This Day in Walter O’Malley History: May 19

Dodger President Branch Rickey and club Vice President and General Counsel Walter O’Malley meet with William S. Paley, Chairman of CBS in New York. Pioneer Paley guided the CBS network for more than 50 years.

The Sporting News writes an editorial in praise of Walter O’Malley as to his innovation of hiring non-playing coaches for the minor league teams of the organization. “We are spending large sums to develop our future major league players in the minor leagues,” said O’Malley. “So to us it seemed most logical that good minor league coaches would be most important — perhaps more important than in the majors.” The addition of non-playing coaches was an “economy measure” for teams, but O’Malley said, “We can do it and we intend to do it.” In the editorial, the author writes, “O’Malley is correct. It is permissible to carry a non-playing coach in the International League, American Association, Southern Association and Western League.”

Famed architect Eero Saarinen meets with Walter O’Malley at the Brooklyn Dodger offices at 215 Montague Street. O’Malley wrote a letter to the Finnish artist turned architect regarding a possible dome stadium for the Dodgers. O’Malley wrote, “If there is available for public knowledge any photographs or technical articles on your architectural study for the MIT auditorium we would appreciate receiving same. We are now studying the possibility of building a new baseball stadium which would be covered with a 750 ft. diameter translucent fiber glass shell.” Saarinen responded on May 4 and the two arranged for a meeting. Saarinen designed the Kresge Auditorium at Cambridge, Massachusetts in the 1950s (known for its white dome with glass walls rising to meet the thin concrete shell), the TWA terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York from 1956-63, the Dulles Airport terminal from 1958-62 and the legendary Gateway Arch in St. Louis in 1961-66 known as the “Gateway to the West.” Saarinen passed away at age 51 in 1961 before seeing the finished results of many of his designs.

Noted Los Angeles architect Paul R. Williams went on record as favoring the development of Chavez Ravine for a major league baseball stadium as a key step in good city planning. Williams said the development will “convert what is now a hodgepodge of hills and gullies into a multimillion-dollar civic asset” and urged voters to support “Proposition B,” the baseball referendum on June 3, 1958. “Chavez Ravine is rough, barren land. Some of it was residential, some commercial, most of it has never been developed at all. Large sections have never been on the tax rolls. A single, big coordinated project such as the Dodgers will build with their funds is the answer,” Williams said. “Once access roads are built to the ravine, Elysian Park can be put to much fuller use.” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1958

Walter O’Malley hosts close friend and entertainer Danny Kaye and longtime entertainment industry publicist Warren Cowan at his box at Dodger Stadium.