“Blue heaven on earth” – Tommy Lasorda on Dodger Stadium

Dodger Stadium is the third oldest ballpark in major-league baseball. Only Fenway Park and Wrigley Field have been hosting games longer than the House That Walter O’Malley Built. The iconic venue that sits atop a hill just north of downtown Los Angeles, with views of both the city and mountains, turns 62 years old in 2024.

This SABR Digital Library book, Dodger Stadium: Blue Heaven on Earth, chronicles the rich history of Dodger Stadium and the great games played there. You’ll read about Sandy Koufax’s perfect game, Don Drysdale’s scoreless-innings streak, Dusty Baker’s historic 30th home run in 1977, and much more. Of course, the book includes an account of Kirk Gibson’s miraculous home run in Game One of the 1988 World Series and the 4+1 game in 2006. Some stories include quotes from the team’s beloved former broadcaster Vin Scully.

The Dodgers, as most baseball fans know, have their roots in Brooklyn, New York, where they were founded in 1883. They won some pennants in the early days before suffering through a series of losing seasons and gaining the nickname of the Daffy Dodgers. They are most famous, of course, for being the “Boys of Summer,” with such great players as Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges, and Roy Campanella. The Brooklyn Dodgers won their lone World Series in 1955. Two years later they were gone, having moved from Flatbush to Southern California.

During those first years on the West Coast, the Dodgers played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, a gigantic venue more suited for football than baseball. The New York Daily News lamented that the Coliseum made “a mockery of big-league baseball.” The Dodgers won a World Series in 1959 with home crowds of more than 92,000 for all three games. Fans kept transistor radios pressed against their ears so they could hear Scully describe the faraway action. Owner Walter O’Malley already had a new spot picked out for his team. He supposedly spotted the Chavez Ravine site while taking a helicopter ride over the LA basin.1

The Dodger Stadium origin story is a colorful one and not without controversy. This book covers not only the construction of the ballpark – and all the political events that preceded it – but also the Battle of Chavez Ravine, a protracted conflict that concluded with the destruction of a close-knit, mostly Mexican American, neighborhood.

Ground was broken for Dodger Stadium on September 19, 1959. Workers moved more than 8 million cubic yards of dirt and rocks from the rugged hillside. Nineteen giant earth movers flattened the hills and filled in the many gullies. The construction bill ran to about $23 million.2

Dodger Stadium hosted its first baseball game on April 10, 1962. The home team lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 6-3. Dodgers coach and former manager Leo Durocher offered a glowing review of the new ballpark. “I had to see it to believe it,” he told the Long Beach Press-Telegram. “It’s not only beautiful, but it’s also practical. All the fielders have room to move around. And there’s not a bad seat in the house.” Reds outfielder Wally Post said, “Nobody will get cheap homers here. The park is really beautiful, though, and sure shames some of those other dinky things we play in.”3

The tough one-two pitching combination of Koufax and Drysdale led the Dodgers to three pennants and two World Series titles in the 1960s. Opposing hitters battled tough pitches thrown in hazy sunshine. The 1970s Dodgers won three pennants and in 1978 were the first team to draw more than 3 million fans. Fernando Valenzuela burst onto the scene in 1981, bringing “Fernandomania” and the team’s first World Series championship since 1965. The Dodgers won another title in 1988.

Fans still flock to Dodger Stadium, the home of maybe baseball’s most famous concession, the Dodger Dog, and the many palm trees that sway in the soft breezes. Several improvements have been made over the years. Those include LED video displays and a better sound system, plus a children’s playground, and more concession options – including Tommy Lasorda’s Trattoria.

After the Dodgers won the 2020 World Series, the Centerfield Plaza opened. Fans can enjoy new sports bars and seating areas, displays of team memorabilia, and statues of Koufax and Robinson.4 A family area was also added. Janet Marie Smith, who worked on the construction of Oriole Park at Camden Yards and the renovation of Fenway Park among other projects, said, “We sent a clear message that this is a family-friendly place, and the kind of atmosphere here is one for all generations to enjoy.” She told Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times, “Too much is too much. You still want an intimacy. We’re still here to watch the game and celebrate the Dodgers. We weren’t looking to create a theme park. We were looking to create the kind of amenities that other ballparks have, but in a way that respected the original architecture of Dodger Stadium.”5

Former Los Angeles Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani signed a $700 million contract with the Dodgers before the 2024 season. Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto also signed a big deal to play for the Dodgers, who finished in first place with a 100-62 record in 2023 and boasted such great players as Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Clayton Kershaw. More than 3.8 million fans filed into the ballpark built atop a hill. The future seems bright for both the Dodgers and Dodger Stadium.

This book is the collaborative effort of 49 members from the Society for American Baseball Research.

NOTES

1 Andy McCue, Mover and Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers and Baseball’s Westward Expansion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 221.

2 Nathan Masters, “They Moved Mountains to Build Dodger Stadium,” PBS SoCal, October 11, 2013, https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/lost-la/they-moved-mountains-to-build-dodger-stadium.

3 Hank Hollingsworth, “It’s Unanimous – Dodger Plant Best,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, April 11, 1962: 53.

4 Eric Stephen, “Dodger Stadium Upgrades Ready to Be Seen,” truebluela.com, April 8, 2021, https://www.truebluela.com/2021/4/8/22373029/dodger-stadium-upgrades-center-field-plaza-shake-shack.

5 Bill Shaikin, “Commentary: Dodger Stadium Renovations Are Latest Masterpiece Designed by Janet Marie Smith,” Los Angeles Times, April 7, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2021-04-07/on-baseball-dodger-stadium-renovations-janet-marie-smith.

History students who want to learn about uneasy détente during the 1960s could study the tense Cold War between the US and other democratic nations on one side, and the USSR and other “Iron Curtain” Communist nations on the other.

Or they could just look at the smiles-out-front, scowls-in-private relationship between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels during the four seasons – 1962 to 1965 – that the National and American League teams shared Dodger Stadium.

The teams’ disagreements began with the name of the ballpark. Trying to establish their own identity, the fledgling Angels famously insisted on referring to the ballpark as Chavez Ravine when they played there.1 From the start this gave the Dodgers-Angels relationship the same feel as two rival nations squabbling over the size and shape of the negotiating table in a conference room.

The Battle of Dodger Stadium was a losing effort for the expansion Angels, who consistently ran a distant second to their landlords before they departed for nearby Anaheim in 1966. But the junior team authored some moments that still echo in stadium lore. The first pitcher to throw a no-hitter at the ballpark was an Angel. So was the first batter to hit for the cycle. And some 60 seasons later, a few of Dodger Stadium’s record-setting or most noteworthy performances still belong to the Angels, not the Dodgers.

The Singing Cowboy Rents a Ravine

When Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley moved his team to Los Angeles after the 1957 season, he had to have known that he wouldn’t have sunny, glamorous, populous, and affluent Southern California to himself forever. Still, he was displeased when the American League advanced plans after the 1960 season to award an expansion franchise to the city he’d occupied just two years earlier.2

Using his influence on Commissioner Ford Frick, O’Malley pushed through an agreement that compensated him nicely for the intrusion on his territory. The new team, to be called the Angels, would pay O’Malley $350,000 for the privilege of playing in Los Angeles.3 After playing the 1961 season in Wrigley Field – a former Pacific Coast League bandbox the Dodgers had passed up – the Angels would become O’Malley’s tenants in the new Dodger Stadium. The annual rent would be 7½ percent of paid admissions, or a minimum of $200,000; the Angels would receive half the concessions, but no money from parking.4 (O’Malley had a knack for spreading his business costs to his new competitors: The Angels leased the Dodgers’ team plane, too.5)

O’Malley thanked Angels owners Gene Autry and Robert Reynolds for supporting the Dodgers’ move west, adding: “These are people who are good for the game. I am delighted that they were awarded the franchise.”6 Autry and Reynolds stifled any objections they might have had. The agreement that brought the Angels into existence was settled only four months before Opening Day 1961, leaving the ownership team with little time to argue, negotiate, or seek other arrangements. Autry, famed as a Hollywood singing cowboy, simply told reporters that owning a team was “the realization of a lifetime dream.”7

The tenants made headlines in November 1961 by staking a small but important claim to their own identity. Autry announced that the Angels would refer to their new home as Chavez Ravine in all settings, rather than Dodger Stadium. “Our relations with the Dodgers up to now have been the finest,” Autry assured reporters. “Using a different name for the same stadium is not to be construed as an objection to the Dodgers’ name for their park. We just want to use our own identity.” An unnamed Dodgers spokesman took the high road with the team’s response, while reminding the Angels where they stood: “A tenant has the privilege of calling the ballpark whatever he wants when he’s using it.”8

Klamath Falls (Oregon) Herald and News, November 16, 1961.

 

After drawing just 603,510 fans at Wrigley Field in 1961, second lowest attendance in the AL, the Angels moved into Dodger Stadium – or Chavez Ravine – on schedule. They opened with a 5-3 loss to the Kansas City Athletics on Tuesday night, April 17, 1962. Only 18,416 attended. Those early adopters were the first of 3,292,244 fans who saw the Angels play at home during their four seasons in their rented ravine.

One of the Angels’ chronic squawks about their landlords developed that July, after Angels outfielders struggled on a reseeded and over-watered field. One of their number, Gordie Windhorn, accused O’Malley of building a $20 million stadium and a 10-cent field. A perceptive reporter added, “It will be noted with interest that this work wasn’t done just before the Dodgers were to play in Chavez Ravine.”9 Autry expanded on the point in a later outburst, calling O’Malley a “difficult landlord” and noting that the Dodgers only had the field resodded when the Angels were occupying the ballpark.10

Autry went public with complaints about the ballpark’s parking arrangements for fans and visiting teams in 1963, noting that New York Yankees manager Ralph Houk had demanded improvements to the parking setup. Autry also regretted the fact that fans couldn’t roam the entire ballpark, but had to stay in the area where they’d bought a ticket. “As a tenant, however, these are matters he has to live with,” a reporter wrote. “He has no control over them.”11

The Angels had no control over the ballpark’s signage, either, which favored the Dodgers and the National League. “When I came into the park today there was nothing that told me the American League plays here,” Angels farm director Roland Hemond said.12

Also in 1963, a proposal was floated to build a 55,000-seat domed ballpark adjacent to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – a far cry from the lopsided field the Dodgers had jerry-rigged for use at the Coliseum between 1958 and 1961. The proposal occurred at the same time as a tax dispute between O’Malley and Los Angeles County that underlined the importance of the Angels’ rent payments to O’Malley’s pocketbook.13 Autry, perhaps trying to make his landlord break a sweat, said he would “listen with interest” to the pitch. It came to nothing.14

Rumors about a potential move elsewhere in Southern California had gained steam by the spring of 1964. While Autry said relations with the Dodgers were “cordial,” he added, “You can never be anything more than a stepchild to the people you rent from.” He went on to take another dig at the “ridiculous” parking at Chavez Ravine, adding that he believed the Angels could build a better ballpark of their own.15

The Dodgers held their tongue throughout these rough patches. The Angels periodically downplayed any tension as well. And once the Angels’ interest in Anaheim was confirmed in April 1964, concord came firmly to the forefront. “Mr. O’Malley had tremendous courage to buck the odds and give our area major league representation,” Reynolds said in June of that year. “Our departure from Chavez Ravine is not based on personal animosity with the Dodger president but to build ourselves a better mousetrap.”16

Wins on the Field, Losses in the Stands

In another time or place the Angels might have fared better in close rivalry with another team, because they were fairly competitive by the standards of expansion teams.

The 1961 Angels, playing at Wrigley Field, posted 70 wins. As of 2023, no first-year expansion team has won more. Playing at Chavez Ravine the following season, the Angels won 86 games, held first place as late as the Fourth of July, and finished third in the AL. It was a distant third, 10 games back, but third nonetheless, and skipper Bill Rigney won The Sporting News’ Manager of the Year award.

The Angels fell out of the running in subsequent seasons. They finished ninth in 1963 at 70-91, fifth in 1964 at 82-80, and seventh in 1965 at 75-87, and made no significant runs at first place. Still, the Angels remained a cut above the majors’ other 1961-62 expansion teams, the New York Mets, Houston Colt .45s/Astros, and Washington Senators. Only the Senators managed to win as many as 70 games in a season during this period, going 70-92 in 1965.

Rigney’s team even outperformed the Dodgers at home in 1964: The Angels went 45-36 at Chavez Ravine, while the Dodgers went 41-40. It was the only year of the teams’ co-tenancy that the AL team managed a better home record.

The Angels boasted stars and recognizable faces for fans to watch and follow. Pitcher Dean Chance won the AL Cy Young Award in 1964 and finished fifth in MVP voting. He led the AL in ERA, complete games, shutouts, and innings pitched, and tied for the league lead with 20 wins.17 Outfielder Leon Wagner contributed 37 home runs in 1962 and 26 in 1963, placing fourth in Most Valuable Player voting in ’62 and making All-Star teams in both seasons. Albie Pearson, AL Rookie of the Year in 1958, resurrected his sagging career as the new team’s spark-plug center fielder. Shortstop Jim Fregosi, just 20 years old in his rookie season in 1962, emerged as an infielder with pop and an All-Star. And colorful pitcher Bo Belinsky made his own distinctive impact, which we’ll get back to shortly.

But against the star power and established success of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Maury Wills, and Walter Alston, none of it mattered.

A famous axiom of military success says, “Get there firstest with the mostest,” and the Dodgers had the unbeatable twin advantages of early arrival and strong performance.18 The Dodgers had wrapped up LA’s first World Series title in 1959, before the Angels’ creation, and delivered two more in 1963 and 1965. They led the NL in attendance every season from 1962 to 1965 and crushed their tenants at the box office by a larger margin each year.

The 1962 Angels were fourth in the AL with 1,144,063 paying fans. That was respectable by most teams’ standards, but less than half of the Dodgers’ remarkable 2,755,184 attendance. By 1965, LA’s junior team was drawing less than one-quarter the attendance of its senior team. The Angels attracted just 566,727 fans – eighth in the 10-team AL – while the Dodgers drew 2,553,577.

Won-Lost Records at Dodger Stadium/Chavez Ravine

Yearly Attendance and Rank in League

Sagging attendance in the Angels’ final two seasons might also have been a reflection on the team’s lame-duck status in Los Angeles, as the team had confirmed its plans to move to a new, 45,000-seat stadium in Anaheim.19

The Angels played their final home games at Chavez Ravine on September 22, 1965, in a Wednesday day-night doubleheader. Just 3,353 fans turned out to see the Angels sweep the Boston Red Sox, 10-1 and 2-0. George Brunet won the second game with a complete-game two-hitter, one of five he pitched in his 15-season major-league career. (Jerry Stephenson, who opposed Brunet and took the loss, was an Anaheim High School graduate.)

Angels players expressed mixed emotions about the move. Fregosi said he wouldn’t miss the spacious dimensions of Chavez Ravine, adding, “Having our own park with our own fans will mean a great deal to team pride. There won’t be 10,000 fans in the stands listening to the Dodgers.” Pitcher Bob Lee was more circumspect: “The bigger the better and Dodger Stadium is the best park in the majors for a pitcher. It was a paradise for me. I could come in dead tired, throw the ball right down the middle and still end up all right.”20

Dodgers general manager Buzzie Bavasi attended the final games, presenting Autry and Angels general manager Fred Haney with a ballpark-shaped cake bearing the slogan “Good Luck California Angels.”21

Amid the bonhomie, Bavasi recalled a comment Autry had once made about O’Malley. News writers said the wisecrack was good-humored, but decades later, it seems sharp-edged. “O’Malley said nothing was too good for us,” Autry said, “and nothing is what we got.”22

History Written in Red: Stadium Records and Noteworthy Games

Perhaps the most memorable Angels home game at Chavez Ravine took place a scant month into the team’s residence there. On May 5, 1962, rookie left-hander Belinsky no-hit the Baltimore Orioles, 2-0. It was only Belinsky’s fourth major-league game and the Angels’ 11th at their new home. A freewheeling nighthawk, Belinsky briefly became a national sensation but lacked the discipline to be a consistent winner. He left the majors in 1970 with a 28-51 lifetime record.23 Belinsky claimed the park’s first no-hitter by a margin of less than two months, as Koufax threw the first of his three no-hitters at Dodger Stadium on June 30, 1962.

Fregosi was as committed to baseball as Belinsky was carefree, and had a longer career as a result. The San Francisco native played 18 seasons in the majors and managed for 15 more. He played in six All-Star Games, won a Gold Glove in 1967, and skippered the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies to the NL championship. And on July 28, 1964, in front of 35,976 fans at Chavez Ravine, Fregosi recorded the park’s first cycle. Hitting against Stan Williams and Hal Reniff of the Yankees, Fregosi collected a first-inning double, a third-inning homer, a sixth-inning triple, and an eighth-inning single. Los Angeles won 3-1.

Earlier that season on June 6, 1964, Chance pitched 14 innings of three-hit-shutout ball, also against the Yankees. As of May 2023, this outing remained the Dodger Stadium single-game record for innings pitched. (Angels relievers Willie Smith and Dan Osinski coughed up two runs in the 15th and the Yankees won 2-0.) The Angels’ Ken McBride hit four batters in a game on April 23, 1964, setting a less desirable stadium record that has since been tied by two other pitchers.24 Similarly, the Angels’ Rudy May is one of seven pitchers who have walked nine batters in a game at the stadium.25

Two Cleveland Indians pitchers opposing the Angels at Chavez Ravine also claimed spots in the stadium record book. As of May 2023, no pitcher had allowed more hits in a single game than Barry Latman, who surrendered 16 in 10⅔ innings in a complete-game loss on September 22, 1962. And Sudden Sam McDowell’s four wild pitches in a game on July 10, 1965, stood alone as a ballpark record for 52 seasons until Adam Ottavino of the Colorado Rockies tied it on June 25, 2017.

Headline in Kenosha Evening News, November 16, 1961.

 

Other games became noteworthy with the passage of time. On September 13, 1963, 300-game winner and future Hall of Famer Early Wynn made his final big-league appearance, 24 years to the day after his first, in front of just 7,363 fans at an Indians-Angels game. Relieving Jack Kralick in the sixth inning of an eventual 7-6 Indians win, Wynn gave up an RBI single to Fregosi, then retired Charlie Dees on a line drive to shortstop to end the inning.

The 9,737 fans who attended the Orioles-Angels game of September 4, 1964, could boast years later that they’d seen the big-league debut of Lou Piniella, future AL Rookie of the Year and NL and AL Manager of the Year. Piniella, then 21 years old, pinch-hit for Robin Roberts and grounded to second base. More than a decade later Piniella returned to the ballpark as a participant in three Yankees-Dodgers World Series in 1977, 1978, and 1981.

One of the saddest stories in Sixties baseball unfolded at Chavez Ravine on Friday, April 13, 1965. Hard-throwing rookie pitcher Dick Wantz made the Angels as a nonroster player,26 and in his first appearance, he allowed three hits and two runs in an inning of work against Cleveland. Shortly afterward, he told the team doctor he was suffering from extreme headaches, which were initially diagnosed as a virus.27 Further testing revealed a fast-spreading cancerous brain tumor. Exactly one month after his only big-league game, Wantz died at age 25 following surgery in a Los Angeles hospital.28

One other Angels game lives on in Dodger Stadium annals, though not many fans could tell you about it firsthand. On Thursday, September 19, 1963, the Angels and Orioles played a day game to make up for a rainout two days earlier. Only 476 fans attended. As of summer 2023, this remained the smallest officially announced crowd in Dodger Stadium history, excluding the COVID-19 pandemic season of 2020.29 Belinsky scattered five hits in a complete game as the Angels romped, 7-2. It might have been the definitive example of Dodger Stadium’s junior tenants putting on a show while Los Angeles’s collective back was turned.30

KURT BLUMENAU is a frequent contributor to the SABR Games Project and Biography Project. He grew up in the Rochester, New York, area, following the Mets and the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings. He works in corporate communications in the Boston area.

Sources

In addition to the sources identified in the Notes, the author consulted other news articles from Los Angeles-area newspapers. He also consulted Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet for basic background information on teams, seasons, games, and players.

Notes

1 Alex Kahn (United Press International), “New Stadium Slated to Have Two Names,” Ogden (Utah) Standard-Examiner, November 16, 1961: 10C.

2 Unless otherwise specified, the background on the creation of the Angels and the business agreement between Walter O’Malley and Gene Autry is based on the SABR biographies on O’Malley (by Andy McCue) and Autry (by Warren Corbett), accessed May 2023.

3 According to a Consumer Price Index inflation calculator made available online by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, $350,000 in December 1960 had the same buying power as more than $3.5 million in April 2023.

4 “Will Angels Transfer to Coliseum?” Long Beach (California) Press-Telegram, July 18, 1963: C1; Joseph A. St. Amant (United Press International), “Angels Say Goodbye to Dodger Stadium,” Alexandria (Indiana) Times-Tribune, September 23, 1965: 6; George Lederer, “Baseball Treaty Reached, L.A. Angels Play Next Year,” Long Beach Independent, December 8, 1960: D1.

5 Melvin Durslag, “Critics Tell O’Malley ‘Get Out of Town,’” San Francisco Examiner, June 19, 1962: 47.

6 Lederer, “Baseball Treaty Reached, L.A. Angels Play Next Year.”

7 Jeanne Hoffman, “Autry Set to Build Angels in 120 Days,” Los Angeles Times, December 13, 1960: IV-5. Autry had stepped in to replace Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg, who withdrew his interest in ownership of the proposed AL expansion team due to O’Malley’s request for payment.

8 Kahn, “New Stadium Slated to Have Two Names”; Ross Newhan, “Dodger Stadium – Not to Angels,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, November 16, 1961: C1; Hank Hollingsworth, “Autry Still Fast on Draw,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, November 16, 1961: C1.

9 Maxwell Stiles, “Styles in Sports,” Los Angeles Evening Citizen-News, July 14, 1962: 13.

10 Al Carr, “When and Will Angels Move?” Los Angeles Times, February 9, 1964: 14.

11 Sid Ziff, “Money Makers,” Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1963: III: 3.

12 Wells A. Twombly, “That Old Sweet Song,” North Hollywood Valley Times, September 9, 1963: 8.

13 Paul Zimmerman, “Some Strange Site Changes,” Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1963: III: 2.

14 United Press International, “Angels Baseball Club May Leave Chavez Ravine,” Redlands (California) Daily Facts, September 10, 1963: 1; Melvin Durslag, “Will Angels Quit Ravine?” San Francisco Examiner, September 10, 1963: 49; Associated Press, “Angels Hinting at Coliseum,” San Bernardino County (California) Sun, September 11, 1963: A8.

15 Ross Newhan, “Angels Admit They’re Moving,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, March 30, 1964: C1.

16 Maxwell Stiles, “Bob in Tomorrowland,” Los Angeles Evening Citizen-News, June 29, 1964: B2.

17 Chance also led the league in numerous advanced statistical categories, such as Fielding Independent Pitching, Base-Out Runs Saved, and Adjusted Wins. While these are significant accomplishments, they’re not mentioned here because they wouldn’t have brought fans to the ballpark in 1964.

18 The phrase “Get there firstest with the mostest” is incorrectly attributed to Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general during the US Civil War. Forrest, who had a clear command of English, instead used the grammatically correct “Get there first with the most men.” Forrest was a slave trader and Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and public tributes and monuments to him have been removed or challenged, but the saying associated with him is embedded in the American vernacular. “Nathan Bedford Forrest,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed May 26, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nathan-Bedford-Forrest.

19 United Press International, “Angels Sign Contract to Transfer Franchise,” Kingsport (Tennessee) Times-News, August 9, 1964: 3C.

20 Ross Newhan, “No Tears by Rig on Move,” Long Beach (California) Independent, September 23, 1965: C1. Sure enough, while Lee’s won-lost record and ERA remained solid in 1966, his Wins Above Replacement declined from 4.1 in 1965 – second-best on the team – to 1.2 in 1966.

21 “Fond Farewell” (photo and caption), Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1965: III: 1. According to Baseball-Reference, the Angels changed their name from the Los Angeles Angels to the California Angels in September 1965, late in their tenure at Chavez Ravine.

22 Bob Myers (Associated Press), “So Long LA, It’s Good Knowin’ Ya,” San Pedro (California) News-Pilot, September 23, 1965: 10.

23 Gregory H. Wolf, “Bo Belinsky,” SABR Biography Project, accessed May 2023.

24 The other two pitchers were Orel Hershiser of the Dodgers against the Houston Astros on April 19, 2000, and Lance McCullers of the Astros on November 1, 2017, in Game Seven of that season’s World Series.

25 “Top Individual Performances at Dodger Stadium,” Retrosheet, accessed May 1, 2023. https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/L/PKTP_LOS03.htm

26 John Hall, “It’s Cimoli, Si! Satriano, No as Angels Pare Their Team,” Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1965: III: 3.

27 John Hall, “Chance Labors, but Still Beats ‘Pigeon’ Yanks, 6-3,” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1965: III: 1; John Hall, “Chance Loses Stuff as Angels Blow One, 5-4,” Los Angeles Times, April 29, 1965: III: 1.

28 “Angels’ Dick Wantz Succumbs to Brain Tumor,” Los Angeles Times, May 15, 1965: III: 1.

29 Based on the author’s review of Dodgers attendance figures from 1962 through 2022 and Angels attendance from 1962 through 1965 on Retrosheet’s year-by-year game logs, accessed May 2023. The author did not find any examples of an officially announced Dodgers home attendance of fewer than 1,000 fans between 1962 and 2022. The smallest official attendance on record for a Dodgers game at Dodger Stadium is 6,559, for a doubleheader against the Atlanta Braves on September 13, 1976, that was rescheduled from two days earlier due to rain. Major-league ballparks were closed to fans throughout the 2020 season because of COVID-19 safety restrictions.

30 The Dodgers returned home the following night for a regularly scheduled Friday-night game and drew an officially announced crowd of 40,476 against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

When eternal Dodgers hero Johnny Podres threw the first pitch to Cincinnati Reds shortstop Eddie Kasko on April 10, 1962, it marked the official opening of Dodger Stadium as the new home of the Los Angeles Dodgers.1 Less recognized and certainly less celebrated was how it represented the definitive end of what has come to be called the Battle of Chavez Ravine.

The Battle was a multifaceted conflict, one that offered insight into the business side of baseball as well as the distinctive demographics that characterized Los Angeles and indeed all of California, while also reflecting the tenor of the times, the decade of the 1950s. These two forces were bridged by the political realities in California, soon to be the nation’s most populous state. At the same time, while the Battle of Chavez Ravine had its roots in actions that predated any plans the Dodgers had to relocate to the West Coast, much less build their new ballpark in that location, it was, nevertheless, a political, social, and cultural battle in which the Dodgers played no small role.

Indeed, the controversy split the Los Angeles area while also leaving the Dodgers to spend more than two decades trying to woo and then placate a part of the local populace, the Mexican Americans who should have been enthusiastic boosters but instead resented what they saw as an insensitive money-grubbing power play. Only with the arrival of Fernando Valenzuela in 1981 would fences begin to be mended in a way that allowed the major leagues’ largest attendance base to include the thousands of fans whose fellow Mexican Americans had at one time resided in what would become the team’s geographic home.2

One of the great ironies of the whole saga is that the central elements of the conflict predated the team’s decision to leave New York, much less to build a stadium in Chavez Ravine. In fact, when the conflict began, Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley was in the midst of an almost decade-long battle, one that began in the late 1940s, with New York power broker Robert Moses over the possibility of building a new ballpark that would allow the Dodgers to remain in New York.3

Indeed, the Battle of Chavez Ravine had its roots in the 1950 decision by Los Angeles authorities to use federal money made available to local municipalities under the Federal Housing Act of 1949 to build public housing in the suburban area outside of the city known as Chavez Ravine.4 While technically a part of greater Los Angeles, the semirural area, made up of three neighborhoods – La Loma, Palo Verde, and Bishop – was a distinctive area, and the home to a predominantly Mexican American population. Indeed, it was an area that city officials had never quite known what to do with, but as they contemplated where to use the expected infusion of federal funds, Chavez Ravine seemed to check every box for the new project that would “have to be sited in a thoughtful way to fit with planned freeway construction, potential rezoning, and perhaps most importantly, the remaking of downtown LA into a business and cultural hub befitting the city’s ruling class.”5

And while downtown was fully accessible, the construction of the 110 freeway served to physically separate the area from downtown Los Angeles.6 But more importantly, and reflective of an often overlooked or at least unacknowledged cultural bias, not to mention political disconnect, while most residents of Los Angeles viewed Chavez Ravine as basically at best “antiquated and backward,” and at worst a slum, often referring to it as an “eyesore” and a “vacant shantytown,” its residents, many of whom had moved there to escape the discrimination they had experienced elsewhere in the city, saw it as something very different.7 For those who lived there it was home, “a self-sufficient and tight knit community, a rare example of small town life with in a large urban metropolis.”8 They took pride in it, having developed the area into a vibrant, thriving community, one that included its own church, elementary school, and recreational center, and where they grew much of their own food.9

But all of this was set to be upended when city planners, led by Frank Wilkinson of the Los Angeles Housing Authority, targeted the area for redevelopment as part of an effort to turn Chavez Ravine into Elysian Park Heights, a public housing project that would cover 54 acres. The initial plans called for the construction of 163 one-story buildings that would provide 3,600 low-cost apartments.10 The notification of the intended plan was received by the residents of Chavez Ravine in July 1950.11

The letters explained the city’s plan and not only ensured residents that if they were eligible for public housing they would not only have “top priority to move into any [Los Angeles] public housing development,” but promised that once the new development was completed they would “have the first chance to move back into the Elysian Park Heights Development.”12 The letters also announced the opening of three area offices to which residents could come for help and guidance in getting relocated.13 While rumors of such a possibility had “been whispered for years,” to the many families for whom the area had long been a community it was nevertheless a crushing, and still unexpected, blow, especially given the reality that since most of the area residents were undocumented, they did not meet the eligibility requirements for residency in the new project.14 The city’s efforts to console the soon-to-be-transplanted residents represented little more than idle promises.

The real trouble began soon after the notices arrived as many families, recognizing that they were not eligible to continue living there, and fearing that they would lose everything, took low offers for their homes and began to move out. With each departure the community was diminished, while at the same time those who remained lost whatever political leverage they might have retained. The exodus was large and fast. By the summer of 1952, Chavez Ravine was, in the words of one commentator, “essentially a ghost town.”15

But in another ironic twist, at the same time that the land was being prepared for the creation of Elysian Park Heights, the proposed project was upended by politics – both national and local. First, in 1952 Frank Wilkinson, the city planner leading the effort to build the public housing, became a victim of the developing power of the Cold War anti-Communist movement.16

While most commonly labeled “McCarthyism” on the national level, in fact, the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities, commonly known as the Tenney Committee, after its chairman, Jack Tenney, a state version of the US House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was already a powerful force in the state, one whose influence was in full bloom before US Senator Joe McCarthy arrived on the scene waving his list of alleged Communists in the federal government.17

Indeed, with battles raging over alleged Communist influence in the movie industry, as well as loyalty oaths in the state universities, the public’s concerns in the Golden State predated the national fears that were embodied in McCarthy. Consequently, when it was discovered that Wilkinson had once been involved in radical politics, he was not only fired from his job (and subsequently tried and found guilty of contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before HUAC, a conviction for which he would ultimately serve time in prison after losing an appeal in the US Supreme Court), but opponents sought to use Wilkinson’s taint to discredit the whole public housing effort.18 Although the city council’s attempt to cancel the contract for the project ran into a legal roadblock, when longtime California politician Norris Poulson, running on a platform that sought to bar the construction of any new public housing projects – efforts that were seen by conservatives as radical efforts that ran counter to solid capitalist principles as well as being spending that they characterized as “un-American” – was elected as mayor of Los Angeles, ousting incumbent Fletcher Bowron, a staunch proponent of the Elysian Park Heights project, by a 53-47 percent margin, the project’s fate was essentially sealed.19

With the Elysian Park Heights project clearly dead and the federal government looking to cut its losses, once Poulson took office, his administration was able to buy from the federal government the land intended for the Elysian Park Heights project at a significantly reduced price. The only stipulation, one that would later prove to be a sticking point when the area was identified as a potential site for the Dodgers’ new home, was that the land needed to be used for a public purpose.20

While the political landscape was changing, a group of boosters of Los Angeles, including members of the city council led by Roz Wyman and Ed Roybal, the only Mexican American on the council, were seeking to launch the city into the ranks of the nation’s top metropolitan areas, an effort they believed would be greatly enhanced if they could land a major-league sports team.21 Despite being the third-largest city in the United States, Los Angeles could lay claim only to the NFL’s Rams, who had moved from Cleveland in 1946. The city now sought to expand their number, believing that being the home of a pro franchise was a sign of true big-league status as New York, Chicago, Boston, and Detroit, among others, all claimed teams in the major sports and in some cases multiple franchises in the same sport. Meanwhile, back in New York, despite the Brooklyn Dodgers having finally broken through years of frustration to win the 1955 World Series in seven games over their longtime rivals the New York Yankees, O’Malley’s efforts to get any help or support from Robert Moses or New York City Mayor Robert Wagner in his quest to build a new stadium continued to meet nothing but opposition.22 Consequently, he turned his attention west, where Los Angeles officials, although previously rebuffed, were ready to welcome him and the Dodgers.23

Yet as enticing as Los Angeles officials had made the proposition appear – and upon agreeing to come to Los Angeles, O’Malley had convinced New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham to join him in the cross-country move, with Stoneham, who had been considering a relocation for several years, planning to make San Francisco his team’s new home – O’Malley discovered that not all of Los Angeles was ready to welcome him and the Dodgers with open arms. At least not as far as a decision on a home for the Dodgers was concerned.24

Indeed, while Chavez Ravine had been one of many places mentioned as a possible site for a new stadium, in the years since Poulson’s election and the death of Elysian Park Heights, a number of ideas had been proposed on how to best use the now all-but-deserted area. One popular suggestion was to turn it into a zoo, an option that all agreed satisfied the public-use condition attached to the city’s purchase from the federal government.25 Meanwhile, all but ignoring that potential problem, some city council members were offering O’Malley Chavez Ravine as a possible stadium site. The prospect became all the more enticing after the Dodgers owner was treated to a helicopter ride over the city, where the aerial view made clear the site’s potential, its location ideally situated near the developing freeway, a factor that would make for easier stadium access, a critical consideration in a city and culture that was increasingly based in automobile travel.26 Finally, in 1957, after continued wrangling and many debates about what constituted public use, the city council approved the transfer of the Chavez Ravine land to the Dodgers. But organized opposition halted the transfer, successfully petitioning for a public referendum to determine whether the transfer could be made.

Meanwhile, on April 18, 1958, the former Brooklyn Dodgers began life as the Los Angeles Dodgers, starting a new chapter in team history by defeating their fellow West Coast transplant, the San Francisco Giants, 6-5, before 78,672 fans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.27 But hanging over the games and the early part of their inaugural season was the impending June 3 referendum. The campaign was a no-holds-barred affair featuring many of the city’s power brokers, while the opposition was led by a group that called itself the Citizens Committee to Save Chavez Ravine for the People.28 Led by Councilman John Holland, who had a record both as an opponent of public housing as well as bringing baseball to Los Angeles, and John Arnholt Smith, the owner of the Pacific Coast League’s San Diego Padres, the opposition forces also included small homeowners and small businesses unhappy with the way the city had handled the Dodgers move.29

For the most part the opposition reflected not so much a problem with baseball as a deep resentment at the “sweetheart deal [offered] a New York businessman at the expense of the LA taxpayer.”30 They did not understand why, based on other local stadiums, O’Malley needed so much land.31 The answer, of course was for parking, but that did not address the other complaint about why the city had also promised millions of dollars in land improvement that would benefit a single private business.32 These were arguments based, for the most part, in economics and public policy. Interestingly, its name notwithstanding, the people for whom they sought to save Chavez Ravine were not the remaining residents. Too, the committee that had in fact begun collecting signatures to force a referendum to challenge the proposed stadium deal even before the Dodgers officially announced their planned move, ignored the amount that O’Malley was in fact investing and the business risks he was taking.33

In contrast, the supporters of the stadium deal included the city’s top political figures as well as a collection of Hollywood figures excited at the arrival of another form of entertainment. With the powerful Los Angeles Times squarely behind the deal, supporters mounted a high-priced advertising campaign with the slogan “Vote B for Baseball.”34 National League President Warren Giles threatened to pull the franchise if the vote went against the ballclub, and while O’Malley, who had stayed on the sidelines in the campaign’s early going, contradicted Giles’ threat, it nevertheless hung over the campaign.35

The effort culminated on June 1 with a five-hour telethon on KTTV. Besides a supportive stream of celebrities that included Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, George Burns, Jack Benny, and former baseball radio announcer and actor Ronald Reagan, the program featured Walter O’Malley sitting at a desk, taking questions from callers, offering “witty, charming answers.”36 Sports Illustrated reported that O’Malley “gave viewers warmth and dignity, and using a blackboard and pointer, he gave them O’Malley style facts.”37 The magazine added that the often “imperious” Dodgers owner “created an image of a gentle, kindly, fatherly type, who wanted nothing in this world (at this moment) but 300 acres of city property to build happiness and parking spaces for all.”38 The well-orchestrated event culminated with a live feed of the Dodgers arriving at the airport after a road trip that included a final victory over the Chicago Cubs, greeted by thousands of fans who had heeded the show’s urging that they head to the airport and greet the team.39

Two days later, on June 3, 1958, in a heavy turnout, especially for an offyear election, the city’s voters made their decision. By the slim margin of 25,000 votes out of 677,000 cast, the effort to block the transfer was defeated.40 O’Malley, sitting in the owner’s box at the Coliseum, received news updates as he watched the Dodgers lose to the Cincinnati Reds, 8-3.41 By the end of the game, his electoral victory was clear.

However, there remained one final legal hurdle. Just days before the referendum, activist lawyers had filed suits contesting the legality of the city council’s action.42 A hearing was held in Los Angeles Superior Court just weeks after the vote and on July 14 Judge Arnold Praeger ruled that neither the city council nor the voters had the right to change the public-purpose clause of the deed to the Elysian Park Heights site.43 The ruling was appealed to the California Supreme Court.44

The 1958 season had not been what the Dodgers had wanted. They finished 12 games under .500, their first sub-500 season since 1944, and in seventh place. At the same time, all of the legal hassles aside, the team had clearly been well received with their attendance being almost double their final year in Brooklyn and their best since 1947, the year Jackie Robinson broke the color line in modern major-league baseball.45 Determined to turn things around in 1959, the club got good news on January 13 when the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of the Dodgers and the city, removing the final legal obstacle to the deal and clearing the way for building Dodger Stadium.46

Unhappily for the Dodgers, one final hurdle remained before construction could begin. It was a hurdle that, notwithstanding the long and convoluted process that had preceded the Dodgers’ acquisition of the land, would for years, if not forever, leave the team stamped as the ultimate bad guys in the destruction of the Mexican American community that had long made Chavez Ravine their home.

Despite the fact that the original notices had been mailed in 1950 and despite the fact that so much of what had made the area a community had been demolished or at least rendered inoperable, of the more than 300 families that had received the notices back in 1950, by 1957 only 20 remained, still living in their homes, in a virtual “ghost town,” even after all those years.47 And with the dust having finally settled and demolition followed by construction set to begin, the final vestiges of the Chavez Ravine community had to be evicted. And so, it was done.

By this point, with all legal avenues exhausted, city officials came in and longtime residents or their descendants were simply carried out, in some cases literally kicking and screaming. On May 9, 1959, a day former residents refer to as “Black Friday,” the last residents of Chavez Ravine were evicted.48 One of the longest-tenured residents, Aurora Vargas, a war widow, who had vowed, “They’ll have to carry me out,” in fact suffered that fate, being “physically removed from her home, manhandled by four officers and rammed into a squad car” while later being briefly jailed and fined for her efforts.49 With the date of eviction having long ago been announced, there was a heavy media presence ready to document the final act in the long-running drama.50 And when the forcible evictions lit up the television screens, they reawakened the bleak memories that had been buried for almost a decade, going back to when the first letters had arrived, while also leaving a legacy that would long color the relationship between the Dodgers and the local Mexican American population.51 It was a public-relations disaster for both the Dodgers and the city and the back story and all that had preceded these televised evictions meant nothing to a populace that saw the final nails being driven into the coffin of a once-vibrant community, one whose emotional pull had only grown as the community itself diminished.

After months of clearing and preparing the grounds, an effort that included knocking down the ridge that separated the Sulfur and Cemetery ravines before filling them in, burying Palo Verde Elementary School in the process, on September 17, 1959, ground was broken for Dodger Stadium.52

Like so much history, the Battle of Chavez Ravine, as well as its impact, remains open to debate and discussion. While the optics of the final event were by any measure horrible, some have noted that by that point the defiant refusal of the remaining families to leave was little more than a series of small symbolic actions, the final shots in a long-lost battle, and did not represent the admittedly diminished community, but it did make for good effect in an era increasingly attuned to the images that television could share.53

Of course, the evictions are well remembered and were a public-relations black eye for the team. Yet there can be no denying that for the most part, the response to the arrival of the Dodgers and the new stadium was overwhelmingly positive toward both the stadium and the team that had already claimed a World Series crown since its arrival in Los Angeles.54 But to paraphrase the aphorism about people voting with their feet, in assessing the impact of the Battle of Chavez Ravine, one cannot ignore the fact that despite efforts by the team that included Spanish-language radio broadcasts almost from the beginning of their time in LA, there was initially little support from the Mexican American community.55 It was not until the arrival of the Mexican-born pitching phenom Fernando Valenzuela – and the accompanying Fernandomania in 1981 –that the Dodgers began to see the type of Mexican American attendance one could have expected given the demographics of the region.56

In the end, there can be little doubt that the Battle of Chavez Ravine offers interesting and instructional lessons about the intersection of sports, business, ethnicity, and culture in an ever-changing and sports-obsessed United States.

BILL PRUDEN has been a teacher of American history and government for almost 40 years. A SABR member for over two decades, he has contributed to SABR’s BioProject and Games Project as well as some book projects. He has also written on a range of American history subjects, an interest undoubtedly fueled by the fact that as a 7-year-old he was at Yankee Stadium to witness Roger Maris’s historic 61st home run.

Notes

1 Cincinnati Reds vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, box score, April 10, 1962, Baseball-Reference.com, https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN196204100.shtml.

2 See Erik Sherman, Daybreak at Chavez Ravine: Fernandomania and the Remaking of the Los Angeles Dodgers (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2023) for a full discussion of the issues the Dodgers had with the Mexican American community and the way the emergence of Fernando Valenzuela in 1981 changed the dynamic.

3 Eric Nusbaum, Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers and the Lives Caught in Between (New York: Public Affairs, 2020), 210-211.

4 Thomas S. Hines, “The Battle of Chavez Ravine,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1997.

5 Nusbaum, 135.

6 Nusbaum, 141.

7 Zinn Education Project, “Chávez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story,” https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/chavez-ravine#:~:text=Ch%C3%A1vez%20Ravine%3A%20A%20Los%20Angeles%20Story%20tells%20the%20story%20of,in%20an%20early%20self%2Dportrait.

8 Zinn Education Project.

9 Zinn Education Project; Nusbaum, 132.

10 “The Battle of Chavez Ravine,” Historias Unknown, July 16, 2022, https://www.historiasunknown.com/blog/the-battle-of-chavez-ravine/.

11 Nusbaum, 142-143.

12 Nusbaum, 143.

13 Nusbaum, 143.

14 Nusbaum, 142; “The Battle of Chavez Ravine,” Historias Unknown.

15 Zinn Education Project.

16 Nusbaum, 179-80.

17 Edward L. Barrett Jr., The Tenney Committee: Legislative Investigation of Subversive Activities in California (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1951).

18 Nusbaum, 179, 219-220.

19 Hines; Elina Shatkin, “The Ugly, Violent Clearing of Chavez Ravine Before It Was Home to the Dodgers,” LA History, October 17, 2018; https://laist.com/news/la-history/dodger-stadium-chavez-ravine-battle.

20 Shatkin.

21 Nusbaum, 201-204, 208.

22 Paul Hirsch, “Walter O’Malley Was Right,” The National Pastime (Phoenix: SABR, 2011).

23 Nusbaum, 208-211.

24 Nusbaum, 221-222.

25 Nusbaum, 204.

26 Nusbaum, 212-213.

27 San Francisco Giants vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, box score, April18, 1958, Baseball-Reference.com, https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN195804180.shtml.

28 Nusbaum, 222.

29 Nusbaum, 222.

30 Nusbaum, 223.

31 Nusbaum, 223.

32 Nusbaum, 223.

33 Nusbaum, 223.

34 Nusbaum, 225.

35 Nusbaum, 226.

36 Nusbaum, 226.

37 Nusbaum, 226.

38 Nusbaum, 226-227.

39 Nusbaum, 227.

40 Nusbaum, 227.

41 Nusbaum, 227.

42 Nusbaum, 227.

43 Jerald Podair, “How the California Supreme Court Saved Dodger Stadium and Helped Create Modern Los Angeles,” California Supreme Court Historical Society Newsletter, Fall/Winter 2018: 3.

44 Nusbaum, 228.

45 Nusbaum, 240.

46 Nusbaum 240; Podair, 5.

47 Shatkin.

48 Taeler Kallmerten, “Dodger Stadium’s Decade Long Battle Over Chavez Ravine,” SustaintheMag, https://www.sustainthemag.com/culture/dodger-stadiums-decade-long-battle-over-chavez-ravine.

49 “Chavez Ravine: Displaced Communities under Dodger Stadium,” ReflectSpace; https://www.reflectspace.org/post/chavez-ravine-displaced-communities-under-dodger-stadium; “This Day in Los Angeles History: April 10, 1962, California Historical Society, April 10, 2023; https://californiahistoricalsociety.org/blog/this-day-in-los-angeles-history-april-10-1962-first-game-at-dodger-stadium/.

50 Nusbaum 258.

51 Nusbaum, 258-260; Janice Llamoca, “The Battle Over Chavez Ravine,” latinousa.org, January 22, 2019; https://www.latinousa.org/2017/11/03/battle-chavez-ravine/.

52 Shatkin.

53 Nusbaum, 256-259.

54 Sherman, 19.

55 Sherman, 19.

56 As noted above, Erik Sherman offers a comprehensive treatment of the way Fernandomania turned the tide in the early 1980s and added a whole new dimension to the Dodgers’ active fan base.

Dodger Stadium, opened in 1962, is located just north of downtown Los Angeles. (Copyright Wirestock /dreamstime.com)

It’s easy to look up at the stadium on its hill overlooking Los Angeles and see nothing but easy – the location, the design, and, above all, the year-after-year attendance. But the process of winning the right to build Dodger Stadium was a four-year grind through dogged opponents and naïve and dilatory politicians.

In the beginning, it did seem easy. In February 1957, Walter O’Malley announced he had paid $3 million for the Pacific Coast League’s Los Angeles Angels and their ballpark, Wrigley Field. Under baseball rules, this gave him the rights to the Los Angeles market. Within two weeks, Los Angeles Mayor Norris Poulson and LA County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn organized a six-person delegation to meet O’Malley at the Dodgers’ Vero Beach, Florida, training site.

It was a lopsided meeting. The Los Angeles delegation, brimming with enthusiasm and frustrated after nearly two decades of misses in their desire for major-league baseball, were willing to discuss anything. O’Malley, a veteran of stadium operations and major-league politics, knew what he wanted – land to build a stadium and parking lots he could control. He suggested multiple possibilities – a city-built stadium, a long-term lease for the land, government-provided grading, freedom from property taxes, $1 annual rent on the Los Angeles Coliseum while the stadium was built. Every time he suggested something, including 500 acres near downtown, the local politicians indicated it was very possible.

Poulson emerged from the meeting full of smiles. O’Malley was less fulsome, taking the podium after the mayor and saying, “I’ll take the edge off that right now.” Both described the talks as throwing out ideas and said the discussion was far too preliminary to make public.1 Poulson continued to ooze confidence, saying all problems were solvable. Upon his return to Los Angeles, he was quoted as saying, “We’ve got the Dodgers,” but he quickly backed away.2

It would become clear over the next months that the two parties really had not communicated. When the Los Angeles delegation got home, reality set in. The city attorney pointed out that the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission, which controlled the facility, had not been represented in Vero Beach and would not have to honor any promises. There were still questions about the city’s title to the Chavez Ravine acreage O’Malley wanted. The federal government had given it to the city with the restriction it had to be used for a “public purpose.” Robert Moses had used similar limits on federal money to deny O’Malley’s desire for aid in putting together a ballpark site in Brooklyn.3 Los Angeles officials had to go to Washington, D.C., for assurances that a deal for the land was legal. Other issues appeared.

Over the next few months, O’Malley clarified his list of desires and the city named former Eisenhower administration official Chad McClellan to work out an agreement. By September the major issues had been settled. The city would provide “about” 300 acres in the Chavez Ravine area and up to $2 million in city and county investments, mostly in infrastructure near the ballpark. In return, the Dodgers would turn over the Wrigley Field property, which the city wanted for a public park, and lease 40 acres on the stadium site for another park and spend up to $500,000 for building facilities on that site, plus $60,000 in upkeep annually for 20 years. The Dodgers would also give up half the mineral rights on the site.

In the Los Angeles area at that time, mineral rights were a hot-button issue. In earlier decades, oil finds in Signal Hill and Santa Fe Springs had given some people backyard wealth and others dreams of it. In the stadium negotiations, the rights became an issue that far exceeded reality. The city council bloc opposed to the contract demanded that a site within the acreage be set aside for drilling. O’Malley had checked with oil industry people who had told him the potential of Chavez Ravine was negligible. He stood to lose little but was getting exasperated, saying he was getting the feeling he wasn’t wanted, just as he felt in New York.4 He demanded half the profits any wells might produce but said the money would go to youth sports programs.

On Sunday, October 6, 1957, Councilwoman Rosalind Wyman, the point person in attracting the Dodgers, called O’Malley in Brooklyn. She described the uncertain political situation for a final vote scheduled for the next day. She said the Dodgers’ case could be strengthened if O’Malley promised that a favorable vote would guarantee that the team would come. O’Malley refused. The council did approve the contract and the next day O’Malley said the team would move.

Los Angeles Mayor Norris Poulson presents key to city to the Dodgers’ Walter O’Malley. (SABR-Rucker Archive.)

For much of Los Angeles, the move was a momentous validation of its status as a “major league” city. O’Malley’s reception at the airport later in October was rapturous. As the Dodgers organization ramped up later in the year, ticket requests were overwhelming.

But the opposition was not going away. At the airport, a man shouldered his way to O’Malley in front of the TV cameras. He presented O’Malley with a summons. There was already a taxpayers’ lawsuit even before the city council had agreed on its final offer. By December 5, it was announced that a referendum challenging the contract had qualified for the ballot in June 1958.

The opposition was a grab-bag of interests. The public face was City Councilman John Holland, whose highly conservative politics were offended by any public money being spent on a private enterprise. Other councilmen, from distant districts in the spreadeagled city, saw the stadium as a ploy to build up downtown Los Angeles to the detriment of their areas, a view echoed by some of the suburban newspapers. Movie theater owners saw the Dodgers as competition.

Holland argued that the city was losing a valuable piece of land near the city center. While tax records showed a higher value for the Wrigley Field parcel than for the Chavez Ravine land, there was no doubt that the stadium parcel had much more potential. But Holland’s attempts to promote a “world scientific exposition” or a cemetery for the site found little support.5

The antis weren’t making much progress in the city council, but they did persuade the California State Assembly’s Interim Committee on Governmental Efficiency and Economy to hold hearings. One day of testimony saw both sides reiterate their positions on the contract. The only new wrinkle was John Smith, owner of the minor-league San Diego Padres and a major financier of the antis’ effort, who made an offer to pay the city for the oil rights. When the city took him up on the offer, he began putting conditions on it, and no other oil company stepped forward to accept the terms. Profitable levels of oil have never been found under the stadium land. The Assembly committee never issued a report.

At first, Poulson and O’Malley decided to ignore the referendum campaign, especially when their polls indicated that two-thirds of voters supported the contract. But the drumbeat of criticism and the Assembly hearings were having their effect. Polls showed that support had fallen to 37 percent. O’Malley and Poulson began pressing the case.6

Speeches to civic groups multiplied. Poulson declared a Dodger Week. In April, O’Malley backed off his refusal to televise Dodgers games, scheduling the broadcast of a series in San Francisco in early May.7 The Los Angeles Times redoubled its support in both editorial and news columns. On the Sunday before the vote, the Times-owned Channel 11 staged a five-hour “Dodgerthon” with celebrities joining O’Malley in supporting the stadium contract. It worked, barely, with the stadium deal affirmed by 51.8 percent of voters.

O’Malley’s fears of further legal entanglements for his stadium were confirmed all too quickly. On Wednesday, June 4, 1958, with the win for Proposition B confirmed, O’Malley was talking of construction work within a month. On Friday, June 6, Superior Court Judge Kenneth Newell issued a preliminary injunction blocking the city from transferring the Chavez Ravine land to the Dodgers.

The referendum had asked voters if the stadium deal was good for the city; the taxpayers’ lawsuit alleged that the deal was illegal. The key issue raised by the taxpayer suit’s attorney, Phill Silver, was highly similar to the argument Robert Moses relied on in New York – whether aiding a private corporation constituted a “public purpose.” The Los Angeles trial was unusual because there were few issues of fact involved. It would focus on whether the provisions of the city council’s contract with the Dodgers conformed to law.

As the trial progressed, Judge Arnold Praeger forced the lawyers for the city, the Dodgers, and Silver to focus on whether the contract gave the team too much authority in deciding exactly how to spend city money and whether the city could close public streets for the benefit of a private corporation. He also raised the broader “public purpose” issue.8 On July 14 his decision came down squarely against the Dodgers. It was illegal, he ruled, for the city to transfer land formerly designated for public housing (a public purpose) to the Dodgers, a private corporation. It was illegal for the city to pledge to spend public money to acquire more land in the area to be given to the Dodgers, to close streets for the benefit of a private corporation, to delegate to the club decisions on exactly how to spend public money provided for grading, and how to spend the money for parks raised by any oil revenues. On the public-purpose issue, he said the city council had exceeded its authority.

“I remain an optimist,” O’Malley said. “This is just another hurdle which we will have to take in stride. What hurts is the delay. Our timetable is out the window and I’m afraid San Francisco will have its new stadium first.”9 With fans still bringing their money to the Coliseum, Time magazine said Los Angeles was the “Garden of Eden and the Black Hole of Calcutta rolled into one” for O’Malley.10

The first decision to be made was how to use the appeals process. The city and the Dodgers’ attorneys calculated that an appeal couldn’t be completed before 1960. With construction time tacked on after that (and the unspoken thought that any California decision might be appealed to the US Supreme Court), it looked unlikely that the Dodgers could have their stadium until late in the 1962 season. Instead, the Dodgers/city team made the decision to seek a writ from the California Supreme Court to prohibit enforcement of Praeger’s decision.

On October 15, 1958, the California Supreme Court granted the city and the Dodgers a temporary writ of prohibition, but didn’t render a final decision until January 13, 1959, when it unanimously overturned Praeger’s decision. The justices looked at the contract in an entirely different way than Praeger had. “In considering whether the contract made by the city has a proper public purpose, we must view the contract as a whole,” wrote Chief Justice Phil S. Gibson. “The fact that some of the provisions may be of benefit only to the baseball club is immaterial, provided the city receive benefits which serve a legitimate public purpose.”11

O’Malley was bubbling. Groundbreaking for the new stadium, he said, would happen within 30 days. It would be open for the 1960 season, although it might have only 32,000 of its seats at that point, with more being added as time went on.12 By the next day, reality had set in again. City Attorney Roger Arnebergh said O’Malley had been “extremely optimistic,” noting that it would take a minimum of 60 days to clean up the paperwork and get the city/Dodgers contract signed. Only then could the Dodgers begin the process of submitting documents to the City Planning Commission. County Supervisor Frank Bonelli predicted that the stadium wouldn’t open until 1964 as opponents would keep throwing up roadblocks. Silver said he would appeal.

In February and again in April, the top California court rejected Silver’s pleas – first for a rehearing and then to overturn the earlier decision. The latter was the last gasp in state courts, but Silver indicated he was willing to appeal to the US Supreme Court. Since the Supreme Court didn’t even come back into session until October, the delay would stretch for months more. The city/Dodgers contract was formally signed on June 3, 1959, the first anniversary of the referendum victory and 20 months after the city council first approved its terms. Barely three weeks later, on the eve of O’Malley’s proposed July 1 groundbreaking, Silver appealed to the US Supreme Court.

On Monday, October 19, 1959, the Supreme Court sped up the process enormously. It declined to hear Silver’s appeal, giving no reason. O’Malley, pleased but properly chastened after nearly 2½ years of fighting for what he thought he’d been promised in February 1957, said he hoped there would be no more “political” delays. Delay, he said, already had added to the projected cost of the stadium and pushed its debut far beyond Opening Day 1960 as he had planned.13 He hoped the ballpark would be ready for Opening Day 1961, with maybe some games late in 1960.

By Wednesday morning, O’Malley had Dick Walsh deliver stadium plans to the city to support a request for necessary zoning changes on the Chavez Ravine land. Immediately, there were problems. The plans weren’t as specific as City Councilman Ransom Callicott, chairman of the council’s planning committee, wanted. Callicott also noted that the plan included a number of commercial enterprises – a gas station, a car wash, and several restaurants – that had not been anticipated. Callicott, who’d been a consistent Dodgers supporter on all the earlier votes, indicated that he was troubled by these unexpected additions.14 Within a few days, more exact maps came back. The car wash was gone. The restaurants – a fast-food outlet, an outdoor luau-type arrangement, and a sit-down restaurant – had been moved inside the stadium structure. The gas station was still there. O’Malley said it had been requested by city planners as there were no others in the immediate area.

The changed plans won the zoning approval requested, but not before another uncomfortable afternoon in city council chambers. After the council dithered through several procedural issues, O’Malley rose to say that the referendum and the lawsuits already had pushed the stadium back so far that the cost had risen by $3 million. “I cannot afford to have this drag on,” he concluded. The council voted approval.15

The city’s dilatory ways had already created another controversy, one that still echoes to this day.

In May 1959, sheriff’s deputies evicted a Mexican American family named Arechiga from their home on the Chavez Ravine property and tore the house down. The scene, with dramatic film, played big on Los Angeles’ television stations.16

If a picture is worth a thousand words, these needed a thousand words of context. The Chavez Ravine property had been designated for public housing in 1950. The Los Angeles Housing Authority began eminent-domain proceedings against the landowners, including the Arechigas, and $10,050 was deposited in an escrow account while title was transferred to the city. By 1953, the Chavez Ravine community, which once had numbered 1,100 families, was down to the Arechigas and perhaps 20 other holdouts.

Events had overtaken the Housing Authority. Conservative groups around Los Angeles, including the real estate industry, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Los Angeles Times, rallied against public housing. The city council abrogated its contract with the Housing Authority. In a June 1952 ballot measure, 60 percent of voters said they wanted no part of public housing.

In 1953 the Arechigas sued to regain title, citing the death of the public-housing proposal. The resulting court battle was decided in the city’s favor. The Arechigas, still hoping to retain their home, did not accept the money. And the city, uncertain what the land could be used for, did nothing to enforce the judgment and take over the property. The incident went into public memory as poor Mexican Americans thrown into the streets to build Dodger Stadium even though the land had originally been taken for public housing.17

Work picked up. But by early 1960, it was clear that yet another of the city’s casual procedures was about to cause problems. As with the Arechigas and their neighbors, this was a fistful of property owners whom the city hadn’t dealt with as promised. They owned homes and one small store, that hadn’t been included in the Housing Authority’s land. They should have been bought as part of the city’s 1957 deal with the Dodgers. The city had started eminent-domain proceedings but dropped them.18 There had been some desultory bargaining but that had stalled. The city didn’t want to budge too far from the pre-Dodgers’ assessed value and the homeowners knew that with the bulldozers tearing up the hill above them, their properties had skyrocketed in value.

Caught between the city’s casual attitude and his timetable, O’Malley bit his tongue and paid. There were a dozen lots involved. All the property owners had hired the same attorney and promised that none would break ranks. The dozen lots had been assessed at $82,850 during the eminent-domain proceedings. O’Malley paid $494,400.19

By the time escrow closed on these houses, O’Malley was forced to concede that the stadium wouldn’t be ready for Opening Day 1961. For another month, he held out hope for July 1961, but then agreed it would take at least until Opening Day 1962. “I can’t tell you when we can open the park. It depends on how long are the delays that may be caused by our dedicated opponents,” he said. Asked if the Dodgers could learn anything from the problems popping up at the newly opened Candlestick Park in San Francisco, he said, “The way things are going, we will have more than ample time.”20

He did. As every Dodger-related piece of paper entered the city council, John Holland and his supporters found a way to delay. When the question of closing city streets in the Chavez Ravine area arose in August 1959, everybody in the council except Holland treated it as pro-forma. Holland voted no.21 The lack of a unanimous vote automatically forced a second reading and a delay of another two weeks. In May 1960 it was approval of a tract map for the stadium. In June it was an appropriation to buy a former elementary school site on the property from the school district. In July O’Malley’s supporters on the council were finally able to get an escrow on the Chavez-Ravine-for-Wrigley-Field exchange set up and approved. In August the city granted a conditional-use permit for the property, which would automatically turn into a building permit 10 days later unless an appeal was filed. With 15 minutes left in the appeal period, Silver filed one. A little over a week later, the appeal was overturned, but August had been lost to construction as well. In October the Dodgers and the city finally swapped land titles. In December the council gave approval to the final tract map, with Holland voting doggedly against each of the four necessary motions. The key vote was 18 to 1, Holland’s remaining supporters having thrown in the towel.22

It was the October 1960 swap of land titles that had really allowed construction to get going. But even as construction progressed, there were further difficulties with the city. A stadium hadn’t been built in Los Angeles since Wrigley Field in the 1920s, noted Dodgers executive Fresco Thompson, and nobody in the city inspector’s office had any experience with a stadium project. With the knowledge that Holland and other opponents were looking for issues to jump on, the inspectors had to be very thorough. They insisted that a sewer line be increased in size because a zoo might be built in neighboring Elysian Park. (It wasn’t.) They required that each car be given a separate parking slot so people could leave easily during games (the two major arenas where the city had a voice, the Coliseum and the Hollywood Bowl, both allowed parking cars bumper to bumper).23 “We had almost as many city officials swarming over the park as we did contractors’ workmen. You couldn’t tell ’em without a scorecard,” Thompson said.24

Then there was the phantom road. The city insisted that a route across the construction site be kept open even though it would disappear once the stadium opened. In fact, the city required the Dodgers to build a finished road, complete with curbs and streetlights. The road was used for 109 days before being torn up. It cost the Dodgers $59,742.25

Finally freed from the processes of the city, construction progressed. Dodger Stadium finally opened on April 10, 1962, two years later than O’Malley had planned.

As the construction process stumbled to its end, O’Malley was fed up. “One of the biggest mistakes I made when I came West was taking Western politicians at their word. I had been informed that a Western politician was a hearty, candid fellow whose handshake was his bond. I learned otherwise,” he said years later. “I didn’t expect a double-cross.”26

ANDY McCUE, a former president of SABR, won the Seymour Medal for Mover and Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers, and Baseball’s Westward Expansion. He is also the author of Baseball by the Books: A History and Complete Bibliography of Baseball Fiction and Stumbling Around the Bases: The American League’s Mismanagement in the Expansion Eras (University of Nebraska Press, 2022). He is a retired newspaper reporter, editor, and columnist and a winner of SABR’s highest honor, the Bob Davids Award.

Notes

1 Frank Finch, “L.A. Officials Hopeful After Secret Session,” Los Angeles Times, March 7, 1957: C1.

2 Frank Finch, “Bum-Giant Feud Due to Move Here,” Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1957: 1.

3 Neil Sullivan, The Dodgers Move West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).

4 H.C. McClellan, “McClellan Tells ‘Full Truth’ of Dodgers’ Coming to L.A.,” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1963: J1.

5 “Chavez Ravine Baseball Foes Present Ideas,” Los Angeles Times, January 14, 1958: C1.

6 “O’Malley Sees Start on Park by July 5,” Los Angeles Times, June 5, 1958: C1.

7 Televising only road games in San Francisco would remain the team’s policy for nearly two decades.

8 Gene Blake, “Judge Questions Chavez Contract,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1958: 2.

9 Frank Finch, “Extra-Inning Legal Tussle Looms Over Dodger Park,” The Sporting News, July 23, 1958: 10.

10 “Ravine Roadblock,” Time, July 28, 1958: 55.

11 Gene Blake, “High Court Approves Dodgers Chavez Pact,” Los Angeles Times, January 14, 1959: A1.

12 Mal Florence, “Dodgers to Open ’60 Season at Chavez Ravine,” Los Angeles Times, January 14, 1959: C1.

13 Carlton Williams, “Supreme Court Approves Dodger Chavez Park,” Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1959: A1.

14 Frank Waldman, “Dodger Plan for Chavez Draws Fire,” Los Angeles Times, October 22, 1959: A1.

15 Frank Waldman, “Council Votes Chavez Ravine Zone Changes,” Los Angeles Times, November 6, 1959: A1. A few days later, New York Times sports columnist Arthur Daley would portray this as the council caving in as O’Malley cried wolf. He noted the team’s attendance and asked, “O’Malley walk out on such a windfall? He ain’t that crazy.” Daley, evidently unfamiliar with the continuing battle, didn’t recognize that the 9-to-5 vote in favor of the zoning changes reflected the consistent split on Dodger issues during that time period. Nobody’s mind had been changed either by the opponents’ or O’Malley’s rhetoric. Arthur Daley, “Sports of the Times: Sounding the Lupine Alarm,” New York Times, November 11, 1959: 47.

16 “Sit-down Strike in Ruins Begun by Chavez Evictees,” Los Angeles Times, May 10, 1959: B1.

17 “Arnebergh Explains Background of Eviction,” Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1959: 3. See also Eric Nusbaum, Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between (New York: Public Affairs, 2021).

18 Sullivan, The Dodgers Move West, 175.

19 “Dodgers Near Finish of Chavez Purchases,” Los Angeles Times, February 12, 1960: 2; “Dodgers Put 3 Chavez Properties in Escrow,” Los Angeles Times, February 13, 1960: B1; Final Eight Homes Sold to Dodgers,” Los Angeles Times, February 19, 1960: B1.

20 Paul Zimmerman, “Hope Vanishes for Dodgers to Be in Chavez Ravine by 1961,” Los Angeles Times, April 26, 1960: C1.

21 Andy McCue, Mover and Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers and Baseball’s Westward Expansion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 252-3.

22 “Final Steps Taken on Dodger Baseball Park,” Los Angeles Times, December 23, 1960: B1.

23 McCue, Mover and Shaker, 253.

24 Fresco Thompson with Cy Rice, Every Diamond Doesn’t Sparkle (New York: David McKay Co., 1964), 197.

25 McClellan, “McClellan Tells Full Truth …”

26 Bob Oates, “It’s Goat Hill, Not Chavez Ravine – O’Malley,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1969: D1.

In May of 1957, Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley took a helicopter ride over Chavez Ravine, the eventual home of his iconic new ballpark. In Brooklyn he had loaded the team with Italian and African American players to reflect the demographics of that borough. He wanted his team to reflect the large Mexican American population in Los Angeles, so he put the word out to his scouts to find him the Mexican Sandy Koufax. While seemingly impossible to many in the Dodgers organization, the team’s longtime Spanish language broadcaster Jaime Jarrin said, “He had a vision. He knew that eventually that market would grow and would be a very important part of the business for the Dodgers.”1

Though he would not live to see Fernando Valenzuela’s Dodgers debut – O’Malley died in 1979 – his dream became a reality when the Mexican native was signed by Dodgers scout Mike Brito in 1979. The left-hander was sent to Lodi of the Class-A California League. Valenzuela worked with Dodgers reliever Bobby Castillo to develop an off-speed pitch that eventually became the screwball. He picked it up faster than anyone in the Dodgers organization could have imagined. Called up to the majors on September 15, 1980, Valenzuela made 10 relief appearances. He pitched 17⅔ scoreless innings with a 0.00 ERA mostly in relief for the Dodgers’ playoff run, which was ended by the Houston Astros in a one-game tiebreaker for the National League title.2

Valenzuela came to Los Angeles when it boasted the highest concentration of Mexican Americans in the world. Approximately 2 million of the 7½ million residents of Los Angeles County were of Mexican American descent.3 While there had been Mexican American or Dominican players for the Dodgers, including Bobby Castillo, José Peña, Sergio Robles, and Manny Mota, none had the impact that Valenzuela had, and Mexicans for the most part stayed away from Dodger Stadium. The 1981 season finally brought the Dodgers the player they had been hoping for and ignited a passion among the Mexican American population as one of their own was finally taking the mound at Dodger Stadium.

On Opening Day in 1981, the Dodgers found themselves in the peculiar position of needing a starting pitcher. Jerry Reuss, the 1980 National League Cy Young Award runner-up and the ace of the Dodgers’ rotation, was a late scratch because a calf muscle he had strained the day before left him unable to walk. The number-two starter, Burt Hooten, had just had a procedure to remove an ingrown toenail, which took him out of contention for the starting job. The third man in the Dodgers’ rotation, Bob Welch, was recovering from a bone spur in his right elbow; and the two men at the bottom of the rotation, Dave Goltz and Rick Sutcliffe, were healthy scratches. Both had pitched in an exhibition series against the California Angels before the season opener.4 That left Valenzuela as the lone option to start against the formidable Astros.

Additionally, the Astros had acquired former Dodgers pitching great Don Sutton in the offseason, a move that Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda seemed to take in stride: “We knew there was a possibility of losing Don Sutton (who played out his option and signed with Houston as a free agent), so we had to plan ahead.” Speaking of Valenzuela, Lasorda said, “We were looking at him as the replacement for Don.”5

Valenzuela was 20 years old and the first rookie to start on Opening Day in the team’s history. Many in the crowd of 50,511 had to wonder why he was pitching. He warmed up, then went into the training room for a nap before jogging out to the bullpen and then onto the field as the Opening Day festivities got underway.

Making the situation arguably more comical, Valenzuela threw a screwball, a pitch that no one else had thrown with regularity since Carl Hubbell in the 1930s. Hubbell used that pitch in the 1934 All-Star Game to strike out, in order, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, and Joe Cronin, all future hall of famers.6 Regarding Valenzuela, Hubbell, who had retired in the 1940s, told reporters, “He’s got the best screwball since mine.”7

Valenzuela was opposed by Joe Niekro, who had pitched the Astros to a 7-1 victory in the 1980 tiebreaker.8 The Astros were unfazed by Valenzuela. “When we heard that Reuss wasn’t going to start and that we were going up against a rookie, we felt we had a much better chance against [Valenzuela] than the veteran All-Star,” said Houston pitcher Joe Sambito.9

The Astros were ready to pounce on the largely untested rookie, but they were in for a surprise. Valenzuela’s delivery befuddled them. With his hands clasped, he reached toward the sky, while simultaneously lifting his right leg and his eyes toward the heavens, as if to ask for divine intervention, before delivering his pitch. Valenzuela threw a screwball to Astros leadoff hitter Terry Puhl, who hit a grounder to shortstop for the first out of the game. Valenzuela proceeded to pitch an almost flawless game, coaxing Astros hitters into groundballs, or occasional singles, but not giving up a run. He fanned Dave Roberts on a screwball for the final out to complete a five-hit, 2-0 shutout.10

Speaking of his screwball afterward, he said, “That’s my pitch, and when I need the big outs that’s what I go to.”11 While that victory provided a measure of retribution for the playoff loss in 1980, the game is better remembered as the birth of “Fernandomania.” It marked the beginning of a string of victories that made Valenzuela the star of the league and a hero to the legions of Dodgers fans the world over. Sportswriter Paul Oberjuerge summed up fans’ feelings when he stated, “Enroll me in the Fernando Valenzuela fan club. Any guy who can get people out despite that Pillsbury Doughboy physique is all right in my book.”12

That first win also ignited the local Mexican American community in Los Angeles, who wanted to see someone who reflected their background pitch for the Dodgers. That same community had once sworn not to attend Dodgers games when the ballpark opened in 1962 because of the way the evictions for the remaining Chavez Ravine families had been handled in 1959. The win would, in the words of Erik Sherman, “spark a phenomenon in which this remarkable young Mexican pitcher would begin to heal a long-fragmented relationship between the Dodgers, the city of Los Angeles, and a largely marginalized Latino community.”13

After the Opening Day series against Houston, the Dodgers went on the road. When Valenzuela’s second start came around, they were 4-0 and off to their fastest start since 1955. Unfazed by the frigid winds of Candlestick Park, Valenzuela pitched another gem of a game, allowing four hits and striking out 10 in a 7-1 victory over the Giants. He gave up a run, which he hadn’t done since his time with San Antonio in the minors. “I didn’t get tired, but I was a little stiff the last few innings because of the cold,” Valenzuela said.14

His next game was on April 18, in San Diego. The Dodgers won 2-0. Valenzuela pitched a five-hit shutout to improve his record to 3-0. Since his debut in September the season before, Valenzuela had allowed just one run in 44⅔ innings pitched. The win gave Valenzuela his second shutout and third straight complete game of the season. Valenzuela spoke modestly of his performance after the game, saying, “I don’t know if this is a streak. I’ve always pitched like this.”15

His next start came against Houston in the Astrodome. Before a crowd of 22,830, Valenzuela faced off against the man he was brought to Los Angeles to replace, Don Sutton. Both pitched well. While Sutton scattered six hits and allowed one run over seven innings, he was no match for the Dodgers phenom. Valenzuela threw yet another complete game, with 11 strikeouts en route to a seven-hit shutout. He also supplied his own run support, slapping a single off Sutton in the fifth inning to score Pedro Guerrero for the only run of the game. “When I got the hit, I was pleased to get the hit, but thankful to get ahead in the game,” Valenzuela said.16 With the win, Valenzuela now led the league in wins (4), strikeouts (36), complete games (4), shutouts (3), and innings (36), with an ERA of 0.25.17 Speaking of Valenzuela after the game, Sutton said, “He’ll come back to earth someday and give up an earned run or two.”18

Valenzuela returned April 27 to a hero’s welcome at Dodger Stadium. Throngs of fans burst through the turnstiles to welcome him back home against the Giants. The Dodgers hired Spanish-speaking ushers, and many in the crowd waved Mexican flags. Vendors hawked Fernando Valenzuela paraphernalia, mariachi bands played, and Mexican Americans showed up in force to support their freshly adopted favorite. “The fan demographics of Dodger Stadium changed in a month,” said Peter Schmuck. “It was stunning to pull your car into the parking lot and drive by mariachi bands. Sure, Mexican Americans came to games, but not like that. It was so much fun, just a wonderful, unbelievable circus.”19 Pitching in front of 49,478 fans, Valenzuela gave them what they came to see, beating the Giants 5-0 to secure his fifth straight victory and fourth shutout. “Webster has no words to define him,” Dodgers second baseman Davy Lopes said. “He owns this city right now. He’s entitled to all this acclaim. He’s a super kid and a great pitcher.”20

While Valenzuela’s seven strikeouts catapulted him to first place in the National League with 43, and the seven hits in his past 11 plate appearances ballooned his batting average to .438, it all paled in comparison to the woman who ran onto the field that night. In the ninth inning, Norma Echevarra, a young Mexican American woman wearing a “Valenzuela 34” raglan T-shirt. grasped Valenzuela’s shoulders and kissed him on the right cheek. Afterward, she raised her arms into the air and jumped up and down on the pitcher’s mound before being escorted from the ballpark by security.

Echevarra’s kiss was symbolic of the Mexican American community’s recognition of Valenzuela. It became, in the words of Erik Sherman, “a lasting image and symbol of the love and adoration being bestowed by millions of Mexican and other Latino fans on their new hero – Fernando Valenzuela.”21 Her kiss was emblematic of the transformative effect he had on the Dodger fanbase.

While the Dodgers possessed other high-profile pitchers, Valenzuela outdrew all of them in 1981. At home he drew an average 48,431 while everyone else on the pitching staff drew 40,941. For road games he pitched in, he averaged 32,273 people in attendance while other Dodgers pitchers garnered 14,292, a difference of 18,981.22 The Dodgers’ veteran Spanish-language announcer Jaime Jarrin summarized Valenzuela’s effect best by saying, “I truly believe that there is no other player in major league history who created more new fans than Fernando Valenzuela. Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Joe DiMaggio, even Babe Ruth did not. Fernando turned so many people from Mexico, Central America, South America into fans. He created interest in baseball among people who did not care about baseball.”23

There were so many interview requests that the Dodgers were forced to hold pregame press conferences in the locker room of every ballpark they visited. Back in Los Angeles, fans bought Valenzuela T-shirts or made their own bootleg versions to sell. Newspapers were hungry for more stories about Valenzuela, and the local newspapers were cranking out stories about him, his mysterious beginnings, and every facet of his life as fast as they could. Even the Los Angeles Police Department became part of the mania, ordering 100,000 Dodgers baseball cards with the LAPD insignia to hand out to children in the areas they patrolled.24 “Everyone was clamoring for Fernando stories, and it was just so unbelievable the amount of attention he was getting,” said former Dodgers director of publicity Steve Brener. “I can’t remember one player who captured the fantasy of the fans and the media the way Fernando did.”25

With Fernandomania now in full swing, the Dodgers traveled north of the border to take on the Montreal Expos on May 3, 1981. Valenzuela retired 21 straight batters after allowing a single to start the game. In the eighth inning, Chris Speier hit a single scoring pinch-runner Tom Hutton to tie the game, 1-1. Up to that point, Valenzuela had gone 36 innings without allowing a run. Manager Lasorda brought in Reggie Smith to pinch-hit for Valenzuela in the top of the 10th inning, while the Expos stuck with Tom Gullickson, who gave up five runs in the 10th inning to give Valenzuela a 6-1 victory. Valenzuela was 6-0, and it was only the second time he had been scored upon all season. Lasorda put the momentous victory in perspective saying, “It’s good for the Dodgers, the city of Los Angeles, for the country of Mexico and for baseball all over.”26

Valenzuela pitched next at Shea Stadium against the New York Mets on May 8. Up to that point he had six games, six wins, and four shutouts while allowing only two earned runs. He also had become the biggest draw in the major league. The Mets’ attendance numbers certainly reflected that. “39,848 fans – not bad for a team that averaged 11,300,” said sports artist LeRoy Neiman, who was on hand to sketch Valenzuela’s portrait before the game.27

Fans at Shea Stadum, just like fans who watched Fernando at other ballparks, waved Mexican flags and many wore sombreros. Valenzuela had certainly had a profound effect on baseball in Los Angeles and Latino culture throughout the United States. “I really do believe Fernando’s significance, in terms of what he did to give Mexicans a feeling of belonging, and of telling Americans that ‘we’re here,’ was remarkable,” said José de Jesus Ortiz, the first Latino to serve as president of the Baseball Writers Association of America. “So, he took us out of the shadows and introduced us to a country that didn’t realize we were here in such large numbers.”28

With all the adoration heaped on the visiting Valenzuela, the Mets felt like strangers in their own stadium. “I get a little tired when I look up at our own scoreboard and see constant plugs for a visiting team and visiting pitcher,” said Mets manager Joe Torre.29 Many Mets players agreed with Torre. “I’m sure the kid’s doing a super job,” second baseman Doug Flynn said, “and you’ve got to respect him. But I’d like to see the Mets promote our own club instead of visiting players. We’d like to think we’ve got a good selling product, too. We don’t want all those people coming in here hoping the guy will shut us out.”30 The Mets finished 21 games under .500 in 1981. With no good news of their own to report they used other teams’ best players to promote their club.

Despite the Mets’ best efforts, Valenzuela pitched his fifth shutout of the season, striking out 11 and dropping his earned-run average to 0.29. The Dodgers won 1-0, and Fernando improved to 7-0. “I had no control the first three innings,” he said after the game. “I wasn’t following through. I was throwing straight. My screwball wasn’t breaking, and my fastball was out of the strike zone.”31 Valenzuela was now on pace to set the rookie record for shutouts, and it seemed possible to all who watched him pitch that he would do it. Valenzuela was asked if he could pitch his entire career undefeated. He wryly answered, “It is difficult, but not impossible.”32 The victory left Valenzuela one away from the record of eight consecutive wins to begin his rookie season set by Boston Red Sox rookie pitcher Boo Ferriss in 1945, and three shy of the all-time rookie shutout record set by the Chicago White Sox pitcher Reb Russell in 1913.33 Ferriss began his rookie season with the Boston Red Sox in 1945 pitching 22⅓ consecutive scoreless innings, over nine games, he recorded eight consecutive victories.34 While many attributed Ferriss’s success to facing lineups weakened by the absence of players in World War II, his manager, Joe Cronin, said, “That boy is no wartime ballplayer. He’d be outstanding in any era.”35

A week after the Mets game an action shot of Valenzuela pitching appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the caption “UNREAL” in block letters. It was the pinnacle of magazine covers for a professional athlete, reserved only for the best, and he had made it after only seven games! In that same week he appeared on the covers of Sport Magazine, The Sporting News, and Baseball Digest.

Valenzuela took the mound on May 14, 1981, against the Expos in a Thursday night game that had been sold out for a week. A crowd of 53,906, the most for a Dodgers regular-season home game since 1974, showed up to cheer on their new hero. To accommodate the large number of Mexican American fans, the Dodgers hired ushers who spoke Spanish. The flags flying in the crowd that night no longer represented just Mexico. “Every Latin American county seemed to be represented. Not only Mexico. I’m talking El Salvador, Nicaragua – there were so many different flags,” recalled Dusty Baker.36 Valenzuela seemed human for the first time in his career, giving up three hits and two runs. Pedro Guerrero hit a tie-breaking solo home run to win it for the Dodgers, 3-2. While Valenzuela’s record increased to 8-0, it was the first time he had pitched from behind all season, as well as the first time he had given up more than one run in a game. He now had eight consecutive wins, tying the rookie record set by Boo Ferriss in 1945, seven complete games, 68 strikeouts, and a 0.50 ERA. The game marked the first time Valenzuela’s incredible streak might be in danger of ending. “Right now, I’m winning, and I hope it continues. But if I do lose, I’m prepared to deal with it,” Valenzuela said.37

Pitching on three days’ rest, Valenzuela next appeared against the Philadelphia Phillies at Dodger Stadium. His parents had flown in from Mexico to see him pitch in front of 52,439 fans. Despite all that, Valenzuela lost his first game of the season thanks to a home run by Mike Schmidt and a three-run fourth inning that propelled the Phillies to a 4-0 victory over the Dodgers. “I don’t think it will affect me. You win some games, and you lose some games. Tonight, I just lost. That’s all there is to it,” Valenzuela said afterward.38 During the game, the LAPD received a teletype message from the Savannah, Georgia police department asking, “Could you advise how Valenzuela is doing?” After the game was over, the LAPD passed along the news that Valenzuela had lost to the Phillies, 4-0. A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department noted that it was not usual to use police communications for unofficial business.39

By June 11, 1981, Valenzuela’s record stood at 9-4. In his six starts after posting an 8-0 record he went 1-4 with a 6.16 ERA.40 Then a players strike deprived fans of Valenzuela’s magic until August 10, when the games resumed. Valenzuela, who was named the starting pitcher for the National League All-Star team, returned from the strike strong, pitching three shutouts and pushing his total to eight, tying Reb Russell’s record. Attendance again attested to Valenzuela’s popularity as 46,168 people turned out to watch the game on September 17 against the Atlanta Braves, despite competition from a televised pro football game.41 Valenzuela won four of his last nine starts and finished the regular season with a 13-7 record.

In the National League West Division Series against the Astros, the Dodgers came back from two games down to win the five-game series behind the brilliant pitching of Valenzuela. Game One was a pitchers’ duel for the ages as the Astros’ Nolan Ryan and Valenzuela faced off. The two did not disappoint, as a capacity crowd of 44,836 filled the Astrodome to watch Ryan pitch a two-hitter, walking one and striking out seven. Valenzuela equaled his effort, striking out six and walking two over eight innings. Each man gave up one run. In the top of the ninth, Jay Johnstone pinch hit for Valenzuela. Fernando was replaced by Dave Stewart, who gave up a two-run home run to Astros catcher Andy Ashby as Houston edged out the Dodgers, 3-1.

A sellout crowd of 55,983 filled Dodger Stadium to witness Game Four. Pitching on three days’ rest, Valenzuela held the Astros in check through eight innings before giving up one run on four hits to win the game, 2-1. “There was no way I was going to take Valenzuela out of the game in the ninth inning,” Lasorda said. “It didn’t even enter my mind.”42

The Dodgers beat the Expos three games to two in the League Championship Series. In Game Two Valenzuela found himself on the wrong side of a shutout, losing to the Expos 3-0. In Game Five, Valenzuela was masterful, pitching 8⅔ innings, scattering three hits, and allowing only one run. The game was famous for Rick Monday’s clutch two-out home run in the top of the ninth to give the Dodgers the victory, 2-1.43

After the victory over the Expos, the stage was set for the 11th World Series matchup between the Yankees and Dodgers. The Dodgers had been on the losing end of eight of the first 10, with the most recent one in 1978.44 In this one, the Dodgers came back from a two-games-to-none deficit to knock off the Yankees.

In Game Three of the World Series, Valenzuela pitched to his largest crowd ever as 56,236 fans, a team record, filled Dodger Stadium. Sandy Koufax threw out the first pitch to a chorus of cheers from the crowd. Valenzuela threw 147 pitches en route to a complete game as the Dodgers beat the Yankees, 5-4. It was not vintage Valenzuela as he struggled mightily, almost being taken out more than once. But Lasorda stuck with him, and he finished the game. “It was my most difficult game ever,” Valenzuela said afterward.45

At the end of the season, Valenzuela received the Cy Young Award, edging out Cincinnati’s Tom Seaver, 70 points to 67 points, and becoming the youngest pitcher in history to be given the award.46 He was also named the National League Rookie of the Year, and he won the Silver Slugger Award as the best batter at his position. It was certainly the year of Fernando Valenzuela, and, more than anything, the mania that followed him that season was justified.

Valenzuela played nine more seasons with the Dodgers and made five more All-Star teams. He won 21 games in 1986. He played a total of 17 seasons for six teams and won 173 games. He completed 113 games and threw 31 shutouts. On June 29, 1990, he threw a no-hitter against the St. Louis Cardinals.

After retiring as a player, Valenzuela joined the Dodgers’ Spanish-language radio broadcast alongside Jaime Jarrín. In 2011 he was inducted into the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame and in 2013 the Caribbean Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2015 he became a US citizen, joining 8,000 others at the naturalization ceremony in Los Angeles.47 While he could have had a private ceremony, he opted instead to join others who had made a similar journey to their citizenship. In 2023 the Dodgers retired his number 34.48

Valenzuela’s statistics, as great as they are, would not be enough to enshrine him at Cooperstown, but the impact he has had on Mexican American culture would. He brought approximately 9,000 more fans to the games at which he pitched. He increased the Mexican American fan base of the Dodgers from around 10 percent when he started playing to 50 percent as of 2024.49 He was a tireless advocate for encouraging boys and girls to stay in school and visited countless elementary schools during his career to inspire the youth. He was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2015 as a presidential ambassador for citizenship and naturalization.

More than anything, Valenzuela helped bring the Mexican Americans who had been marginalized by perceived mistreatment and brutal removal from Chavez Ravine back to the ballpark. In the process, he gave them a feeling that they belonged there because one of their own was on the mound, and that somehow, he represented their dreams of what was possible. He fundamentally altered the composition of the Dodgers fan base by what he accomplished in his rookie season and continues to do as a former player and broadcaster today. He is beloved by those who saw him play and by new generations who listen to him broadcasting Dodgers games over the radio.

Valenzuela blazed the trail for future Dodgers greats like Hideo Nomo, as well as new Dodgers Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. One could make a compelling case that Valenzuela belongs in the Hall of Fame not because of his impact statistically, but his impact culturally. For both Dodgers fans and Mexican Americans alike, Valenzuela will remain a baseball and cultural legend.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, BaseballAlmanac.com, and the Fernando Valenzuela player file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Thanks to Jorge Iber, Dodgers team historian Mark Langill, Rachel Wells, and Roger Lansing at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, as well as Pat and Joy Scheller, Holly Scheller, and Greg Fowler for their support.

Photo credit: Fernando Valenzuela, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Notes

1 Dylan Hernandez, “Fernando Valenzuela Was a Game-Changer for the Dodgers, Baseball, and Los Angeles,” Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2011, https://www.latimes.com/sports/la-xpm-2011-mar-30-la-sp-0331-fernandomania-20110331-story.html, accessed November 14, 2023.

2 Hernandez.

3 Jason Turbow, They Bled Blue: Fernandomania, Strike Season Mayhem, and the Weirdest Championship Baseball Had Ever Seen: The 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019), 76.

4 Erik Sherman, Daybreak at Chavez Ravine: Fernandomania and the Remaking of the Los Angeles Dodgers (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2023), 55.

5 Mike Davis, “Valenzuela Crafts 5-hitter, Blanks Astros in 1st Start,” San Bernardino County (California) Sun, April 10, 1981: 64.

6 Stew Thornley, “July 10, 1934: Carl Hubbell Strikes Out Five Hall of Famers in a Row at All-Star Game,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/july-10-1934-carl-hubbell-strikes-out-five-hall-of-famers-in-a-row-at-all-star-game/, accessed November 24, 2023.

7 Jerome Crowe, “A Screwball Chain of Events Led the Dodgers to Fernando Valenzuela,” Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2011: C-2

8 “Chubby Rookie Blanks Astros, 2-0,” Santa Cruz (California) Sentinel, April 10, 1981: 48.

9 Sherman, 56.

10 Turbow, 53.

11 Logan Hobson (United Press International), “Dodger Rookie Baffles Astros,” Ukiah (California) Daily Journal, April 10, 1981: 4.

12 Paul Oberjuerge, “Fernando Has Dodgers in Fat City,” San Bernardino County Sun, April 15, 1981: 21.

13 Sherman, 60.

14 “Dodgers Rookie Sensation Stumps Giants on Four-Hitter,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, April 15, 1981: 18.

15 “Ole! Fernando Does It Again, 2-0 Over S.D.,” San Bernardino County Sun, April 19, 1981: 19.

16 “Valenzuela’s Magic Dazzles Astros, 1-0,” New Braunfels (Texas) Herald-Zeitung, April 23, 1981: 7.

17 “Valenzuela Beats the Odds, Astros Again: He Pitches, Hits Dodgers Past Sutton, Astros, 1-0,” San Bernardino County Sun, April 23, 1981: 73.

18 “Valenzuela’s Magic Dazzles Astros, 1-0.”

19 Turbow, 78.

20 “Los Angeles’ Valenzuela Stills Giants,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, April 28, 1981: 11.

21 Sherman, 61.

22 Vic Wilson, “Fernandomania,” The National Pastime, 2011, https://sabr.org/journal/article/fernandomania/, accessed November 30, 2023.

23 Wilson.

24 Sherman, 90.

25 Jesse Sanchez, Nathalie Alonso, and David Venn, “Fernandomania Still Resonates Decades Later,” MLB.com, https://www.mlb.com/news/featured/remembering-fernandomania-40-years-later, accessed November 30, 2023.

26 Mike Tully, “Valenzuela Finally Scored Upon,” Ukiah Daily Journal, May 4, 1981: 6.

27 Turbow, 81.

28 Sherman, 85.

29 Joseph Durso, “The Buildup for Valenzuela Annoys Some of the Mets,” New York Times, May 9, 1981: 15.

30 Durso.

31 “Valenzuela Does It Again…,” Greenwood (South Carolina) Index-Journal, May 9, 1981: 9.

32 Turbow, 81.

33 “Valenzuela Does It Again….”

34 Richard Cuicchi, “June 6, 1945: Boo Ferriss Wins Record 8th Straight Game to Start Career,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/june-6-1945-boo-ferriss-wins-record-8th-straight-game-to-start-career/, accessed December 23, 2023.

35 Ed Rumill, “The Ferriss Wheel,” Baseball Digest, August 1945: 39-42.

36 Sherman, 89.

37 Mike Davis, “Fernando (8-0) Wins but Gives Up 1st HRs,” San Bernardino County Sun, May 15, 1981: 50.

38 “Phils End Valenzuela’s Winning Streak on Shutout,” Ukiah Daily Journal, May 19, 1981: 4.

39 Associated Press, “Loss wired to Georgia cops,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 20, 1981, Section 2: 9.

40 Turbow, 93.

41 “Valenzuela Equalled Rookie Shutout Mark,” Iola (Kansas) Register, September 19, 1981: 7.

42 “Valenzuela’s Four-Hitter Paces Dodgers Over Astros,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, October 11, 1981: 42.

43 David Leon Moore, “Dodgers, Monday Leave the Expos Feeling Blue, 2-1,” San Bernardino County Sun, October 20, 1981: 44.

44 “Recapping the Greatest World Series Rivalry,” San Bernardino County Sun, October 20, 1981: 44.

45 David Leon Moore, “Fernando Comes Back; Yanks Don’t: Dodgers Survive Slow Start for 5-4 Victory,” San Bernardino County Sun, October 24, 1981: 33.

46 Jack Lang, “Valenzuela Nips Seaver for ‘Cy,’” New York Daily News, November 12, 1981: 1.

47 Steve Dilbeck, “Dodgers’ Fernando Valenzuela Becomes a U.S. Citizen,” Los Angeles Times, July 22, 2015. latimes.com/sports/dodgers/dodgersnow/la-sp-dn-dodgers-fernando-valenzuela-us-citizen-20150722-story.html, accessed November 30, 2023.

48 “Dodgers to Retire Fernando Valenzuela’s No. 34 in August,” ESPN.com, https://www.espn.com/espn/print?id=35590016, accessed November 30, 2023.

49 Sherman, 240.

Celebrating the Dodger Dog. (Courtesy Todd Anton)

“A hot dog at the park is better than a steak at the Ritz.” — Humphrey Bogart 1

“Take Me Out to the Ballgame” may mention peanuts and Cracker Jack, but the hot dog is the cleanup hitter of the baseball stadium lineup.

The quintessential ballpark meal is believed to have been born in the nineteenth century and soon found itself an American staple. But how did the Dodger Dog – not invented until 1962, in a city better known for fusion food than beef – become the most popular of all the franks?

Harry M. Stevens introduced hot dogs to New York ballparks in 1905, allegedly to replace poor-selling ice cream during an early season game. Known as “red hots,” the sausages sold well enough to merit a permanent place in the concession roster, especially as a double-play partner to the lucrative beer.2 The portability of the food, and its ability to be consumed with one hand, without utensils, added to the appeal.3

Upon leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles in 1958, the Dodgers franchise wished to honor its New York borough traditions and simultaneously establish a fresh identity in California. Thomas Arthur, manager of concessions, sought to sell a footlong sausage modeled after the Coney Island hot dogs of his youth, but the offering was two inches short of the promised 12.

Branding and ingenuity solved that problem. According to hot-dog historian Bruce Kraig, “people are more receptive to a hot dog if it is slightly longer than its bun,” so Arthur opted for a shorter roll.4 With the alliterative “Dodger Dog” name, a culinary star was born. Arthur, who died in 2006, ran the Dodgers’ food operations from the ballpark’s 1962 opening until his retirement in 1991.5 In a town where idea ownership is often contested, former team owner Peter O’Malley has said “the Dodger Dog (w)as Tom’s idea.”6

Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett promoted the Dodger Dog on television and radio, further cementing the relationship between the snack and the stadium. Scully, the quintessential Dodger, noted, “The ones they have here are as good as I’ve ever tasted. Without a doubt.”7 Hot dog connoisseurs are less sanguine. Bruce Kraig, author of Man Bites Dog: Hot Dog Culture in America, states matter-of-factly that “First, it’s marketing. And secondly, it’s marketing. And the third thing? Oh yes, marketing.”8

Players were not immune to its appeal: Rick Sutcliffe once sat in the bullpen enjoying a Dodger Dog before he was summoned to the mound to replace an injured starter. Manager Tommy Lasorda hectored the hungry hurler once he noticed the mustard and relish on Sutcliffe’s uniform.9

Even celebrities are star-struck by the concession champion. Emmy Award winner Bryan Cranston confided that “there’s something about the environment of being here at Dodger Stadium. … [Y]ou know what it’s like? When you go to a movie theater, you have to have popcorn. You’ve got to have popcorn. When you come to a Dodger game, you’ve got to have a Dodger Dog.”10

Though sales figures were not officially reported, the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council calculated that 1.7 million Dodger Dogs were sold during the 2005 season.11 Sports Illustrated estimated that 2.7 million yearly dogs were consumed from 2015 to 2019, more than twice the runner-up Yankees’ 1.2 million annual sales.12 Commercial success was buoyed by critical acclaim: Baseball fan Bob Wood rated it A-plus in his 1985 book Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks: And All the Wieners in Between, perhaps the only authoritative book on the subject.13

Although the Dodgers, like most baseball teams, have expanded their culinary offerings to include other fare, the Dodger Dog still remains king. The team briefly boiled the dogs in the early 1990s but soon reverted to grilling them after fan uproar.14 At the start of the 2023 season, the club offered plant-based dogs, bacon-wrapped dogs, and a rotating offering based on the visiting team, in addition to the standard pork-based Dodger Dog and the beef-based “super dog.”15

According to the retail package of Dodger Dogs, each 75-gram link contains 200 calories, 8 grams of protein, 17 grams of fat, and 40 milligrams of cholesterol, though fans may not be too focused on the statistics.

In 2020 Farmer John and the Dodgers did not renew their contract and Papa Cantrella’s became the official hot-dog provider of the franchise. Though the terms of the divorce were not divulged, press reports cited Occupational Safety and Health (OSHA) investigations on worker safety shortcomings.16 Smithfield, parent company of Farmer John, announced the closure of its Vernon, California, plant in 2023.17

Rookie Papa Cantrella’s eagerly played up its Southern California roots: “[L]ike the Dodgers, our history and community ties run deep in Los Angeles. We could not be more proud to be partnering with this iconic brand and product.”18 Founded in 1980, Papa Cantrella’s continues to sell the iconic sausage in both Dodger Stadium and LA-area grocery stores.19 As a testament to the fans’ devotions, the Dodger Dog received its very own statue outside of Dodger Stadium, and bobbleheads of its likeness have been a constant presence among Dodgers game promotions.

Team historian Mark Langhill noted that “it’s simply a hot dog but there’s a romance about that title – the Dodger Dog. It’s part of the organ music, the souvenirs, saving your ticket stub. The Dodger Dog was a major part of growing up as a Dodger fan in Los Angeles.”20 This love affair is bound to continue, as Dodger Stadium executive chef Christine Gerriets noted before the 2023 season: “It’s the world famous dog, Dodger Dog, if you will. It’s a fan favorite, and that’s you know, one item that will always be here to stay.”21

TONY S. OLIVER is a native of Puerto Rico currently living in Sacramento, California, with his wife and daughter. While he works as a Six Sigma professional, his true love is baseball and he cheers for both the Red Sox and whoever happens to be playing the Yankees. He is fascinated by baseball cards and is currently re- searching the evolution of baseball tickets. He believes there is no prettier color than the vibrant green of a freshly mown grass on a baseball field.

Notes

1 A clip of Bogart on baseball is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp1U7LnMs3A.

2 Jari Villanueva, “Hot Dog and Baseball,” Taps Bugler Website, July 20, 2021, https://www.tapsbugler.com/hot-dogs-and-baseball/.

3 Chris Landers, “Everyone Gets a Hot Dog at Games … but Why?” MLB.com, April 3, 2020, https://www.mlb.com/news/history-of-iconic-mlb-ballpark-food-explained.

4 Emma Baccellieri, “The Most Iconic Hot Dog in Baseball,” SI.com, July 19, 2022, https://www.si.com/mlb/2022/07/19/dodger-dog-daily-cover.

5 Arthur’s company also ran the food business at the LA Coliseum.

6 Elaine Wood, “Thomas G. Arthur, 84: Made Dodger Dogs a Staple of L.A.,” Los Angeles Times, June 27, 2006, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jun-27-me-arthur27-story.html.

7 Frank Shyong, “Great Read: For the Nostalgic, the Dodger Dog Is a Home Run,” Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2014, https://www.latimes.com/local/great-reads/la-me-c1-dodger-dog-20141006-story.html.

8 Shyong.

9 Matt Borelli, “Dodgers New: Vin Scully, Rick Sutcliffe Share Farmer John Dodger Dog Memories,” Dodger Blue, May 3, 2021, https://dodgerblue.com/dodgers-news-vin-scully-rick-sutcliffe-farmer-john-dodger-dog-memories/2021/05/03/.

10 Baccellieri, “The Most Iconic Hot Dog in Baseball.”

11 Wood, “Thomas G. Arthur, 84: Made Dodger Dogs a Staple of L.A.”

12 Baccellieri, “The Most Iconic Hot Dog in Baseball.”

13 Bob Wood, “Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks: And All the Wieners in Between” (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988).

14 Haldan Kirsch, “What Makes the Dodger Dog So Unique,” Tasting Table, July 12, 2022, https://www.tastingtable.com/925309/what-makes-the-dodger-dog-so-unique/.

15 Matthew Kang, “The Eater Guide to Dodger Stadium,” LA Eater, March 29, 2023, https://la.eater.com/2023/3/29/23660976/where-to-eat-dodger-stadium-best-food-los-angeles.

16 Elina Shatkin, “Meet Your New Dodger Dog, Los Angeles: Papa Cantella’s,” LAist, May 11, 2021, https://laist.com/news/food/meet-your-new-dodger-dog-los-angeles-papa-cantellas.

17 Kevin Smith, “Farmer John’s Laid-Off Workers Offered Free Training, New Prospects,” Los Angeles Daily News, February 16, 2023, https://www.dailynews.com/2023/02/16/farmer-johns-laid-off-workers-offered-free-training-new-prospects.

18 “Papa Cantella’s Named Proud Partner of Los Angeles Dodgers,” Papa Cantella’s Press Release, https://papacantella.com/about/press-release/.

19 “Papa Cantella’s Named Proud Partner of Los Angeles Dodgers.”

20 Julia Paskin, “A Frank History of the Dodger Dog,” LAist, June 25, 2018, https://laist.com/news/entertainment/a-frank-history-of-the-dodger-dog-a.

21 Sophie Flay, “Opening Day Means Plenty of Food Options for Dodger Fans,” ABC7, March 29, 2023, https://abc7.com/los-angeles-dodgers-opening-day-2023-dodger-stadium/13045002/.

L to R: Mookie Betts, Janet Marie Smith, and David Price tour the outfield construction work at Dodger Stadium. (Photograph by Jon SooHoo / Los Angeles Dodgers)

Besides her work on the renovations of Dodger Stadium, Janet Marie Smith is well known for her work in building Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1992 and the renovation of Fenway Park, a 10-year effort begun in 2002.

Smith was born in Mississippi, the daughter of Thomas Henry and Nellie S. Smith. Thomas was an architect for 56 years; most of his work was on civic buildings like schools and courthouses. Nellie was a medical records technician for a hospital and worked into her 80s. Janet has one sister, Susan Elliott.1

Smith grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. She earned a degree in architecture at Mississippi State University and a master’s degree in urban planning from the City College of New York.2 When asked how she chose her career path, Smith replied,”My dad’s love of architecture and public buildings and her mother’s work ethic guided me to succeed in my professional career.”

Her first venture into making the world a better place was as coordinator of architecture and design for the Battery Park City Authority in New York City. Smith said of the project, “The 92-acre site on the tip of lower Manhattan was slated for commercial and residential development. The first major success was the four-tower World Financial Center, and closely following that the first phase of the residential development, Rector Place. The signature feature of the site was the waterfront public esplanade and the parks and plazas that set the standard for the contextual development. The master plan departed from earlier efforts in that it was conceived to be an extension of Lower Manhattan rather than an isolated project. Following the New York City development, Smith moved to Los Angeles and worked on the renovation of historic Pershing Square. The project was part of a larger effort at downtown revitalization.”

In 1988 the Baltimore Orioles and the State of Maryland committed to build a new ballpark in downtown Baltimore on the site of the Camden railroad yards. It was the first time a baseball team had committed to be a part of an urban development in more than 50 years.3 Larry Lucchino, then working for Orioles owner Edward Bennett Williams, had convinced the elected officials that separating baseball and football facilities would ensure long-term success. Under new owner Eli Jacobs, Lucchino became the Orioles’ president and CEO. He was concerned that the initial designs looked too much like the baseball version of the cookie-cutter stadiums of the 1960s and ’70s. Lucchino was especially adamant about building a baseball-only ballpark that would look like a park from the early 1900s. Lucchino saw Smith’s résumé and liked the idea that she was an architect and urban planner. He hired her as the club’s vice president of planning and development.

When Smith arrived for an interview, Lucchino quickly asked her one question: “Which league has the designated hitter?” She shot back, “I’m offended by that question.” She added that she loved baseball. Lucchino later said, “It was the best free-agent signing the Orioles had in 1989.4 Moreover, the two had an instant rapport and Lucchino felt confident that Smith could not only coordinate the needs of the baseball team and communicate them to HOK Sport, the architects for the Maryland Stadium Authority, but that she could help translate his vision of capturing the character of the “old fashioned ballpark” and work with the team to achieve a design that would set a new paradigm for major-league baseball.

Creating the ballpark included saving the historic 100-year-old B&O Warehouse. He also wanted an “inside the ballpark street” known as Eutaw Street, which with a row of vendors would be open to the public outside of game times. Smith’s success in carrying out Lucchino’s plans helped spawn a new generation of baseball parks in urban settings.

Jacobs said, “It was Janet Marie and I. It’s my basic vision and Janet Marie’s attention to detail – luck was shining on us the day she appeared on the scene. She’s just remarkable. The strategic part – the large part – is mine. The technical is hers.”5 Jacobs, Lucchino, and Smith all shared the same vision of wanting an old-fashioned ballpark with modern amenities. “They all had one thing in common. They all loved old-fashioned, walkable cities, and the traditional baseball parks that were often a part of them,” said architectural writer Paul Goldberger.6

Stan Kasten, then president of the Atlanta Braves, toured Camden Yards and was so impressed with Smith that he hired her to lead the 1996 transformation of Olympic Stadium into Turner Field. Kasten said, “It was obvious she had a command of both the game and the business. She had a real passion for it.”7 Kasten, who was also president of the NBA Atlanta Hawks, made Smith responsible for the design and construction of the new Philips Arena in Atlanta. Philips Arena, known as State Farm Arena since 2018, has a unique design, with the upper deck 60 feet closer to the court than in any other modern arena.8 The Philips Arena was part of a larger Turner Broadcasting commitment to downtown Atlanta. Smith was president of Turner Sports and Entertainment Development and vice president of planning and development for the Braves from 1994 to 2000.

Lucchino, who had moved to the presidency of the San Diego Padres, got Smith to assist with the plans for Petco Park, which opened in 2004.9 Her primary contribution was siting the project near the historic Gaslamp district and helping to script the urban development that would take shape around Petco Park.

Lucchino, John Henry, and Tom Werner bought the Boston Red Sox after the team was put up for sale in 2001. Of the six groups interested in purchasing the ballclub, theirs was the only one interested in keeping Fenway Park. The 1912 ballpark had been declared too small and insufficient in structural integrity and modern amenities to renovate, and the ownership group had focused solely on a new Fenway Park, which failed to gain traction, leaving the door open for the rescue effort of Henry, Werner, and Lucchino.

Lucchino hired Smith to oversee the preservation, expansion, and remodeling of Fenway Park in 2002. She wanted to move food prep and other nonbaseball operations to adjacent buildings and open more concourse space and adding seats above the Green Monster, the 37-foot-high wall in left field. She said that the “renovations” were only part renovation and part expansion into adjacent buildings owned by the team but used for offices and parking.10 The renovations were done in offseasons from 2002 through 2012 and were completed in time for Fenway Park’s 100th anniversary.11 One of the particular challenges of this project was that all work had to be approved by the city, state, and the National Park Service. (The ballpark is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.) Smith often cited the working relationship with these agencies as a collaborative, learning experience that made the ballpark better as a result of their input. Smith brought DAIQ Architects of Somerville, Massachusetts, to the Fenway Park project largely due to their work on reuse of older buildings.

She was back with the Orioles from 2009 to 2012 as vice president of planning and development under owner Peter Angelos and responsible for upgrading the earlier designs at Camden Yards, particularly focusing on the 20-year-old food and beverage locations and adding a bar and seating on top of the batters eye. She was also responsible for the renovations and expansion of the Orioles spring-training camp in Sarasota, Florida, at the Ed Smith Stadium and Buck O’Neil Complex.

In August 2012, Kasten, by then president of the Dodgers, hired Smith again, this time as senior vice president of planning and development. In her first eight months with the club, she oversaw a $100 million renovation of Dodger Stadium’s clubhouses and fan areas. The renovations continued during each successive offseason. The signature project of the 2.5-acre Center Field Plaza, “Dodger Stadium’s New Front Door,” as Stan Kasten calls it, was completed in 2020. Smith was also in charge of the expansion of the Dodgers’ Dominican Republic facility to include training, housing, and education for teenage players across Latin America. Campos Las Palmas was the first Major League Baseball facility in the Dominican Republic and the renovations coincided with the 40th anniversary of MLB’s presence.

In the press announcement for the Dodger Stadium renovation in 2012, Kasten said of Smith, “Dodger Stadium is one of the most iconic venues in sports and Janet Marie is one of the few people I would trust with its future. … She respects baseball’s tradition and knows how to retain a ballpark’s distinctive charms while providing fans with the amenities and comfort they’ve come to expect. Any fan that has walked through the gates at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the renovated Fenway Park, or Atlanta’s Turner Field has been a beneficiary of her understanding of what a ballpark means to its community.”12

In December 2020 Smith was promoted to executive vice president of planning and development for the Dodgers.13

In 2023 Smith and her business partner, Fran Weld, founded Canopy Team, a Baltimore-based, women-led, multi-disciplinary practice that partners with sports teams, education and training programs, and cultural and civic institutions to build facilities that transcend their primary purpose into community gathering points and civic treasures.14

(Weld had been the senior vice president of strategy development for the San Francisco Giants.) They work with organizations on large scale capital projects and developments to create sponsorship and seating concepts, graphics, colors, and artwork, added Smith.

With new ballpark designs as well as renovations, Smith strives to combine nostalgic aspects of classic ballparks with modern technology and comforts.

“I’ve always been an orchestra conductor. I don’t play any instruments. I just conduct the orchestra,” said Smith. “I always shudder when I read ‘she was the designer of something.’ I don’t feel like I’m ever actually the designer because I always have someone else who produces things. I don’t act as the architect. Often I put together a design team that I know will hear what I’m saying, but I don’t actually draw those things, I guide it.”15

Said Stan Kasten: “As a conductor, she knows the role of every single instrument. That’s what makes her so good at what she does.”16

Smith has worked on multiple ballpark projects with Younts Design Inc., an architectural firm in Baltimore. Ronnie Younts, founder of the firm, said of Smith, “In my opinion, the thing that makes her projects so successful and memorable is that she believes that these buildings have their own history and their own soul, that they need to be celebrated in their own way, separate from the teams that play there.” He added, “These buildings and these public spaces have a history, a life of their own. She truly knows the importance of finding the soul in every project. To me, this is what makes all of her projects so special.”17

Jacob Pomrenke, SABR’s director of editorial content, said, “The overall fan experience at every ballpark since Camden Yards has been enhanced by her work.” Pomrenke used Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark as an example. “Look at the difference in Cincinnati, all those little touches like the homage to Crosley Field’s ‘Sun Deck’ and the open view of the Ohio River and the walking bridge and Power Stacks in right-center field,” he said. He added that similarities between Great American Ballpark and Camden Yards include how the city’s backdrops and skyline are included in the ballparks’ landscape and footprint. The thing that jumps out at me is how ‘cookie-cutter’ the old Riverfront Park and all of the parks built in that era (the 1960s and 1970s) were, and even the newer ballparks that she had nothing to do with were touched by her design ideas.”18

Said the baseball writer Rob Neyer, “Just about anything written on ballparks and ballpark construction in the last 20 to 30 years begins with a reference to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, with or without mentioning Smith by name.” He added, “She is a devotee of writer Jane Jacobs, who wrote about the life of a city and what it should be for its people. And that’s a big part of what Smith does. In some places, they tried to put these ‘retro-style’ ballparks in the suburbs, but if you don’t do it in the city, it’s not the same.”19

Writer George Will wrote of Smith’s accomplishments, “The three most important things that have happened in baseball since the Second World War were Jackie Robinson taking the field in Brooklyn in 1947, free agency arriving in 1975, and Oriole Park at Camden Yards opening in 1992.”20

Janet Marie Smith will go down in history as the person whose work replaced the cookie-cutter stadiums built in the 70s with the retro-style ballparks beginning with Oriole Park at Camden Yards and every ballpark built or renovated since then.

Smith was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 2020 and was named one of the 30 Most Powerful Women in Sports by Adweek.com.21 She has received multiple honors from Sports Business Journal, including Class of Champions in 2017, Power Player in 2016, and the inaugural class of Game Changers in 2011. WISE named her one of their 2014 Women of Inspiration.

Smith and her husband, Bart Harvey, live in Baltimore and have three children – Bart IV, Nellie, and Jack.22 Bart is the former CEO of the Enterprise Community Partners.

BOB WEBSTER grew up in northwestern Indiana and has been a Cubs fan since 1963. After moving to Portland, Oregon, in 1980, Bob now spends his time working on baseball research and writing and is a contributor to quite a few SABR projects. He worked as a stats stringer on the MLB Gameday app for three years and is a member of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of SABR and the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame, and is on the board of directors of the Old-Timers Baseball Association of Portland.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, information regarding family, architectural collaborations, and various projects was received from Janet Marie Smith through email correspondence in December 2023 and January 2024.

Notes

1 Thomas Henry Smith Obituary, Legacy.com, www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/clarionledger/name/thomas-smith-obituary?id=21091496.

2 Janet Smith, Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Inductee, https://msfame.com/inductees/janet-marie-smith/.

3 Email from Janet Marie Smith, December 2023.

4 Joe Mock, “Otherwordly Janet Marie Smith charts her own course,” Ballparks.com. Retrieved from: / https://baseballparks.com/essays/janet-marie-smith/

5 Peter Richmond, Ballpark: Camden Yards and the Building of an American Dream (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 160.

6 Paul Goldberger, Ballpark: Baseball in the American City (New York: Penguin Random House, 2019), 210.

7 Mock.

8 Mock.

9 Mock.

10 Email from Janet Marie Smith, December 2023.

11 Sarah Tarbet and Sarah Laliberte, “Project Relevance: Collaborative Approaches to Contextual Integration. Discovering Mutual Benefits to the Renovation of Fenway Park,” https://issuu.com/neuarchitecture/docs/fenway_park_case_study_final.

12 Brenda Levin, “LA Dodgers Janet Marie Smith Views Sports as a Means for Urban Revitalization,” retrieved from: https://www.planningreport.com/2014/12/09/la-dodgers-janet-marie-smith-views-sports-means-urban-revitalization.

13 “Transactions,” Boston Globe, December 11, 2020: C7.

14 https://canopyteam.com/

15 Charlie Vascellaro, “Love That Retro Look of your Ballpark? Thank Janet Marie Smith,” Global Sport Matters, October 1, 2019, https://globalsportmatters.com/business/2019/10/01/love-that-retro-look-of-your-ballpark-thank-janet-marie-smith/.

16 Mock.

17 Vascellaro.

18 Vascellaro.

19 Vascellaro.

20 George F. Will, A Nice Little Place on the North Side (New York: Crown Archetype, 2014), 167.

21 Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame; Vascellaro.

22 Andre F. Shashaty, “Industry Bids Fond Farewell to a Leader,” Affordable Housing Finance News, June 1, 2008, https://www.housingfinance.com/news/industry-bids-fond-farewell-to-a-leader_o

Some of the recent additions to Dodger Stadium include these larger-than-life bobbleheads. (Copyright Vitaly Lozovoy / Dreamstime)

The Los Angeles Dodgers are one of the most popular and influential brands in sports. Walter O’Malley moved his team from Brooklyn to LA despite it clearly not being popular with Brooklyn fans. On April 13, 1958, five days before the Dodgers’ first game in Los Angeles, Mayor Norris Poulson declared that week to be “Welcome Dodgers Week.”1 Fans gathered in the streets of LA to greet their future team. The excitement for the team was just beginning. O’Malley and the Dodgers knew their top priority would be to build a solid and loyal new fan base.

The fans were a large part of O’Malley’s daily concern.2 Baseball, of course, had to be the primary focus. The Dodgers also wanted to ensure a family-friendly environment at a comfortable, safe, and clean Dodger Stadium. If a fan reached out by telephone or mail, Dodgers staff were expected to reply. It is said that with the help of his secretary, O’Malley read and answered every letter he received during his ownership.3 O’Malley was a constant presence with fans and even developed a newsletter as another way to communicate with fans. Not only did fans know that O’Malley was available, but O’Malley made sure baseball games at Dodger Stadium were affordable.

Prices remained unchanged at 75 cents to $3.50 for 18 years. Dodger Stadium was thus viewed by many as a family-affordable and entertaining experience. The Dodgers set records for attendance, breaking the major-league record in 1962 with 2,755,184. In 1978 the Dodgers became the first team to surpass 3 million fans in a season. Fans have been treated to memorable promotions since the opening of Dodger Stadium.

Danny Goodman’s Influence on Dodger Stadium Promotions

Danny Goodman, a leader in the Dodgers organization for 25 years, is considered one of the best business minds in baseball history. Goodman was an innovative businessman for his time and brought in many of the promotion’s baseball teams continue to use. In 1958, before the Dodgers were in Dodger Stadium, Goodman’s efforts contributed more than $200,000 to the club’s profits with his souvenir ideas and innovation. Goodman is credited with bringing one of the most sought-after souvenir items to major-league baseball – the bobblehead doll.4

The Dodgers were one of the first teams to adopt bobbleheads for promotional giveaways. In 1974 Goodman created his brand of bobbleheads, called Bobbing Heads. These bobbleheads did not just feature the Dodgers logo. Fans could shop for Bobbing Heads from all 24 major-league teams at Dodger Stadium.

Additionally, Goodman is credited with bringing Hollywood to Dodger Stadium. His visionary initiatives led to a natural relationship between the Dodgers and movie and television celebrities. Goodman created “Hollywood Stars Night.”5

Celebrities and baseball players competed in the Hollywood Stars softball game. The first games were held when Goodman worked for the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League at Gilmore Field, where he suggested celebrities join the game. When the Dodgers relocated to Los Angeles, O’Malley and Goodman wanted to have a baseball game for celebrities at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers held the first Hollywood Stars Game in 1958. A prelude to a Dodgers game, it ran annually through 2009.

While this was largely an event for publicity, it was fun for Dodgers players, fans, and celebrities, sometimes drawing a crowd of 48,000. Actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner exhibited warning-track power by nearly hitting a home run twice in these games. Celebrities and Dodgers shared the locker room and created memories for all. From 1958 to 2009 and in sporadic years since 2009, a wide range of celebrities have participated in this game.6 Due to the spacious foul territory at Dodger Stadium, some celebrities entered the field in automobiles, among them Dean Martin arriving in a limo for his at-bat.

One of the biggest celebrities involved in Hollywood Stars night was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The 7-foot-2-inch Los Angeles Lakers center was a dominating presence on and off the court. Poking fun at his height, two stars would carry an oversized bat for Abdul-Jabbar to swing.

Latino Promotions and “The Battle of Chavez Ravine”

The Dodgers have had a strong Latino fan base since the early 1980s. Originally, though, there was considerable opposition from Latinos to the Dodgers because construction of the ballpark uprooted many Latino families. In the 1950s, eminent domain was used to evict three largely Mexican American neighborhoods for a housing project that ultimately failed.7 With the abandoned land and the Dodgers’ need for a new home, Chavez Ravine seemed a perfect fit. Dodger Stadium was built despite the initial pushback from the metro area’s Latino population, which grew to 4 million.8

The Dodgers’ efforts to engage Latinos have been ongoing since the 1980s with programs like Hispanic Heritage Month. When asked in 2012 how important the Latino fan base is to the Dodgers, club President and CEO Stan Kasten said, “Our Latino fans and every single one of our fans are top of mind year-round. We do want to take this opportunity, however, to express our pride in the Dodgers’ history and future in Latin America and the countless Latino Dodgers past and present that have made an impact on the game and on this city.”9 This led to the creation of “Viva Los Dodgers!”

Since 1997 Viva Los Dodgers! is hosted on the last Sunday of each month during the season, culminating in “La Gran Fiesta” at the end of the season. Latino artists such as Louie Cruz Beltran, a master percussionist, in 2019, and Banda La Maravillosa, a Mexican regional-style band in 2018, have performed at the event.

The Dodgers drew on their Latino fans to add to the Viva Los Dodgers! promotion. To Mexican Americans, the team was the “Doyers” because the Spanish language has no “J” sound.10 In the September 2023 event, the club featured Viva Los Doyers on its website.

In 2023 the promotion also featured players of Latino heritage – Luis Avilán, Pedro Báez, Carlos Frías, Yimi García, Adrián González, Yasmani Grandal, Álex Guerrero, Kiké Hernández, Juan Nicasio, Joel Peralta, and Ronald Torreyes, as well as other Latino employees.

What began with initial pushback from the Latino residents of Los Angeles, has been transformed into diehard fandom in support of their home team.

Dodger bobbleheads decorate Todd Anton’s classroom in southern California. (Courtesy Todd Anton.)

 

Think Blue

In 1997 the club added a “Think Blue” sign outside Dodger Stadium designed to mimic the city’s famous Hollywood sign. The sign was initially put up for the promotion “Think Blue Week.”11 In view of overwhelming fan support, the Dodgers made it a staple. In December of 2011 the wind blew down some of the letters and the sign read “Ink Bl je.” The Dodgers had the sign taken down, but judging from numerous petitions and websites, fans wanted it returned.

2006 – Golden Fleece: Fans Flock to Dodger Stadium for Free Blankets

On May 9, 2006, Dodger Stadium hosted what was at the time the second-largest crowd in Dodger Stadium history – 55,992 fans on a Tuesday night for a baseball game. The reason was not a playoff game, not a World Series game, but for a free Dodger-blue fleece blanket commemorating the 25th anniversary of the team’s 1981 World Series title.12 It was estimated that an extra 20,000 tickets were sold thanks to the blankets, which were provided by Dodgers sponsor Toyota. These types of promotions are considered beneficial both for the team and the sponsor.

Re-Opening Day

In March 2020, the sports landscape came to a crashing halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The baseball season was curtailed, and fans were not allowed to attend games as a public health precaution. On June 15, 2021, Dodger Stadium hosted what was called “Re-Opening Day” with 52,078 in attendance.13 The first 25,000 fans received a Justin Turner bobblehead, and country singer Brad Paisley sang the National Anthem. The 2020 World Series champion Dodgers were honored for the first time by the 2021 team wearing special gold-trimmed jerseys and hats.

Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

June 16, 2023, at Dodger Stadium, was supposed to be the Pride Night celebration. Among the invitees were the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a nonprofit organization that raises funds and volunteers in the LGBTQ+ community. The group wears apparel similar to Catholic nuns’ robes, leading many to view them as anti-Catholic.

Some players spoke out against the Sisters being invited to Dodger Stadium, saying it went against the Dodgers’ code of conduct for their players, which prohibited support for anything that would disparage one’s religion. Pitcher Clayton Kershaw spoke out against the group and urged the team to reinstate Faith and Family Night, which before the pandemic had been a longstanding annual promotion.14 (It was last held in 2019.) Kershaw said he was not bothered by the Sisters’ support of the LGTBQ+ community, but rather their perceived mocking of Christian beliefs. Some politicians spoke out against the group, saying the invite was anti-Catholic. Former Vice President Mike Pence said on social media, “Having been raised in a Catholic family, the Dodgers decision to invite the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a hateful group that blatantly mocks Catholicism, to their event next month is deeply offensive.”15 Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, in a letter to Commissioner Rob Manfred, voiced his opposition to the group. Because of the backlash, the Dodgers disinvited the Sisters from Pride Night. However, the backlash for disinviting the group proved to be severe as well.

Because the Sisters were disinvited, other groups, including the Los Angeles LGBT Center, the ACLU of Southern California, and LA Pride, withdrew from the event. The LGBT center issued an ultimatum to the Dodgers: cancel Pride Night or reinvite the Sisters. A few days later, the Dodgers reversed themselves. LA Pride, a longtime collaborator on the Pride Night event, said: “The Dodgers have taken a good first step toward their commitment to the LGBTQ+ community by renewing their invite to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at next month’s Pride Night. We fully support the Sisters receiving their much-deserved Community Hero Award and will stand in solidarity with them at Pride Night. They continue to inspire us with their grace.”16

On June 17, the Sisters were honored with the Dodgers’ Community Hero Award on Pride Night. The Catholic League urged Dodgers fans who were Catholic to not attend the event and not be in the ballpark when the Sisters received their award. Archbishop José Gomez hosted a Mass before the game “for healing due to the harm caused by the Dodgers decision to honor a group that intentionally denigrates and profanes the Christian faith.”17

If one asks fans who are Catholic, fewer people attended the game. If one asks fans who supported the Sisters, there was only love and support for the group inside the ballpark.18 There was a protest outside Dodger Stadium that led to the Dodgers closing the main entrance.

Lakers Night – 2023

Kobe Bryant is a beloved figure in the Los Angeles sports world. Bryant led the Lakers to five NBA championships and frequently attended Dodgers games. When Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash in January 2020, the sports world was determined to continue his legacy. Bryant was honored at “Lakers Night” in September 2023 when fans who bought a special ticket package received a crossover jersey for the Dodgers, featuring both Lakers and Dodgers branding with Bryant’s jersey numbers 8 and 24.19

In addition to the jersey, Dodgers fans were treated to Bryant’s daughter Natalia throwing out the ceremonial first pitch, the team making a $100,000 donation to the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation, and to a special drone show that honored Bryant’s career and life. In addition, the Dodgers players stood along the foul line while wearing Bryant jerseys.

Over the years, Dodger Stadium has had a variety of promotions, some larger and more successful than others. As times change, and new ideas come forth, it will be interesting to see what forms future promotions may take.

JOSEPH “JOEY” ELLEDGE is a professor of sport management at Erskine College. As an avid baseball fan, Joey is a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan and a big supporter of minor league baseball. Joey became a baseball fan by attending games of the Capital City Bombers (former Single-A affiliate for the New York Mets) with his family, and holds partial season tickets to mi- nor-league games in Columbia, South Carolina, with his mother, sisters, and his wife. He works with the Lexington County Blowfish (Coastal Plain League) in sales. He is a new contributor to SABR projects and studies the business side of baseball in his free time. Joey resides in Lexington, South Carolina, with his wife, Katie, and three dogs, Cookie, Sammy (named after Sammy Sosa), and Boone.

Notes

1 Shelly Kale, “This Day in Los Angeles History: April 10, 1962 — First Game at Dodger Stadium,” California Historical Society, https://californiahistoricalsociety.org/blog/this-day-in-los-angeles-history-april-10-1962-first-game-at-dodger-stadium/.

2 Brent Shyer, “Walter O’Malley’s Legacy,” https://www.walteromalley.com/en/biography/short/Walter-OMalleys-Legacy.

3 Shyer

4 Andy McCue, “Danny Goodman,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/danny-goodman/

5 Mark Langill, “The (Movie) Hollywood Stars Game,” The National Pastime, SABR, 2011. https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-movie-hollywood-stars-game/.

6 City News Service, “Dodgers to Hold First Hollywood Stars Game Since 2009,” Los Angeles Daily News, June 6, 2015. https://www.dailynews.com/2015/06/06/dodgers-to-hold-first-hollywood-stars-game-since-2009/.

7 Eric Nusbaum, Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between (New York: Public Affairs, 2020).

8 United States Census Bureau, https://data.census.gov/profile/Los_Angeles_County,_California?g=050XX00US06037

9 CBS Los Angeles, “Dodgers Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month,” 2012. https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/dodgers-celebrate-hispanic-heritage-month/.

10 Gustavo Arellano, “How LA’s “Los Doyers” Fans Turned a Racist Insult into a Point of Pride,” REMEZCLA, October 26, 2017. https://remezcla.com/features/sports/los-angeles-doyers-chavez-ravine/.

11 Ron Cervenka, “‘Sign-Stealing’ Nothing New for Dodger Fans,” ThinkBlue.com, January 21, 2020. https://thinkbluela.com/2020/01/sign-stealing-nothing-new-for-dodger-fans/.

12 David Nusbaum, “Golden Fleece: Fans Flock to Dodger Stadium for Free Blankets,” Los Angeles Business Journal, May 22, 2006

13 “Dodgers to Celebrate Reopening Day Tomorrow,” MLB.com, June 14, 2021. https://www.mlb.com/press-release/press-release-dodgers-reopening-day-6-15-21.

14 Isabel Gonzalez, “Dodgers Pride Night Controversy Explained: Clayton Kershaw Speaks Out Against Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” CBS Sports, June 15, 2023. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/dodgers-pride-night-timeline-club-re-invites-sisters-of-perpetual-indulgence-to-lgbtq-celebration/.

15 Gonzalez.

16 Sonja Sharp & Jeong Park, “The Dodgers Booted the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Then Came a Big-League Backlash,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2023. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-05-19/sisters-of-perpetual-indulgence-dodgers-pride-night.

17 City News Service, “LA Archbishop Expresses ‘Dismay and Pain’ as Dodgers Set to Honor Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” 2023. https://abc7.com/dodgers-pride-sisters-of-perpetual-indulgence-catholic/13381504/.

18 Jordan Mendoza, “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Cheered at Dodgers Pride Night: ‘I Did Not Hear a Single Boo,’” USA Today, June 16, 2023. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/dodgers/2023/06/16/sisters-of-perpetual-indulgence-dodgers-pride-night-honor/70331982007/.

19 Noel Sanchez, “Multiple Dodgers Stars Rock Kobe Bryant Merch on Lakers Night,” SI.com, September 1, 2023. https://www.si.com/nba/lakers/news/multiple-dodgers-stars-rock-kobe-bryant-merch-on-lakers-night-ns2002.

A third of a century has passed since the Dodgers commemorated their centennial – 100 years since joining the National League in 1890, the year they consider their founding. The anniversary was highlighted by a midsummer Old-Timers Weekend held at Dodger Stadium, which included a private luncheon for former players and coaches on Saturday, June 30, and an exhibition on Sunday, July 1, 1990, before the regularly scheduled game against the St. Louis Cardinals. The largest number of former Dodgers to appear at an Old-Timers Game, before or since, assembled that weekend. The specific theme was a salute to the Dodgers’ 21 National League pennant-winning teams. Players from 16 teams who went to the World Series between 1941 and 1988, including six that won the Series, attended.1

The first group of retired players began to show up at the ballpark on Friday evening, June 29, a night that would go down in Dodger annals. Carl Erskine and Rex Barney were among those looking on as Fernando Valenzuela, the 1981 National League Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Award winner, on this summer evening twirled a no-hitter, something both Erskine and Barney had accomplished with Brooklyn. Then in his 10th season with the ballclub, Valenzuela beat St. Louis Cardinals pitcher José DeLeón, 6-0. The Dodgers offense was sparked by a three-hit night from Lenny Harris and home runs by Hubie Brooks and Juan Samuel.2

Valenzuela’s was the 20th no-hitter in Dodgers history, and the first thrown by a Dodgers pitcher since Jerry Reuss held the Giants hitless in 1980. It also was the first at Dodger Stadium since Bill Singer denied the Phillies a hit on July 20, 1970.3 Valenzuela’s gem nearly evaporated in the top of the ninth inning. With a runner on first and one out, former Dodger Pedro Guerrero hit a grounder that Valenzuela deflected with his glove and second baseman Samuel converted into a game-ending double play. With the last out recorded, Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully advised listeners, “If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky!”4

Remarkably, earlier in the day, Valenzuela’s former teammate and friend, Dave Stewart, of the Oakland Athletics, hurled a no-hitter against the Toronto Blue Jays. As of 2023, this was the only time in big-league history that two no-hitters were thrown on the same day. And on Sunday, Andy Hawkins of the New York Yankees pitched an eight-inning no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox but in a losing cause, 4-0; in 1991 he also “lost” the no-hitter, when a major-league rule change asserted that a game must go at least a full nine innings to be classified as a no-hitter.5

On Saturday afternoon, June 30, the Dodgers hosted a private luncheon for former players and coaches in the posh Stadium Club, perched high above right field, where old acquaintances were renewed and days of glory recalled. Erskine kidded with Dodgers President Peter O’Malley’s sister Terry Seidler: “Peter paid for a hotel room, meals, plane tickets, game tickets, and chauffeur service to get me here. That’s more than your dad (Walter O’Malley) paid me to play for him.”6 Don Drysdale, who was by this time a member of the Dodgers broadcasting crew, served as the luncheon’s emcee, and after viewing a four-minute video encapsulating a century of the team’s history, told those gathered, “I wish I could put everything in a time capsule and keep it just the way it was.”7

Sunday afternoon was set aside for the Old-Timers Game. There was nothing particularly new about Old-Timers Games. In fact, MLB historian John Thorn traced the earliest one to have been played at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1875.8 The Yankees have famously held an annual Old-Timers Day continuously since 1947 and as of 2023 were the only big-league team that carried on the tradition. It appears the Dodgers held their first Old-Timers Game at Ebbets Field in August 1932, and held another in September 1936, the latter ostensibly to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the National League.9 Four years later, in September 1940, the Dodgers brought back nearly 40 of their former players for a three-inning old-timers exhibition. It was the last one held in Brooklyn.10

Thirty-one seasons passed before the Dodgers hosted their next Old-Timers Day. In their 14th season on the West Coast, in 1971, the Dodgers brought 34 of their former players back to Chavez Ravine.11 It became an annual promotion for the next 25 seasons, often centered on a specific theme or commemoration of an anniversary, such as their first year in Los Angeles, a World Series championship team, their first year in Dodger Stadium, the retirement of a uniform number, and so forth. The 1990 event, in fact, was the 20th consecutive season the Dodgers staged an Old-Timers Game. There would be five more through 1995.

By 1990, Equitable Insurance had not only become a sponsor of the Dodgers Old-Timers Game but held one in each big-league ballpark.12 On July 1, 1990, fans cheered on their favorite players of seasons past at Dodger Stadium. Before a crowd of just under 40,000 fans, 86 Dodgers alumni from both the Brooklyn and Los Angeles eras emerged from the dugout and stood along the baselines and were introduced to the crowd, and assembled afterward for a team photo. Veteran backstop Rick Dempsey, age 40, was summoned from the dugout to join the group photograph to represent the 1988 champions.13

Tom Pagnozzi and Bob Tewksbury were among the Cardinals collecting autographs from some of the famed Dodgers, and Tewksbury, an amateur artist, recorded the day in his sketch pad. Cardinals coach and Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst was asked about his impressions in seeing many of his old rivals on the field again. “Those old goats used to slide into my legs and knock me down. My legs started hurting when I got here, so I knew there was going to be an Old-Timers game,” he joked.14

Then it was time to play ball. The Dodgers divided into two teams and, amid all the on-field antics expected of them, somehow played three innings. For those interested, the highlights included Derrell Griffith’s (1963-66) clutch double to drive in Al Ferrara (1963; 1965-68), and Tommy Davis’s (1959-1966) RBI single. It was fitting that both Ferrara and Davis had been born in Brooklyn. Seventy-four-year-old Mickey Owen (1941-45), the catcher who dropped the third strike with two outs in the ninth inning of Game Four in the 1941 World Series against the Yankees, made solid contact for a hit and drove in a run. Sandy Koufax (1955-1966) received the loudest ovation, and retired the two batters who faced him: Maury Wills (1959-1966; 1969-72) grounded out to third baseman Ron Cey (1971-82) and Ted Sizemore (1969-70; 1976) flied out to left fielder Lou Johnson (1965-1967). Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda took to the mound and received the crowd’s cheers while running over to cover first base on a dribbler hit by Dick Nen (1963). Lasorda was so excited about nipping the runner that in attempting to whip the ball around the infield, threw the ball wildly into the outfield.15

In the regular-season game that followed, the Dodgers took an early 5-0 lead against St. Louis. Dempsey arguably had his best performance all season – smashing two doubles and going 3-for-4 – in seeming defiance of time. But the Dodgers’ fortunes quickly changed, and the players began to resemble their “Daffiness Boys” antecedents rather than any of those league championship teams they had just finished honoring. In this game, the 1990 Dodgers exhibited mental lapses and committed physical errors, with a wild pitch, an errant pickoff throw, and strange baserunning thrown into the mix. Lenny Harris was picked off base for the first time in his major-league career – by, of course, a former Dodger, now Cardinal, Ricky Horton. Rubbing salt into the wound was another former Dodgers pitcher, Tom Niedenfuer, who, like Horton, shut the door on his old chums. The Cardinals came back to win, 6-5.16

The Dodgers shelved the annual Old-Timers Games after 1995. When asked why, the organization offered no official comment. After an 18-year absence, the Dodgers resumed Old-Timers Day for five seasons, between 2013 and 2017, but as of 2023 have not scheduled one since. Though every Old-Timers Game is special, those fortunate enough to attend the special event in the summer of 1990 were witness to the greatest assemblage of former Dodger players in their history before or since.17

GREG KING is a California-based public historian who attended his first game at Dodger Stadium in 1962, a 13-inning affair that produced a 2-1 LA win over the Reds and featured both managers being tossed. He and the late Woody Wilson co-founded SABR’s Dusty Baker – Sacramento Chapter in 1994.

Roster of Players and Coaches Introduced at Dodger Stadium on July 1, 1990

• Red Adams
• Don Drysdale
• Tommy Lasorda
• Dick Schofield
• Joey Amalfitano
• Carl Erskine
• Don LeJohn
• George Shuba
• Sandy Amoros
• Chuck Essegian
• Bill Loes
• Ted Sizemore
• Bob Aspromonte
• Joe Ferguson
• Ken McMullen
• Reggie Smith
• Monty Basgall
• Al Ferrara
• Mike G. Marshall
• Duke Snider
• Rex Barney
• Herman Franks
• Carmen Mauro
• Dick Teed
• Jim Baxes
• Augie Galan
• Joe Moeller
• Darrel Thomas
• Joe Beckwith
• Al Gionfriddo
• Manny Mota
• Arky Vaughan
• Carroll Beringer
• Dick Gray
• Dick Nen
• Ben Wade
• Joe Black
• Derrell Griffith
• Don Newcombe
• John Werhas
• Ralph Branca
• John Hale
• Nate Oliver
• Maury Wills
• Bobby Bragan
• Gene Hermanski
• Claude Osteen
• Steve Yeager
• Al Campanis
• Ben Hines
• Mickey Owen
• Geoff Zahn
• Jim Campanis
• Burt Hooton
• Danny Ozark
• Ron Cey
• Tommy John
• Ron Perranoski
• Eddie Chandler
• Lou Johnson
• Joe Pignatano
• Chuck Churn
• Tom “Spider” Jorgensen
• Johnny Podres
• Dolph Camilli
• Von Joshua
• Doug Rau
• Pete Coscarart
• Clyde King
• Phil Regan
• Willie Crawford
• John Kennedy
• Pete Richert
• Mark Cresse
• Clyde King
• Ed Roebuck
• Tommy Davis
• Sandy Koufax
• John Roseboro
• Willie Davis
• Clem Labine
• Jerry Royster
• Al Downing
• Lee Lacy
• Bill Russell
• Norm Larker

Dodger Stadium hosted the Olympic baseball tournament in 1984. Japan beat the USA in the championship game. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

Though baseball’s history as an “official” Olympic event is short and fragmented (1992-2008, 2020, 2028), the sport was on the roster as an “exhibition” game for various decades.

Although a dozen nations competed in the 1904 St. Louis Olympic Games, the baseball competition only had American teams, making the competition parochial rather than global.1

In 1912 Stockholm’s baseball game featured US athletes from other sports, including Jim Thorpe, and renowned nineteenth-century player George Wright as an umpire.2 The Nazi-sponsored 1936 Olympiad did little to advance the sport, and even less to promote civility as the globe soon plunged into World War II. Officially, about 114,000 spectators witnessed portions of the game between Australians and US military personnel in the Pacific Theatre in Melbourne.3 However, this 1952 exhibition preceded the marquee track-and-field competition, so few purposely came to see the Americans’ 11-5 victory in the cavernous venue.4

The Japanese had acquired a taste for baseball in the twentieth century, but the sport was not “official” for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. A squad of US collegiate players handily defeated the host nation, 6-2.5 Eight future major leaguers6 suited up for the Americans, but afterward the sport would experience a two-decade hiatus, missing the Mexico City (1968), Munich (1972), Montreal (1976), and Moscow (1980) Olympics. During this absence, the game’s popularity grew in the Caribbean, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Japan, and pockets of Europe. The creation of the International Baseball Association helped position the sport back in the Olympic sights.

The sport’s true competitive debut – as a “demonstration” sport, per the parlance of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), took place in Los Angeles during the 1984 Olympics. The amateur US team featured future big leaguers Mark McGwire, Barry Larkin, Cory Snyder, Will Clark, B.J. Surhoff, Chris Gwynn, and Oddibe McDowell, chosen from 100 eager tryout attendees.7 Major-league teams drafted 20 of these US Olympians in the 1984 and 1985 amateur drafts.

Italy, Chinese Taipei,8 the Dominican Republic, Japan, South Korea, Nicaragua, and Canada joined the United States in the eight-country tournament. Perennial amateur superpower Cuba withdrew from the competition in solidarity with the Soviet Bloc’s boycott of the games, a tit-for-tat response to the United States’ protest of the 1980 Moscow Olympics due to the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan. American manager Rod Dedeaux, longtime skipper of the USC Trojans, acknowledged the threat posed by the Cubans. “They’ve got pitching, power, and defense,” he said.9 They also had a seemingly unfair advantage, as they were amateurs in name only: Castro’s revolution had outlawed “professional” baseball, though few of the Cuban players held other jobs beyond those on the diamond.

The 16 games drew a total of 385,285 spectators.10 The preliminary round was held from July 31 to August 5 at Dodger Stadium, with two daily games. The United States and Taipei dominated the “White Division,” while Japan and South Korea advanced in the “Blue Division.”

On August 6, Team USA (first in the White Division) defeated South Korea (runner-up in the Blue Division), 5-2. McDowell clubbed a two-run home run in the third inning to give the Americans an early lead. South Korea countered with an unearned run in the fourth inning and a home run in the fifth to tie the game. Gwynn’s single and a double by Snyder drove in a trio of runs in the sixth inning to put the Americans ahead for good.11

Japan (first in the Blue Division) bested Chinese Taipei (White Division runner-up), 2-1, in extra innings. A single up the middle by Yukio Arai scored Kozo Shoda, who had doubled.

The Bronze Medal game treated spectators to a thrilling pitchers’ duel. Chinese Taipei scored three runs in the top of the 14th inning to slip by South Korea, 3-0, and win the Bronze. The Gold Medal game attracted 55,235 fans who saw the locals take a 1-0 lead on Shane Mack’s home run.12 The Japanese tagged American starter John Hoover for two runs in the fourth inning and another one in the fifth to take the lead, 3-1. The American offense, which had scored 35 runs in four games, sputtered. A seventh-inning three-run home run by Katsumi Hirosawa made the score 6-1. Snyder’s ninth-inning two-run blast cut the deficit, but the Americans were unable to come from behind.13

Hoover, who did not enjoy a long big-league career, tossed a complete game on the first day against Chinese Taipei but may have been tired in the late innings against Japan. “I was a member of probably the best amateur baseball team ever,” Hoover said. “That alone, being in the Olympics with that team, was unbelievable, overwhelming.”14 Will Clark, though disappointed by the outcome, fondly recalled the experience. “We were not only playing for ourselves, but for the guys who came after us,” he said.”15

Dedeaux focused on the greater picture. “We caught the imagination of the whole baseball world in ’84,” he said. “I always felt that winning or losing was secondary to the fact that we showcased baseball to the world. The name of the game was selling international baseball.”16

Displaced from their ballpark, the Dodgers played 13 games on the road (7-6). They returned with a 59-59 record but finished four games under .500, their first losing season since 1979. The organization graciously thanked “the International Olympic Committee, the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and its thousands of volunteers, the fans who supported Olympic Baseball at Dodger Stadium, and (to) the amateur baseball officials and players from throughout the world” for creating “baseball’s greatest moment in the history of the Olympic Games.”17 Baseball was the only Olympic competition held at Dodger Stadium.

The major-league-baseball connection did not end after the Games. Peter Ueberroth, lauded for his stellar organizational job, was selected as the sixth commissioner of baseball. He held the job from October 1, 1984, to April 1, 1989, when Bart Giamatti succeeded him.

Baseball remained an exhibition sport for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Cuba, winner of the 1985 International Cup, the 1986 World Baseball Championship, and the 1987 Pan American Games, again sat out the Olympics, this time in support of North Korea’s boycott. Future major leaguers Robin Ventura, Jim Abbott, Andy Benes, Tino Martínez, and Ben McDonald led the Americans. In a rematch, the United States beat Japan for the Gold Medal while Puerto Rico knocked off host South Korea for the Bronze.

Baseball became an official sport in 1992 (Barcelona), and Cuba won the Gold Medal. The Caribbean nation would revalidate its prize in 1996 (Atlanta).18

The 2000 Games (Sydney) were the first to allow professional players, though no active US major leaguers participated. Managed by Tommy Lasorda, the US team avenged its prior defeat to Cuba, but four years later, when the preliminary tournaments conflicted with the regular baseball season, the United States failed to qualify for the Games. South Korea won the 2008 Gold Medal, the last one contested as an official Olympic sport until the 2020/2021 Beijing Games.19

While Major League Baseball and team owners have allowed big-league players to participate in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), the tournament’s typical schedule interrupts only spring training, not the regular season. Although the National Hockey League has set a precedent of pausing its regular-season schedule for global competition, it is unlikely that Major League Baseball will follow suit for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, though it is possible that clubs will allow their top minor-league prospects to compete.

TONY S. OLIVER is a native of Puerto Rico currently living in Sacramento, California, with his wife and daughter. While he works as a Six Sigma professional, his true love is baseball and he cheers for both the Red Sox and whoever happens to be playing the Yankees. He is fascinated by baseball cards and is currently researching the evolution of baseball tickets. He believes there is no prettier color than the vibrant green of a freshly mown grass on a baseball field.

Notes

1 Pete Cava, “Baseball in the Olympics,” 1991, https://digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll10/id/3005/rec/4.

2 Cava.

3 The game was held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Capacity limits have changed through the years, with a record 143,500 in attendance for Billy Graham and crowds in excess of 90,000 for cricket matches in the twentieth century. However, it is high unlikely that many watched the baseball game, as the true event that day was track and field.

4 Cava.

5 Cava.

6 The eight players: Alan Closter, Dick Joyce, Chuck Dopson, Jim Hibbs, Ken Suarez, Mike Epstein, Shaun Fitzmaurice, Gary Sutherland.

7 Los Angeles 1984: Dodger Salute to Olympic Baseball, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDiCv7i_m9g.

8 “Chinese Taipei” is the name used by the Republic of China (Taiwan) in international sporting competitions.

9 Cava.

10 Ross Newhan, “A Silver Lining: Talented ’84 U.S. Baseball Team Didn’t Get the Gold, but the Sport Proved to Be an International Winner,” Los Angeles Times, July 22, 1992, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-07-22-sp-4198-story.html.

11 Brendan Macgranachan, “A Look Back at the ’84 Olympic Baseball Tournament,” Seamheads.com, July 11, 2008, https://seamheads.com/blog/2008/07/11/a-look-back-at-the-84-olympic-baseball-tournament/.

12 Macgranachan.

13 Macgranachan.

14 Newhan.

15 Newhan.

16 Newhan.

17 Paid advertisement, Los Angeles Daily News, August 12, 1984: 13.

18 Eric Goodman, “Baseball 101: Olympic History,” NBC Olympics, March 15, 2021, https://www.nbcolympics.com/news/baseball-101-olympic-history.

19 The 2020 Beijing Olympic Games were delayed until 2021 because of the COVID-19 global pandemic.