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An exhibit of Ebbets Field memorabilia at the is intended to explore the deep love that Brooklyn baseball fans had for the Dodgers, and to explain the residual ill feeling that still adds heat to any discussion of Brooklyn baseball.

Brooklyn borough historian Ron Schweiger ’70 donated numerous collectibles from the Dodgers’ time in Ebbets Field to the display. “I collect everything Brooklyn,” he says.

He kicked off the exhibit with a talk titled “There Used to Be a Ballpark: Ebbets Field and the Dodgers.” Schweiger told of the construction of Ebbets Field, of the illustrious members of the teams who played there and of the ballpark’s sorry end.

Officially called the Brooklyn Base Ball Club, the Dodgers had been in existence since the 1880s. The team had played baseball under a number of nicknames, including the Bridegrooms, the Robins and the Superbas. But the one name that stuck was “Dodgers.”

According to Schweiger, the name was derived from the expression “trolley dodgers” — a pejorative term coined by the residents of Manhattan to describe the baseball-loving inhabitants of Brooklyn, who had to dodge across busy trolley tracks to reach local ballgames. “It was an early version of ‘bridge-and-tunnel’ people,” he notes.

Over time, the “trolley” was dropped and the team became known simply as the Dodgers.

Highlighting the library’s exhibit are three of 18 sheets of blueprints dating from 1912 show the classic lines of the ballpark as it was envisioned by then team president Charles Hercules Ebbets and architect Clarence R. Van Buskirk. The “bandbox”-style park, when it opened the following April, seated 18,000 fans. Over the years this number rose to 32,000.

Also on display is a model of the ballpark as well as one of the last home plates reported to have been found still in place inside Ebbets Field in 1960, when the ballpark was cleared for demolition.

Research, according to archivists, indicates the home plate was presented to former ¿ÉÀÖÊÓƵ President Robert L. Hess and displayed in his office in the 1980s. Its face has been crudely inscribed with the words “May Walter O’Mally (sic) Roast in Hell.” This sentiment and other similar expressions of outrage were widely shared by Dodger fans following O’Malley’s decision to move the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles at the close of the 1957 season.

“We’ve had a lot of interest in this exhibit,” says archivist Marianne LaBatto. “If the interest keeps on at the same level, we’ll keep the exhibit up into the next academic year.”

Nestled within a single block of real estate bounded by Sullivan Place, McKeever Place, Montgomery Street and Bedford Avenue, Ebbets Field was home to a succession of teams manned and managed by giants. They included Roy Campanella, Duke Snyder, Leo Durocher, and Peewee Reese.

Perhaps more significant than anything else in their history was the fact that after being signed to play with the Dodgers, , the first African-American baseball player in the major leagues, stepped onto Ebbets Field and desegregated the national pastime. That was more than a year before President Harry S. Truman desegregated the U.S. military.

While at Ebbets Field, the Dodgers won the National League pennant in 1916, 1920, 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955 and 1956. However, they succeeded in winning the World Series only once during those years — the 1955 season ender against their crosstown rivals, the New York Yankees.

Two years after their World Series win, the Dodgers could not find a larger home in the borough where they could expand. According to Schweiger, O’Malley had no choice but to move the team from Brooklyn.

In February 1960, a two-ton wrecking ball painted to look like a baseball began the demolition of Ebbets Field — though memories of that beloved sport palace still live in the minds and hearts of old-time baseball fans to this day.

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As the exhibit attests, Hemingway found much to enjoy in the Veneto region. The sepia-tone photographs — some of which he took himself, but most part of a private collection that had never been seen publicly — show him enjoying life 10 years before his suicide: jumping out of a gondola, in a marsh hunting ducks, sitting at a bar enjoying champagne.

Many of the most interesting photographs show him with Fernanda Pivani, who translated his work, particularly the novel A Farewell to Arms and the short story collection Over the River and Through the Woods, into Italian.

Hemingway’s Veneto, timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of his death, was curated by Italian professors Gianni Moriani and Rosella Mamoli Zorzi and debuted in Italy before coming to Brooklyn.

“Hemingway loved the Veneto region’s fishing, hunting and grand villas,” Moriani said during his talk at the opening, with the help of translator, Valerio Ferrari.

Italians reciprocated Hemingway’s affection. Professor of English Robert Viscusi, head of the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, spoke of the dominant floridness of Italian writing, particularly apparent in political writing. But writers such as Hemingway, who write in a more simple style, are held in singular esteem. “There is a culture of simplicity in prose and in poetry among writers in Italy.”

Associate Professor Miriam Deutch, who coordinated the exhibit for the library, spoke of what she considered the most intriguing aspects of the photographs. “Hemingway is a seminal American author who most…have either read or heard about,” she said. The photographs open the viewer to a deeper understanding of “the author’s experiences and how they relate to his books.”

Hemingway’s Veneto: A Photographic Exhibition will be on view in the library until August 1 for you to enjoy the life Hemingway led in this wonderful region of Italy.

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