Eastern Park

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eastern Park was a baseball park in Brooklyn, New York in the 1890s. It was bounded by Eastern Parkway (later renamed Pitkin Avenue), Van Sinderen Street, Sutter Avenue and Powell Street.

It was the home of the Brooklyn entry in the Players' League in 1890, and then became the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers during 1891-1897, between their stints at the two versions of Washington Park.

It is here that the club first earned the nickname "Trolley Dodgers", later shortened to "Dodgers", due to the need for fans to cross various trolley lines to reach the stadium.

The ballpark was considered difficult to reach, and although the team survived there for seven seasons, the venture there was a failure. When Charlie Ebbets acquired the Dodgers, he moved the team back to Washington Park, which was both closer to the city center and offered a lower rent.

Eastern Park also hosted numerous college and amateur football games during its heyday, notably the Princeton-Yale game of 1890.