series.2

For unclear reasons, National League President Thomas Lynch scoffed at the idea. However, Giants President Harry Hempstead was “for it with both feet.”3 Soon thereafter, Jim Gaffney – owner of the Boston Braves, who were to play the Giants – announced that he was on board, as did Barney Dreyfuss of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Charles Murphy of the Chicago Cubs.4 When the National League held its meeting in February, the change passed unanimously, despite Lynch’s ongoing effort to block it.5

As the new season got under way, a sign of the times was visible at Ebbets Field. The Sporting News wrote, “[A]utomobilists are to get more attention. At the new park that Charles H. Ebbets has built in Brooklyn a system of numbered checks is to be used similar to that operated by theaters. Fans attending in automobiles are to be assigned a waiting room, from where their cars will be called after the game.”6 This was a striking development in the borough whose trolleys gave the team its enduring name, the Dodgers.

It’s worth noting that there was no consistent naming convention at that time. The “Dodgers” label jockeyed with “Superbas” in the press (along with a tertiary label, “Infants”). When Wilbert Robinson became manager in 1914, “Robins” came to the fore, but it was not unanimous – both Dodgers and Superbas were still visible in press coverage. Only in 1932 did the team become known for good as the Dodgers. For the purposes of this article, Superbas (the dominant name in 1913) is in effect.

Actually, the first games between big-league teams at the new ballpark were a pair of exhibition matches against the New York Yankees on April 5 and 7. The weather had been springlike on Saturday the 5th, but on Monday the temperature turned wintry.7 On Wednesday, Opening Day, it was still cold, with a raw wind.8 “Polar blasts whistled through the huge new stands at Ebbets Field and chilled the enthusiasm of the comparatively small crowd.”9 Perhaps also because it was a weekday, only 12,000 or so were in attendance against the Phillies, whereas the first Yankees game drew an overflow crowd. It’s not known how many of the luminaries the Eagle had hoped to attract turned up.

Sporting Life made a sly allusion: “But for the generosity of C. Hospitable Ebbets in furnishing the fluid that warms and cheers, the boys in the press box, both local and visiting, would have been frostbitten.” Yet despite the conditions, both teams paraded across the field, headed by a band. Brooklyn Borough President Alfred E. Steers threw out the first ball.10 There were also testimonials to Brooklyn’s manager, Bill Dahlen, and first baseman Jake Daubert. Both were presented with floral horseshoes, and Daubert also received a gilded bat.11

The game started at 1:30. Nap Rucker, who’d also started the first exhibition game against the Yankees, threw the first pitch. Just 93 minutes later, it was over.12 The only run was scored in the top of the first, and it was unearned. The Phillies might have had more, because leadoff man Dode Paskert singled but was thrown out trying to stretch his hit into a double.13 Otto Knabe then doubled. Hans Lobert came to the plate, and rookie right fielder Benny Meyer lost his foul fly in the sun. Center fielder Casey Stengel overcame that misplay by making a sensational catch of Lobert’s long drive, but Meyer promptly made his second error of the inning, dropping Sherry Magee‘s fly and allowing Knabe to score.14 Philadelphia might have scored again when Cozy Dolan singled, but Stengel threw out Magee at the plate.15

The sun in right field was indeed strong. Magee, Meyer’s opposite number in right field, made sure that he was wearing smoked glasses. Thus equipped, he handled his two chances cleanly. Meyer had a special pair of glasses made, which reportedly had a prescription in addition to being tinted.16

Phillies pitcher Tom Seaton got the first of his 27 victories that season, which led the National League. He went all the way and gave up just six hits, all singles. He walked only one while striking out six. The only Superba to get more than one hit was catcher Otto Miller. Seaton was helped by the glove work of shortstop Mickey Doolin, who made a number of good plays on hard-hit balls. The most notable came in the fifth inning, when he grabbed a drive by Brooklyn’s cleanup hitter, Zack Wheat. Daubert followed with a single, and according to Sporting Life, a run would have scored. Doolin also turned back a Brooklyn threat in the eighth when he fielded a hard smash by Leo Callahan, pinch-hitting for Rucker. There were two Superbas on base, and the tying run would apparently have scored.17 By another account of the game, Callahan hit into a force play and Doolin’s stop denied Stengel a hit.18

Phillies catcher Red Dooin also stood out on defense. He threw out three Dodgers attempting to steal second.19

Rucker worked eight innings for Brooklyn, allowing eight hits and also walking just one. As Sporting Life’s account put it, “No one can say that Seaton outpitched Rucker. Nap was hit oftener, but he was there with the tightening-up stuff when danger threatened.”20 Pat Ragan came on in the ninth.

“I remember the game well,” said Otto Miller nearly 47 years later.21 That quote came in much more somber circumstances. On February 23, 1960, Miller joined Roy Campanella, Carl Erskine, Ralph Branca, Tommy Holmes, and 200 fans to bid their old home adieu as the demolition of Ebbets Field started. Lee Allen, historian of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, was also on hand. Allen was presented the key, mounted on red velvet, that Charles Ebbets had used to open the doors to his ballpark on April 9, 1913. Walter O’Malley used the same key to close the doors after the Dodgers’ finale on September 24, 1957.22

Miller, who by then was aged 70, was a Brooklyn resident – his home was less than two miles from Ebbets Field.23 He’d played his entire 13-year big-league career with the same team and added 11 more seasons as a coach for the Robins and Dodgers. The old catcher had tears in his eyes that day when he said to a companion, “A lot of guys are afraid to cry. Not me. I’m not ashamed.”24

NOTES

1 Thomas S. Rice, “Rice Recalls Special Opening of Ebbets Field April 9, 1913,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 25, 1937.

2 Thomas S. Rice, “Blunder by Lynch,” The Sporting News, January 9, 1913: 1.

3 Rice, “Blunder by Lynch.”

4 Thomas S. Rice, “Votes for Ebbets,” The Sporting News, January 16, 1913: 3.

5 “Many Moguls but Few Items in Gotham Baseball Meets,” The Sporting News, February 20, 1913: 2.

6 “Holding the Automobile Fans,” The Sporting News, April 10, 1913: 4.

7 In his 1937 retrospective, Thomas Rice conflated the two games into one and wrote that Saturday, April 5, was the cold day – contradicting the stories that were written at the time.

8 “The Special Opening,” Sporting Life, April 19, 1913: 8.

9 Thomas S. Rice, “In the Band Wagon,” The Sporting News, April 17, 1913: 2.

10 “The Special Opening.”

11 “Brooklyn Budget,” Sporting Life, April 19, 1913: 7.

12 “The Special Opening.”

13 “Brooklyn Budget.”

14 “The Special Opening.”

15 “Recruit Loses First Game for Brooklyn,” Richmond (Indiana) Item, April 10, 1913.

16 “Brooklyn Budget.”

17 “Brooklyn Budget.”

18 “Phillies Win Opening Game,” Montreal Gazette, April 10, 1913.

19 “Brooklyn Budget”; Seamus Kearney and Dick Rosen, The Philadelphia Phillies (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Press, 2011).

20 “Brooklyn Budget.”

21 “Ebbets Field Has Quiet, Dignified Wake,” St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times, February 24, 1960.

22 Dana Mozley, “Wreck-Ball Caps Ebbets Rites,” New York Daily News, February 24, 1960.

23 “The Dodgers’ Otto Miller Dies in Fall,” New York Daily News, March 30, 1962.

24 “Miller Cried When Wreckers Took Over Old Ebbets Field,” The Sporting News, April 11, 1962: 52.