In 1885, William W. Wallace organized a Ridgewood nine to draw crowds to his newly built
Ridgewood Grounds. The team and the grounds moved across Halsey Street in 1886, but would stay
at the new park for some years to come. Wallace kept
ownership of the semipro squad through 1902, when he turned the team over to Ambrose Hussey.
Hussey's Ridgewood
nine became a powerful squad at the semipro level. Several times they played the Bronx Athletic Club in
best of three contests for the semipro championship of New York. They would also regularly schedule
the Brooklyn Royal Giants, and other strong Negro League teams such as the Cuban Giants and the Leland club
from Chicago. Major league squads visited, too. In October 1905, led by star pitcher Ernie Lindemann, the
Ridgewoods took on and defeated the World Series champion New York Giants 5-2.
In 1907, Hussey moved the Ridgewoods to Meyerrose Park, but continued to play Sunday games at Wallace's
Grounds. In 1912, when Meyerrose Park was demolished, the team returned full time.
Max Rosner tried to emulate such success, first with the Paramount Club, then with Cypress Hills,
but could not build such a powerful team as Hussey's Ridgewoods. Eventually, with
the financial help of promoter Nat Strong, he founded the Brooklyn Bushwicks in 1913, and stocked the
club by buying out the Ridgewoods completely. The Bushwicks remained at Wallace's Grounds until
September 1917, when the grandstand burned down. Starting in 1918, the Bushwicks moved
to Dexter Park, in Woodhaven.
1946 Bushwicks in Venezuela, Overton Tremper
The Bushwicks would take on all comers- other semipros, Negro League teams,
and powerful major league squads. The likes of Babe Ruth did not intimidate the Bushwicks.
They also toured other places- traveling to Venezuela
and winning the Serie Interamericana, a forerunner of today's Caribbean World Series, each year from
1946 to 1949. A few players played for both the Bushwicks and Dodgers at some point in their
career- Dazzy Vance, Gene Hermanski, Overton Tremper, and Leon Cadore among them. Of these, former Penn baseball captain
Tremper was by far the least notable Dodger, but the most notable Bushwick. He played from 1931-34 with the Bushwicks as
an excellent outfielder. The club also
passed up some remarkable talent- Lou Gehrig was given a tryout in 1920 but didn't make
the squad.
The Bushwicks' attendance was always good because tickets were cheap, and they had no trouble
attracting quality talent to the park. But eventually, with the Negro Leagues disappearing,
many reliable opponents no longer existed. The advent of television and a consistently successful
Dodger team probably hurt, too. The money dried up. The Bushwicks tried a series of gimmicks,
including adding motor racing to Dexter Park, but folded after the 1951 season.
A lesser known Brooklyn semipro team, and
regular Bushwick opponent, was the Bay Parkways, who played at Erasmus Field, the home park
of Erasmus Hall High School. Tremper also spent some time with the Bay Parkways, after he
left the Bushwick club.
The most notable Bay Parkway players, though, were recently retired major leaguers looking
for fun and a payday. Carl Hubbell played a game against the Bushwicks in 1933, as did Babe Ruth
on October 13, 1935. He faced Bushwicks pitcher Dazzy Vance at Dexter Park, and went 1 for 4
with a home run in a 3-2 loss.
Babe
Ruth of the Bay Parkways with Max Rosner and Dazzy Vance of the Bushwicks
The Bay
Parkways were owned by Max Rosner's younger brother, Joe. Both
teams were part of the Inter-City Baseball Association, a group of semipro teams providing a guaranteed minimum
schedule for all, but also a guaranteed income for Nat Strong, who controlled most non-major league ball
in the New York region.
Of course, Brooklyn was home to many more than two semipro teams- others included the Sunset Club, the
Arctic Polar Bears, and the Edisons- but time and sanity prevent us from being complete in this regard.
Some of the many are mentioned along with their home fields on our page of other parks.
Many thanks are due to Jane and Douglas Jacobs for access to their paper, Dexter Park: Brooklyn's Other Ballpark, which
helped us a great deal in putting this and the Dexter Park page together.
