This Day in Walter O’Malley History:

  • Two years after purchasing a Convair 440 metropolitan twin-engine airplane for the Dodgers, Walter O’Malley responds to Dodger Director James Mulvey (President of Samuel Goldwyn Productions) in a letter about future aircraft. “The DC-7 would not be a good plane for us because of the high percentage of engineer failures on that model. The entire aviation industry is making substantial changes in equipment. I do not want to miss any opportunity to consider an alternate. As of now, however, we have nothing before us that looks attractive. Until something comes along that would interest us, we should plan to get greater use out of the Convair. We should definitely make more charters for football games in the Fall. We will use the plane to make two flights from Los Angeles to Vero Beach this Spring, to carry personnel and players to camp. The American Association has now extended the number of clubs and we will have substantially more hours of flying the St. Paul Club.”

  • Nobori Inouye, President of the Japan Baseball Hall of Fame and Commissioner of Baseball in Japan, writes a letter of appreciation to Walter O’Malley for his gift of Dodger uniforms to be displayed in the second-year Hall of Fame. “There is no other team that has provide (sp.) us with both home and visiting uniforms. Indeed, including baseball literature, we have more of baseball items concerning your baseball club than those of other 15 Major League teams. We are endeavoring to make our museum worthy of its name, undertaking vigorous activities to collect and preserve mementoes of baseball both in Japan and in America.”

  • Walter O’Malley is all smiles this afternoon as he is the featured speaker at a gathering of the Los Angeles Dental Society.

  • Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King, Jr. writes a letter to Dodger President Walter O’Malley in which she expresses appreciation to him for hosting the Major League East-West All-Star Classic to be played at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles on March 28, 1970. The game is to benefit the Martin Luther Kiing, Jr. Memorial Center in Atlanta, Georgia.