CONEY ISLAND, N.Y. -- On this stretch of land where for years families came in search of thrills, laughter, amazement and fascination, the game of baseball showed up this summer with the promise of rekindling such emotions.

	With Coney Island's parachute jump as a backdrop, baseball returned to Brooklyn this year.

Just a few short steps from where the Bearded Lady used to roam and a street vendor sold the first hot dog, the Brooklyn Cyclones minor-league baseball team delivered on each and everyone of those promises.

Sure, Keyspan Park is no Ebbets Field. Jay Caligiuri is no Gil Hodges. And butting heads with the Staten Island Yankees isn't quite the same as playing the original Bronx Bombers in the World Series.

But Brooklyn baseball fans don't seem to mind. After all, this is the first professional baseball to be played in the borough since the Dodgers left for Los Angeles 44 years ago.

"Like a lot of people, I waited almost a half century for it to happen again, for baseball to return to one of its original homes," said Richard Kissel, a longtime Dodgers fan who purchased Cyclones season tickets this season. "Now that it's finally happened, we're all so proud that we're going to do everything we can to support it."

The team has been a success both on and off the diamond. The Cyclones, the short-season affiliate of the New York Mets, have the best record in the New York-Penn League. Playoff tickets will go on sale Monday, the first postseason experience Brooklynites have had since the 1956 Subway Series between the Dodgers and Yankees.

"Our fans have waited 44 years for a team to come back to this borough. I am glad we have given them something to enjoy and cheer about," said Jeff Wilpon, the Cyclones' executive vice president. "There are a lot of smiling faces of many generations in the stands, so it's exciting to see the team reach this point and be in a position to continue playing and possibly win it all."

Off the field, the support has been tremendous. Two and a half weeks ago, the Cyclones set the single-season attendance record for the New York-Penn League, breaking the mark with 12 home games remaining. All but three of the team's home dates have been sellouts. The team even added 1,000 bleacher seats to Keyspan's 6,500-seat capacity in an effort to meet increased demand.

	New memories began for a new generation of Brooklyn baseball fans when the Cyclones brought the game back to Coney Island this year.

"Brooklynites have waited a long time for professional baseball to return to this borough and the response has been truly amazing," said Steve Cohen, the team's general manager. "Our fans have filled the stadium every night and are incredibly excited over this team."

A year ago, some people wondered if a minor-league team could survive in a city with so many entertainment options. They don't ask that question anymore. It isn't unusual to see a 55-year-old stockbroker on Wall Street or an 8-year-old girl in Central Park wearing the navy blue Cyclones cap.

Now the question being asked by die-hard Dodger and Cyclone backers is if New York could handle a third major-league team.

"Brooklyn is a major-league city," fan Myles Seitz said. "If they brought the Expos or another major-league team there, I don't care what anyone says, it would draw better than the Mets or the Yankees. It will happen. Maybe not in my lifetime. But it will happen."

The Cyclones have relied on Brooklyn's intimate, deep-seeded love affair with the Dodgers in marketing. Already, the team has built a small Brooklyn Dodgers museum and a dual statue of Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese. The logo on the Cyclones' cap interlaces a red "C" with the old, white Brooklyn "B."

Just like the legendary sign in Ebbets Field, an add on the outfield fence urges, "Hit sign, win suit." On opening night, Joan Hodges, wife of Gil Hodges, along with surviving members of the Brooklyn Dodgers Sym-Phony were in attendance.

"I'll be 75 in December and at that ballpark, that night, I felt like I was 30 years old again," Joan Hodges said. "To see all those fans so hungry and so elated over the fact that baseball was back in Brooklyn. I kept telling my son, "Isn't this great? Isn't this great? Baseball is back in Brooklyn. God bless."

The following, as told to ESPN.com, are first-person stories about the memories of Brooklyn baseball past rekindled by the immergence of the Cyclones minor-league team this season:

The fan
Myles Seitz, 63, born and raised in Brooklyn. Now resides in White Plains, N.Y.

To this day, I can still remember the smell of the old ballpark at Ebbets Field, from the aroma of the freshly roasted peanuts and boiled hot dogs to the stench of keg beer.

I was 14 back then and my mother always would give me a dollar to go to the games. It only cost 60 cents to sit in the bleachers, so my friends and I would hop on the subway, buy a bleacher seat and still have money left over for chips and a hot dog.

No game was more memorable, though, than the one I attended on Oct. 1, 1951. It was Game 1 of the three-game playoff series against the Giants. Tickets were scarce.

As a friend and I were waiting in line in hopes of extra seats, a giant flatbed truck drove by with newspaper photographers and movie cameras on the bed. A couple of the photographers yelled to the hundreds of us in line, "Hey, everybody! Turn around and wave!"

	Coney Island was around the corner, but nothing matched the excitement of a game at Ebbets Field, as this photo in a commerative calendar shows.

We did. Flashbulbs exploded everywhere. But I never saw the picture anywhere.

Forty-three years later, I'm at a memorabilia store in Brooklyn, thumbing through a commemorative calendar of Ebbets Field, when I turn the page to April.

Starring back at me was a 14-year-old kid, smile draped from ear to ear, baggy dungarees falling off his rear end, green military belt fighting to keep it all together.

It was me. Instantly, a handful of tears fell down my face. The memories, the emotions, the sounds -- they all rushed back.

And just like that, I was back in Brooklyn. A kid at heart. And nobody could take me away.

The game
Carl Morgan, 65, born and raised in Queens. He still lives there today.

To this day, nothing upsets me more than seeing, reading or hearing about Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World."

Next to the day my father died, the day Thomson hit that home run was the worst day of my life.

I remember sitting in school, listening to the game on the radio and then sprinting home the second school let out. The Dodgers were ahead 4-1 in the ninth, well on their way to their biggest win against their hated rivals.

When I walked in the door, Alvin Dark scored on a double by Whitey Lockman. The score was 4-2. My mom was on the telephone with my sister, another avid Dodgers fan, so I picked up the phone to give her the play-by-play.

	Left fielder Andy Pafko watches Bobby Thomson's homer sail over the wall as the Giants defeated the Dodgers to win the National League pennant in 1951.

Our only phone was in the kitchen, so I watched through the doorway as Bobby Thomson came to the plate. The Dodgers switched pitchers, bringing in Ralph Branca. Don Newcombe was tired.

"The Giants have gotten a few hits, but don't worry," I told my sister. "Branca is coming in. He's going to get Thomson out."

The first pitch, a fastball down the middle, Thomson let go by. My sister worked for the phone company and had to put me on hold to take another call.

On the second pitch, another fastball high and inside, Thomson made history. As he was rounding the bases, my sister was back. "What happened, what happened?" she said.

"They friggin' lost," I said.

I immediately slammed down the telephone. I cried. I didn't leave the house for a week.

Today, when I see the replay on TV, I change the channel. It still kills me. That's how much it meant.

The wife
Joan Hodges, wife of Dodger great Gil Hodges.

Long before I met Gil, long before I was married to one of the greatest Dodgers who ever lived, 'Dem Bums were my team.

As a teenager, I'd draw up my own scorecards and then listen to Red Barber on the radio. I filled in every hit, walk, strikeout and error like I was watching the game from the front row at Ebbets Field.

	Gil Hodges was as much the heart of the Dodgers' lineup in 1951 as future Hall-of-Famers Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, and Duke Snider.

After I met Gil, though, everything changed.

I remember like yesterday the day he hit four home runs in one game. I was so nervous, I couldn't even watch. You have to understand, I'm an emotional person. And Gil and I were expecting our second child any day. So all that excitement was a little much.

When Gil came up the fourth time, I bowed my head in my lap, covered my eyes with both hands and prayed that he would hit it out.

Then all of a sudden, the father of pitcher Don Newcombe started jumping up and down next to me, screaming and yelling and trying to pry my hands away from my face. "Look girl, look," he says. "Look where it is, there's no doubt about it. It's going to left-center, it's going to left-center!"

By the time I looked, the ball was just coming down. I was so excited, I thought I was going to lose the baby.

Then after the game, I go to meet him for coffee like I always did, and this man walks over to me and says, "Mrs. Hodges, May I kiss you? I'm so excited to share this moment and be here. I just can't tell you how thrilled I am.

"Do you realize he hit four home runs off four different pitchers, two right-handed, two left-handed? May I kiss you?"

My cousin, who was on the elevator with me, asked if I knew who the man was. I didn't, though he looked like someone I may have worked with.

We get upstairs to see Gil, and here we find out that the mystery man was Anthony Quinn, on his way to congratulate Gil.

I was stunned.

The player
Carl Erskine, Dodgers pitcher from 1948-1959. Erksine threw two no-hitters and had a lifetime record of 122-78 with a 4.00 ERA.

When the Dodgers first called me up, it was 1948. I was only 20 years old and didn't have a dime to my name. GM Branch Rickey thought I was too young to play in the show, but the team's need for pitching depth quickly changed his opinions.

	Pitcher Carl Erksine became a favorite among Dodgers fans and Richard Nixon, then a GOP Vice Presidential candidate in 1952.

I had worked at a YMCA in my hometown of Anderson, Indiana, so when I arrived in New York, I knew that was the only place I could afford to stay. All the glitz and glamour and big hotels of Manhattan were way out of my league. Instead, I got the Y, where the showers were down the hall, the restrooms were around the corner and the mattress was a tad lumpy. But there wasn't any choice.

The first day I headed down to Ebbets Field to meet my new teammates, I took the Subway. I didn't know who to ask for, I didn't know where the player's entrance was, all I knew was that I was to report at noon. So I walked around the stadium and went in through the main entrance, where the rotunda was.

I'm pretty sure I stuck out what with my wide-eyed wonder and Fort Worth Cats duffle bag. Thus it was of little surprise that someone recognized me and gave me my first lesson in Brooklynese.

"Hey," this guy yelled across the rotunda. "There goes Kahl Oiskin, that hot shot from Foit Woith.

As it turned out, everyone in Brooklyn pronounced my name that way. Eventually, I just became known as "Oisk."

I had a very special relationship with the fans. I think part of it was because of my unique name, the other part because I won my first five decisions with the Dodgers.

After both of my no-hitters (1952 vs. Cubs and 1956 vs. Giants), I would return to my home in the Bay Ridge neighborhood, only to find the streets were closed off and the neighborhood was having a block party to celebrate. That's how tight we all were.

And later in my career, whenever I'd go into a slump, I'd check back into the Brooklyn Y, to that same room that saw me start 5-0, to sort things out. And it always worked.

The band
Lou Dallojacono, 83, former member of the Brooklyn Dodgers Sym-Phony, one of two surviving members of the original clan that began in 1936.

Our job as the band inside Ebbets Field was simple: entertain the crowd, by making them laugh, making them cry and making them cheer.

Yet of all the games and all the memories I have over those 21 years, there is but one clear memory that sticks in my mind.

	Giants catcher Cooper Walker (far left) couldn't catch Jackie Robinson on this steal of home in 1948, but he caught the Dodgers' Sym-Phony at its own game.

It was the afternoon that St. Louis Cardinals catcher Walker Cooper, the brother of Cardinals pitcher Mort Cooper pulled a fast one on us.

We used to always go out in the outfield of Ebbets Field and we would play a song or a march whenever an out was made. Sometimes it was a slow "Wahh, Wahh, Wahh," other times a quick "Da-da-da-da."

Well, this Walker Cooper, I'll never forget him. Whenever he would go into the dugout, we would watch and wait for him to sit down. He had this habit of sitting on the end of the bench and sulking after he made an out. So the second he'd sit down, we'd bang the bass drum. And everybody would laugh.

Well, this one day, he walked to the edge of the bench and started to sit down. We banged the drum. But he never sat down. He sort of leaned towards us to show us he never sat on the bench and gave us this wide grin. The stadium roared in laughter.

Later, he walked to the fountain to get a drink of water and we started playing, "How Dry I Am." That was our comeback, I guess, but we knew who had gotten the best of who.

The reporter
Roger Kahn, author of "Boys of Summer" and writer for the Herald-Tribune, where he covered the Dodgers in the early 1950s.

	Duke Snider had a knack for becoming the center of attention when the Dodgers still called Brooklyn home.

Covering the Dodgers was an addicting experience. After a few years on the beat, you couldn't help but quietly hope Brooklyn would win. It was for that reason that our editors would switch the Dodger beat writer every couple of years, before that individual became too attached to the team.

I have so many memories and so many stories that it's nearly impossible to pick a favorite. But one that I love to tell is the day that Duke Snider became fed up with the Dodger fans in center field.

I went into the clubhouse after the game, to conduct a few interviews and get some quotes for my story when Duke just sort of grabs me and says, "Brooklyn fans are the worst in baseball." After I talked with Snider, Pee Wee Reese, who had a locker nearby, came over and told me that Duke was just spouting off and that the story wasn't worth writing. Pee Wee was often the peacemaker.

Then Snider pops up and goes, "No. I mean it. I want them to write it." So the next day, in the paper, there's this big, bold, red headline: "Snider: Brooklyn fans worst in baseball."

Nobody could believe it. That night, the Dodgers had a home game and 33,000 fans filled Ebbets Field for the sole purpose of booing Snider. He was afraid to go on the field during batting practice. But his first time up, Snider drilled a single to center and the crowd erupted in cheers.

Just like that, he was forgiven. And the issue never really came up again.

It showed just how passionate Dodger fans were and how badly they wanted to win.

Wayne Drehs is a staff writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at wayne.drehs@espn.com.