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During the next two decades, the Dodgers used their regular-season ballparks — Ebbets Field in Brooklyn and later Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles — as destinations for their growing list of foreign dignitaries.
The team’s goodwill tours of Japan following the pennant-winning seasons in 1956 and 1966 led to spring training visits to Dodgertown by the Yomiuri Giants in 1961, 1967, 1971 and 1975.
In his first year as Dodger President in 1951, O’Malley invited representatives of the Venezuelan League’s Cerveceria Caracas club, along with 400 Venezuelan cadets, to be guests of the Dodgers while the party was in New York to celebrate Simon Bolivar Day on April 19. It would be the first of many O’Malley invitations for international visitors to Ebbets Field. When 75 Israeli sailors visited Ebbets Field in June 1951, O’Malley sent them home with a batch of baseball equipment.
By 1952, O’Malley proposed a world tour with the American League’s Cleveland Indians. Commissioner Ford C. Frick announced on the eve of the All-Star Game in Philadelphia that major league owners had granted authorization and the State Department was enthusiastic about the plan. The owners also relaxed a rule that usually prohibited barnstorming tours.
Estimated totals included $240,000 for airfare and $500,000 for the entire 22-game, 60-day schedule with visits to Hawaii, Japan, India, Egypt, Australia and North Africa, covering some 35,000 air miles. “We would like the trip to carry its own load,” O’Malley said. “Unless it’s a good thing for the country and baseball, we wouldn’t want to do it.”1
The tour didn’t materialize, but the plans fueled discussions for other ways to promote the sport among other nations. By the time the Dodgers clinched their first championship following a thrilling seven-game victory over the rival New York Yankees in the 1955 World Series, O’Malley’s mailbox was stuffed with many international postmarks.
On Dec. 2, 1955, O’Malley sent the following letter to His Majesty King Faisal II at the Royal Palace in Baghdad, Iraq.
“Your Majesty, Many thanks for your cablegram of congratulations on our World Series victories. It renewed happy memories of your visits to Brooklyn and to Ebbets Field. One of our biggest thrills in winning our first World Championship was the knowledge we brought joy to so many of our friends all around the world as evidenced in letters from twenty-six different countries. I hope that when you visit our country again that you will include another visit to Ebbets Field in your itinerary. Hope this letter finds you in the very best of health. Sincerely, Walter O’Malley.”
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The Tokyo Yomiuri Giants made their first team appearance at Dodgertown in Vero Beach in 1961. They made subsequent visits in 1967, 1971 and 1975. In 1967, National League President Warren Giles, Walter O’Malley and Dodger interpreter and goodwill ambassador Ike Ikuhara greet some uniformed Giants players for training at Dodgertown. |
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Walter O’Malley and King Faisal II of Iraq watch the Dodger game on Aug. 13, 1952 at Ebbets Field. It was the first baseball game that the young King had seen in person. |
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