The Dodgers move west

279 Pages·1989·15.903 MB·English

by  Sullivan, Neil J

The Dodgers Move West
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THE
MOVE WEST
Neil J. Sullivan
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York Oxford
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York Toronto
Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi
Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo
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and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1987 by Neil J. Sullivan
First published in 1987 by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
First issued as an Oxford University Press
paperback, 1989
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.
All photographs courtesy of the Los Angeles Dodgers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sullivan, Neil J., 1948-
The Dodgers move west.
Includes index.
1. Los Angeles Dodgers (Baseball team)—History.
2. Brooklyn Dodgers (Baseball team)—History. 3. Sports
and state—California. 4. Baseball—California—Manage-
ment. 5. Baseball—New York (N.Y.)—Management.
I. Title.
GV875.L6S84 1987 798.357'64'0979494 86-28633
ISBN 0-19-504366-9 (alk. paper)
ISBN 0-19-505922-0 (PBK.)
Grateful acknowledgment is given for permission to quote from the follow-
ing works:
Specified excerpts from The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn, © 1971, 1972
by Roger Kahn. Reprinted by permission of Harper and Row, Publishers
Inc.
Excerpts from Bums by Peter Golenbock, © 1984 by Peter Golenbock. Re-
printed by permission of the Putnam Publishing Group.
Excerpts from The Power Broker by Robert Caro, © 1974 by Robert Caro.
Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Reprinted by permission of
Random House, Inc.
468 10 9753
Printed in the United States of America
To My Parents
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Preface
The decision to move the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles after the
1957 season continues to be perhaps the most controversial franchise
shift in sports history. The transfer was a kind of benchmark for mod-
ern sports: it heralded unprecedented national growth in the business
of spectator sports, and it also triggered the kind of emotional reaction
that in recent years has led cities and teams to battle in the various
arenas of government over their respective rights and obligations.
In spite of all this subsequent activity, however, the Brooklyn Dodg-
ers retain a romantic vitality that distinguishes them from other teams
that have relocated. Unlike the Boston Braves, the Philadelphia Athlet-
ics, and the St. Louis Browns, the Dodgers were a very successful team,
winning six pennants in their final eleven years in Brooklyn. They also
enjoyed a close emotional tie with that borough, dating back to the
time when Brooklyn was an independent city. In the 1950s the Dodg-
ers were financially more prosperous than any other team in the major
leagues, including the New York Yankees. This support and prosperity
notwithstanding, the Dodgers moved just two years after capturing the
World Series title that had persistently eluded them.
Several recent books have considered the history of the Brooklyn
Dodgers and the impact their move had on residents of that commu-
nity. They point to the widespread belief that the Dodgers left in antic-
ipation of the hard times New York, and in particular Brooklyn, would
suffer in the coming years. The feeling of abandonment continues to
rankle Brooklynites.
Passions of this kind tend to cohere around a villain, and discussions
of the Dodgers' move have focused on their president, Walter Francis
O'Malley, the man who decided to move the team. A self-described
viii Preface
Tory, with jowls and a gravel voice, O'Malley is almost universally
perceived as a Machiavelli who made no decision without a ruthlessly
dispassionate analysis of how it would affect his profits. O'Malley as
villain may offer some emotional satisfaction, but it is poor history. The
principal flaw of this view is that it assumes O'Malley manipulated
public officials in New York and in Los Angeles until he had wrung
the most compelling offer from each city, only then determining whether
to stay or to go. Thus O'Malley is thought to have shrewdly anticipated
the profits the club has subsequently enjoyed in Los Angeles. It is fur-
ther assumed that he suckered officials in Southern California into
showering him with wealth at the expense of helpless taxpayers, and
that he abandoned Brooklyn heartlessly after city officials in New York
declined to give him a new stadium.
In proposing a different explanation, this book rests on the premise
that Walter O'Malley was but one actor in two distinct political games
played in New York and Los Angeles, and that the actions of both
cities were greatly affected by turn-of-the-century decisions about the
organization and execution of public power.
In 1897 Brooklyn lost its status as an independent city and became a
borough of greater New York City. When the Board of Estimate was
established in 1903 as the most important unit of city government, equal
political representation was conferred on each borough, regardless of
the size of its population. Brooklyn's interests could thus be frustrated
by smaller rival communities with which it shared power. In the 1950s,
when the Dodgers sought the help of city officials to remain in Brook-
lyn, cooperation was needed from other boroughs; none was forthcom-
ing. Political control was then needed on the Board of Estimate; that
was not possible.
In Los Angeles, earlier political decisions which eventually affected
the Dodgers had less to do with the specific organization of city gov-
ernment than with ideologically conceived limitations on the exercise
of discretion permitted to public officials. After bitter experiences with
corruption in the nineteenth century, state reforms during the Progres-
sive era placed public officials under unprecedented democratic con-
trol. One reform in particular, the referendum, threatened to nullify
the Dodgers' move even after all the obstacles in the negotiation and
ratification of a contract for land at Chavez Ravine apparently had been
overcome. These earlier decisions helped shape the options the Dodg-
ers faced in the 1950s. Although O'Malley's desire to replace Ebbets
Field with a modern stadium precipitated reactions by government of-
ficials in New York and Los Angeles, he was as much the victim of
political forces as their instigator.
Preface ix
This book also considers specific issues alleged about the Dodgers'
move. Were there any grounds for expecting the tremendous support
the Dodgers subsequently have enjoyed in Los Angeles? The city had
tried and failed several times before to attract a major league franchise,
and although several clubs thought the region held promise, it appar-
ently was not considered a certain path to riches. The Athletics, Braves,
and Browns—all of whom moved before the Dodgers—judged Milwau-
kee, Kansas City, and Baltimore to be more promising. O'Malley's move
was a bold, even reckless gamble which no one before had been willing
to take. For although the history of minor league baseball in Southern
California was long on tradition with several teams enjoying loyal fol-
lowings, at the end of the 1950s Pacific Coast League parks were hardly
filled to capacity. Such interest in baseball as still existed might con-
ceivably have been tied to local rivalries that wouldn't sustain a major
league team, especially one from so remote a place as Brooklyn.
A second point made frequently about the Dodgers' move is that
citizens and taxpayers in Los Angeles were exploited by the ill-advised
decisions of their elected officials. This contention ignores the years of
political and judicial challenges to the Dodgers' contract with the city.
These issues are reviewed here as are the initial difficulties that ham-
pered the negotiation and ratification of the Chavez Ravine contract in
Los Angeles. Whatever spell O'Malley may have tried to cast over the
officials of Southern California, the voters and taxpayers determined
for themselves, through a referendum in 1958, whether the decision
made on their behalf was the proper one. In addition to that demo-
cratic safeguard, individual taxpayers filed suit in local court to invali-
date the agreement between the Dodgers and Los Angeles. In the midst
of the dismal 1958 season, with the team ensconced in the National
League cellar, a judge nullified the Chavez Ravine contract and set back
the Dodgers' chances of ultimately settling in Los Angeles.
Finally, despite the belief of Brooklynites that they were abandoned
after their years of loyal support, some evidence suggests that O'Malley
left with grave reservations. Even assuming O'Malley to have been a
shrewd calculator of self-interest, why did he exchange a community
that had put so much wealth in his pocket for an untested market fif-
teen hundred miles beyond the previous western outpost of major league
baseball?
A dispassionate analysis of the Dodgers' move to Los Angeles re-
veals Walter O'Malley, the putative villain, to have been considerably
less circumspect than, as a business executive, he should have been.
Indeed, the Dodgers' prosperity in California may ultimately rest on
the simple fact that without adequate preparation Walter O'Malley as-