This Day in Walter O’Malley History:

  • The New York Times lists Walter O’Malley as one of 119 applicants for admission to the New York State bar. The committee on character and fitness of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York made the names public. Applicants were ordered to appear at the Appellate Division Court, 25th Street and Madison Avenue. Committee head Sol M. Strook requested any information sent regarding applicants’ character and fitness for admission to the bar.

  • Walter and Kay O’Malley’s love of horticulture was obvious to those fortunate enough to have visited the grounds at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida. In 1953, when Holman Stadium opened, 50 stunning Royal Palm trees, transplanted from a local estate which had been burned in a fire, were added to the perimeter of the ballpark thanks to Dodger stockholder Mrs. May Smith. According to Roscoe McGowen’s report in The Sporting News, “The O’Malley is proud of the plant life on the (Dodgertown) base and readily listed it as follows: 300 hybrid hibiscus plants, 200 kumquat trees, 150 cocktail orange trees, a 10-acre grove of tangerines, oranges, tangelos and grapefruit, both white and pink; alamanda (sp.), periwinkle, poinsettia, Mexican flame vines, Bougainvillea, cocoanut (sp.) palms, Australian pines, Tifton grass (from Tifton, GA, U.S. Agriculture Dept.), petunias, banana trees and perhaps some more. O’Malley has been climbing palm trees for the purpose of planting Cattleya orchids. O’Malley is trying to make the Cattleya orchids grow on the palm trees. How they grow your agent wouldn’t know, but The O’Malley knows. Currently the prize exhibit is a Cymbedium bearing 150 blooms, which will be put to good use at the annual St. Patrick’s Day party staged by The O’Malley.” Roscoe McGowen, The Sporting News, March 16, 1955

  • The Los Angeles Dodgers become just the second major league club and the only team in Florida to purchase the land for their spring training site. According to the Vero Beach Press Journal, “The Vero Beach City Council accepted a check for $133,087.50 for the sale of all the Dodgertown lands and improvements in Vero Beach, which includes 113 acres of land, Holman Stadium which the Dodgers themselves built, and the Dodgertown buildings on Avenue C built by the U.S. Navy and known as J.O.Q. and B.O.Q. The City of Vero Beach benefits additionally from the sale because it no longer has to guarantee $12,000 a year for the Airport Fund. In the past the money was raised from an exhibition game and the city’s General Fund.” Vero Beach Press Journal, March 18, 1965