Brooklyn Bleachers

[penncentralpete]

If you sat in the Ebbets Field bleachers, could you walk around the left field corner and enter the grandstand? I forget.

[tonypug]

That is an excellent question. I also wonde, could you walk from the bleachers all the way aroud the ballpark to the rightfield stands?

[VIBaseball]

How about the ushers at Ebbets? Were they gruff or friendly? How open were they to a little "gratuity" if you wanted to move?

[penncentralpete]

How about the ushers at Ebbets? Were they gruff or friendly? How open were they to a little "gratuity" if you wanted to move?

I'm a bit too young (believe it or not) for that one! An usher at Ebbets was just another adult to me.

[jayzeeg]

the bleachers area was fenced off from the grandstand at the foul pole down the 3rd base-left field stands. when i was a kid we tried to enter the bleachers during batting practice because we felt that it was easier to get a ball there. i guess they felt that the 75 cent bleacher ticket buyers would circumvent the $1.25 admission price for unresreved grandstand seats. by the way, the walk up day of game ticket sale probrably no longer exsists. we would wake up on a sat or sun, or weekday during the summer and decide to go to a ballgame.

[penncentralpete]

the bleachers area was fenced off from the grandstand at the foul pole down the 3rd base-left field stands. when i was a kid we tried to enter the bleachers during batting practice because we felt that it was easier to get a ball there. i guess they felt that the 75 cent bleacher ticket buyers would circumvent the $1.25 admission price for unresreved grandstand seats. by the way, the walk up day of game ticket sale probrably no longer exsists. we would wake up on a sat or sun, or weekday during the summer and decide to go to a ballgame.

Thank you Jayzeeg for refreshing my memory. My family usually sent for tickets by mail (cash right in the envelope!). We sat in those $1.25 seats.

[jaykay]

I may be a smidgen older than a few of you pups, but here is what I remember. The bleacher seats, in my day, set me back a full $0.60 (up from $0.50 before my era), and the unreserved grandstand was $1.10 (before Rickey upped that to $1.25). The bleachers, as I recall, were upper deck in center field, from the angle of the stands in left-center to where the stands ended in dead-center. From that angle in left-center in the other direction, those upper deck seats had grandstand prices. The lower deck was not part of the bleachers in any area. Back to the upper deck for a moment: there was a fence where the bleacher seats ended and the grandstand seats began, constructed of metal and shaped something like a starburst (or part of one). I have no recollection of whether someone in the bleachers could descend to the lower center-field stands and subsequently make his way around the rest of the ballpark, because while I sat in the bleachers on many occasions, I stayed there.

Related, but equally trivial: You could not enter the ballpark through any of the portals within the Marble Rotunda unless you owned a ticket for those hallowed choice sections behind home plate. The ticket-takers would direct you to one of the entrance gates elsewhere on the perimeter of the field.

Speaking of the ticket-takers and their first cousins, the ushers, the latter were, by and large, a most miserable crabby crew (except for those working the "expensive" seats) who seemed to get their jollies chasing kids away from wherever they happened to be, but who, I admit, were easily influenced by the flash of folding money when someone wished to move down to an unoccupied seat. (Occasionally the rightful occupant of such a seat would arrive as late as the fifth inning and the usher would have his work cut out for him, but, never fear, while I chuckled, those dudes handled the situation with much aplomb. A full refund? Never, from the look of things.)

[penncentralpete]

I may be a smidgen older than a few of you pups, but here is what I remember. The bleacher seats, in my day, set me back a full $0.60 (up from $0.50 before my era), and the unreserved grandstand was $1.10 (before Rickey upped that to $1.25). The bleachers, as I recall, were upper deck in center field, from the angle of the stands in left-center to where the stands ended in dead-center. From that angle in left-center in the other direction, those upper deck seats had grandstand prices. The lower deck was not part of the bleachers in any area. Back to the upper deck for a moment: there was a fence where the bleacher seats ended and the grandstand seats began, constructed of metal and shaped something like a starburst (or part of one). I have no recollection of whether someone in the bleachers could descend to the lower center-field stands and subsequently make his way around the rest of the ballpark, because while I sat in the bleachers on many occasions, I stayed there.

Related, but equally trivial: You could not enter the ballpark through any of the portals within the Marble Rotunda unless you owned a ticket for those hallowed choice sections behind home plate. The ticket-takers would direct you to one of the entrance gates elsewhere on the perimeter of the field.

Speaking of the ticket-takers and their first cousins, the ushers, the latter were, by and large, a most miserable crabby crew (except for those working the "expensive" seats) who seemed to get their jollies chasing kids away from wherever they happened to be, but who, I admit, were easily influenced by the flash of folding money when someone wished to move down to an unoccupied seat. (Occasionally the rightful occupant of such a seat would arrive as late as the fifth inning and the usher would have his work cut out for him, but, never fear, while I chuckled, those dudes handled the situation with much aplomb. A full refund? Never, from the look of things.)

Good stuff JK.......(with apologies to Bob Hope) thanks for the memories.

[Gary Dunaier]

Related, but equally trivial: You could not enter the ballpark through any of the portals within the Marble Rotunda unless you owned a ticket for those hallowed choice sections behind home plate. The ticket-takers would direct you to one of the entrance gates elsewhere on the perimeter of the field.

Not trivial, considering that the rotunda has become such an important part of Ebbets' legend. But what you're saying sounds like the equivalent of (and I hope I'm not planting ideas in someone's mind :crossfingers: ) if the Mets were to allow entry to Citi Field via the Jackie Robinson Rotunda only to Delta Club or Ebbets Club ticketholders, and those sitting anywhere else had to use one of the other gates.

[tonypug]

jaykay, first thank you for calling me a young pup. I'm ready to go out and throw the ball around. Also thank you for the great memories. I could actually see my father passing some green to the usher and being shown to better seats.

Jayzeeg, I don't know about other ballparks, but Tropicana Field still does a brisk walk up day of the game business. Other then prime games, Yankees, Red Sox, that is what I usually do.

Gary, I hope you didn't start something.