This Day in Walter O’Malley History: December 9

A new revamped bi-league expansion committee puts Walter O’Malley front and center with those hoping to add a National League team in New York. Bill Shea, the chairman of New York Mayor Robert Wagner’s committee to bring a team to New York through expansion or a third professional league, stated, “Putting O’Malley on that committee is the best thing that could have happened to us — short of getting a franchise at this time. O’Malley is a doer. I feel we now have a man who will work with us...He knows the business value of having a team back in New York. And he has strong personal contacts that can help us.” The new committee is comprised of Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley as chairman; O’Malley; Arnold Johnson, owner of the Kansas City A’s; and George Medinger, Cleveland Indians Vice President. “O’Malley spends considerable time in New York. I am sure he will make it a point to talk with me and the mayor’s committee, so we can move quickly. He must realize, from a business standpoint alone, what it would mean to have a team in New York.” Dick Young, New York Daily News, December 9, 1958  Baseball Commissioner Ford C. Frick added, “This is a good committee from the point of view expansion. I think O’Malley is a real expansion guy, and the others are for it.”

Walter O’Malley is one of four Southern California business leaders honored at a “Los Angeles Says Thanks” luncheon. Along with Edward W. Carter, Dorothy Buffum Chandler and Neil Petree, O’Malley was one of a quartet “whose names are linked indelibly with four major cultural and recreational centers that ‘helped make our town a city.’ Los Angeles Times, “4 Honored for Contributions to Los Angeles’ ‘Golden Decade’”, December 10, 1971  A crowd of 1,500 civic and community leaders watched as O’Malley was saluted for privately financing and building Dodger Stadium; Carter for his involvement in the County Museum of Art; Chandler for her leading role in The Music Center; and Petree for developing the Los Angeles Convention Center. Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty said, “The time was right. If the structures had not been built when they were the city probably would never have had them.” Yorty said the four honorees “symbolize the tremendous number of people who are interested in the community and who have done so very much to help change it from a town to a city.” Ibid  President Richard M. Nixon sent a congratulatory telegram to the honorees. Television’s Ralph Edwards presented each recipient with a sterling silver tray, engraved with a sketch of the respective honoree’s accomplishment.