Every spectator, every player, every sportswriter, every peanut vendor, even the umpires paid to get into Ebbets Field that afternoon. The Brooklyn Dodgers were playing the New York Giants in the first war benefit the big-league ball clubs had given. Instigated by Dodger Boss Leland Stanford MacPhail, who tried to kidnap the Kaiser in 1918, the game grossed $60,000 (every cent of which was turned over to the Navy Relief Society), set a noble precedent for other clubs to follow.
It was also the first major-league ball game ever played at twilight....
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