The Duke

Just finished reading "The Duke of Flatbush," the biography of Dodgers Hall of Famer Duke Snider. Now 83, Snider is one of the few Brooklyn Dodgers still living. Hope he lives a long time more.
Good book and I particularly was interested in his career during his Brooklyn Dodgers days. If I could go back in a time machine, I would certainly go back to New York City in the late 40's through 1957.
Three teams in New York and baseball was an obsession with fans from the Giants, Dodgers and Yankees.
While I love the original Yankee Stadium, which I was fortunate enough to see games in as a kid and have permanently in my memory bank, I wish I could have seen a game at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. It looks like the perfect ballpark, when a venue was for the game of baseball, pure and simple. No luxury boxes, no diamond vision boards to bombard you with commercials between innings, no P.A. system blaring music, none of that stuff. It was pure baseball. Of course the new parks are money making machines but I long for the days of organ music and a setting solely for baseball.
The atmosphere at Ebbets must have been amazing. I have been to the ballparks section on a great website called baseball-fever.com and have looked at a plethora of pictures of Ebbets Field. What a beautiful ballpark. The place fascinates me.
In Duke Snider's book he talked about his love of that yard and playing before the vociferous Dodgers fans. It took me to a place I'd never been except in my imagination.
Ebbets Field is gone. So is the Giants home, the Polo Grounds and the original/renovated Yankee Stadium. On that site, great pictures of Shibe Park, Crosley Field, Forbes Field and many other long-gone ballparks are featured. Yes, I know, progress dictates new ballparks. That doesn't mean we don't miss the old ones, even if we never saw a game there.
By the way, when looking at the Ebbets Field pictures, I would have loved to have sat in the second deck in centerfield, first row, in the little corner where the rightfield wall meets the grandstand. The would have to be the most awesome view of a Major League game ever. Plus, you would be looking over the shoulder of number 4, The Duke of Flatbush.