SEPTEMBER 3, 1957 | JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY – The Brooklyn Dodgers lost in extra innings to the Philadelphia Phillies on this date in 1957. Three Phillie pitchers beat Don Drysdale, who pitched all 12 innings for the Dodgers. As it turns out, Brooklyn did not just lose a game, it was losing a team.
The September 3rd contest was played in Jersey City, New Jersey, the last of fourteen games Dodger owner Walter O’Malley scheduled at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City in 1956 and 1957.
While only 10,190 fans showed up on this day, the Dodgers averaged more than 21,000 fans in Jersey City. They averaged only 15,000 at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. But the attendance at neither Jersey City nor Brooklyn was very encouraging to Dodgers’ owner Walter O’Malley who had been thinking of moving the team.
The Jersey City experiment appeared to strenghten O’Malley‘s resolve to move the team much farther west. After the 1957 season he announced the Dodgers were moving to Los Angeles.
Walter O’Malley is a villain to many for moving the beloved Dodgers out of Brooklyn. But he tried for years to obtain land in Brooklyn and elsewhere in the New York City area to build a ballpark to replace run-down Ebbets Field. O’Malley ran into political roadblocks at every turn. He found welcoming arms in Southern California, and in 1958 the team became the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Contributing sources:
Sept 3, 1957 box score
1957 Dodgers
“The Brooklyn Dodgers in Jersey City,” by John Burbridge, SABR Society for American Baseball Research
