OTR baseball games

[Neal Lavon]

Well, to follow up...yes, O'Malley wanted out of Ebbets Field. I went to see a game there as a nine-year old against the Pirates. I don't remember much about it. But even in the anti-O'Malley documentaries, the experts cited claimed Ebbets Field was a dump--the bathrooms stunk, no parking, a small ballpark as you say, and a less than a desirable neighborhood. I do think O'Malley would have stayed in Brooklyn if the city gave him the land at Ft Greene. And the city (Moses, Wagner) gave O'Malley a non-negotiable proposal--move to Flushing Meadows. Renovating Ebbets Field, which had been proposed by the Brooklyn Borough president, was not really a great idea. Given its small footprint, there wasn't a whole lot that could have been done to increase seating and create parking spaces. Yes, Brooklyn attendance was usually around the one million mark but that was the league average in 1957. The Giants were way below that and had been since their World Series year of 1954. The Dodgers were going to move out of Ebbets Field sooner or later; I think, given Stoneham's attendance figures of around 650,000, he really had no choice. The City didn't lift a finger to help him. At least, they talked to the Dodgers.

I can see Dodgers fans being fed up with O'Malley but that attitude wasn't going to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn. Be careful what you wish for. There are those who think that the population of Brooklyn in 1957 really didn't care one whit if the Dodgers left or stayed; it was only the sportswriters (who kept telling their audiences throughout the 1950s that the teams would never move) and the professional Dodger fans like Larry King and Pete Hamill and others who usually end up in documentaries bemoaning how awful it was for Brooklyn.

An amazing thing to me was that there were municipal elections in Brooklyn in November following the Dodgers move. If residents in Brooklyn were angered at the Mayor for letting the Dodgers go, they could have expressed their anger at the ballot box. They didn't. I believe I read Wagner's opponent got less votes in 1957 than the last time Wagner had to face opposition.

Some other teams may have had their eyes on LA at some point but the Braves moved to Milwaukee in 1953, the Browns moved to Baltimore in 1954,and the A's moved to Kansas City in 1955. I don't think either team could just have packed up and moved to LA after only a year or two in their respective cities. I did think I read somewhere that Bill Veeck of the Browns considered moving to LA but the American League would not let them move, at least not with Veeck still in control.

I guess my point is by the mid-1950s, the Dodgers had the inside track for LA and yes, O'Malley talked to them. LA officials also talked to the Senators, at least once, at the 1956 World Series, according to baseball documentaries. They wanted a baseball team.

Unfortunately, there would be no compromise between the City and O'Malley and probably, one was not possible. Both sides dug in. I really think the City of New York never fully realized they would lose their two teams; it was inconceivable that they would leave New York. But they did little to stop it. I do think they could have given O'Malley his land for the 1.5 million O'Malley bid for it, and he would have stayed (he would have had to, at that point). But, perhaps as you say, he would have found more reasons to go to LA instead of stay. Ahh..but now, it's all ancient history.

Thanks again!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Los Angeles was very much in the conversation for the Browns -- Veeck had a deal all set up with a Texas oilman named Clint Murchison who was going to bankroll the move, but suddenly Murchison changed his mind and Veeck was "convinced" to accept an offer from Baltimore interests instead and get out of baseball.

Then, a year later, the Athletics were being pulled in multiple directions -- the Yankees wanted them in Kansas City and there was a syndicate forming to keep them in Philadelphia, where the Mack family wanted them kept. And amidst all this there was a broad sense that if they did go to KC, it would be just a pit stop, and that Los Angeles was the ultimate destination, since putative buyer Arnold Johnson had established business interests there. Veeck was again a shadowy player in this whole scene but the Establishment, with W. F. O. as its most vocal spokesman, made sure he wasn't allowed to get involved. (The whole fiasco of the Athletics' move to Kansas City was one of the most corrupt examples of backroom shady dealings that baseball would ever know, and ended up with the Athletics essentially *controlled* by the Yankees as a major-league level farm club for the rest of the decade.)

You could also argue that W. F. O. had a direct hand in the Braves' shift to Milwaukee. Veeck was again a factor in this -- he wanted the Milwaukee territory for himself, since he'd operated successfuly there with the minor-league Brewers in the 1940s, but the Establishment was determined to block him from moving the Browns there in hopes of driving him into bankruptcy. The Braves owned the territory, since Lou Perini then owned the Brewers, and O'Malley was the first and most vocal National League owner to encourage him to take the Braves there -- he was very loquacious in announcing his support for the move, and in thus currying Perini as a powerful ally for any future situations that might arise. Perini, naturally, had no problem in seeing Brooklyn disenfranchised.

The other move that nearly happened was the Senators. After Clark Griffith died and Calvin took over, the first thing he did was start talking to Poulson in Los Angeles, some time around the 1955 World Series. There were preliminary negotiations into 1956 -- and then, suddenly, Poulson stopped returning Griffith's calls. Three guesses as to why, and you don't even need two of them: Poulson himself stated that O'Malley told him he was coming, more than a year and a half before the move was confirmed, and that further negotiations in Brooklyn were just a blind ("If you say anything I'll deny it. Those fans there are rough, and they could kill me.")

Poulson, who was the LA mayor during all this, was himself a shady, slippery character. He pulled the strings necessary to prevent public housing from being built at Chavez Ravine -- as was supposed to happen under a Federal agreement -- back around the time he first got acquainted with Mr. O'Malley. You don't take steps like that unless you've already got a pretty good idea of why you want to do it.

Incidentially, the whole Los Angeles side of the Dodger deal makes W. F. O's machinations in New York look like nursery school stuff. The more you learn about it, the more it reeks. For that matter, every single one of those franchise shifts between 1953 and 1960 had the stink of corruption about it -- even the saintly Braves were involved in some dubious political dealings in Milwaukee, which, in turn, led directly to the debacle surrounding their move to Atlanta.