This Day in Walter O’Malley History:

  • The Sporting News reports that a licensing plan for promotional tie-ins with the Dodgers, as a means of supporting sandlot ball in Brooklyn, is supported by the club. Licensed products included packaged goods, clothing, toys and books, for example, with the official Dodger name and to tie in with the “Dodger prestige and publicity.” The purpose is to raise funds for the Brooklyn Amateur Baseball Foundation, which uses sandlot ball as a deterrent to juvenile delinquency. None of the proceeds were to go to the Dodgers. The Sporting News, February 4, 1953

  • Proud of his $1.5 million landscaping and beautification project for Dodger Stadium, Walter O’Malley writes a letter to Mrs. Valley M. Knudsen, Chairman, Los Angeles Beautiful, Chamber of Commerce to state, “For the past month we have already installed 32 miles of irrigation lines and sprinkler heads. All the slopes around the City Reservoir have been cleared of weeds, rototilled and planted with poppies. The hill to the north has been planted in lupins and other hills in Indian Paintbrush, Cockscomb and other native California wild flowers. A total of 950 palms, hybrid flowering eucalyptus, Jacaranda, Crepe Myrtle, olives and pines. Our nurserymen have set aside 48,000 hybrid petunias. Most exciting of all things Botanic proposed is the Metasequoia, the grand daddy of the California Sequoias. We have been fortunate to secure 40 specimens, 37 of which survived the cold spell. I believe I can accurately state that no private property has had more landscaping attention under the direction of well known architect, John Ratekin, than the Dodger Stadium complex.”

  • Twenty-four original paintings by famed artist Nicholas Volpe are presented to Walter O’Malley by Fred Hartley of Union Oil Company at a luncheon at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Reproductions of the paintings featuring Dodger players were distributed by Union Oil at their service stations. Speaking before a large gathering at the civic luncheon, O’Malley kept them all laughing when he quipped, “I will hang these with pride in Dodger Stadium. I will admit there were some occasions last season when I wanted to hang the originals.” Bob Hunter, The Sporting News, February 16, 1963  The 1962 Dodgers won 102 games, but lost a three-game playoff series and with it the National League Pennant to the San Francisco Giants.

  • Walter O’Malley writes a note to renowned movie director John Ford stating, “The only disappointment comes as a result of your birthday not being during the season when we could extend our greetings on the (Dodger Stadium) message board. All the best.” Also a producer, Ford won six Oscars, including two for his World War II documentary. On this date, another movie director connection — photographer Howard Zieff rents the “Rookie Clubhouse Dressing Room” at Dodger Stadium to take photos for the Coca-Cola Company. Zieff later directs such movies as House Calls, The Main Event, Private Benjamin, Unfaithfully Yours, My Girl and My Girl 2.