This Day in Walter O’Malley History:

  • The Dodgers play the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium in the “Mayor’s Trophy” game benefiting sandlot baseball. New York Mayor Vincent Impellitteri, Dodger President Walter O’Malley and Yankee co-owner Dan Topping arranged for the charity game.

  • “My father told me long ago, when you lay an egg, don’t sit around and let it hatch,” said Walter O’Malley after briefly upsetting Dodger players and fans at Ebbets Field. What O’Malley was referring to was an announcement made during the Dodgers and Cardinals game by the public address announcer that “Willie Mays just hit a three-run home run for the Giants in the second inning.” Dodger fans began to buzz about the announcement and even Dodger players came out of the dugout to wonder what was going on. O’Malley owned up to ordering the announcement. He thought that fans in Ebbets Field would enjoy receiving updates of individual performances around the National League rather than just the final scores. O’Malley stopped the announcements immediately based on the adverse reaction. The next day, O’Malley met with the Dodger players to explain his reasoning. “They’re not mad,” said O’Malley. “They laughed about it and said they didn’t mind.” Roscoe McGowen, The Sporting News, July 7, 1954

  • Walter O’Malley congratulates American League President Will Harridge for his testimony at the House hearing into monopoly in baseball. Harridge’s remarks contradicted earlier testimony of Bob Feller about player pensions.

  • A large cartoon on the cover of The Sporting News praises Walter O’Malley’s endurance with all of the challenges he has faced to date in Los Angeles. The Karl Hubenthal cartoon depicts O’Malley as a statue showing courage to overcome many obstacles, including the “Proposition B” victory in which voters validated the existing contract between the Dodgers and the City of Los Angeles.

  • Longtime Los Angeles Times’ columnist and author Jack Smith writes of his experience attending his first game at Dodger Stadium, “It may well be that Mr. Walter O’Malley has constructed one of the wonders of the modern world...In 100 years, I predict, Dodger Stadium will be as great a curiosity as the Colossus of Rhodes and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. This temple has been erected at the very zenith of the cult of Abner Doubleday, as the Parthenon was erected at the moment in history when the Greek spirit burned the brightest...Certainly, as I sat there in a turquoise-colored, form-fitting seat in the first row of the top tier, soaring high above the vibrant green carpet on which the players were pursuing their sacerdotal functions with consummate grace, I felt a rapture that was more than earthly.”

  • In his letter to John W. Waterbury of the engineering and architect firm of Madigan-Praeger Inc. in New York, Walter O’Malley discusses the possibility of adding deluxe boxes (suites) at Dodger Stadium. “The location you selected would eliminate 2332 seats less what the number of seats the new boxes would provide...We still think that a location under or over the Stadium Club running towards home plate to the sheer wall would be saleable. There is also the area from the entrance to the Stadium Club on the Club Level towards first base. The Club Level seats would be lost, however, (as) would the highest price seats in the stadium which might kill the economics of the solution. Let’s keep thinking about it, if I have any pregnant ideas I will let you know and vice versa.”

  • Bill Russell becomes the all-time leader in games played as a Los Angeles Dodgers in his 1,953 game for the team.