This Day in Walter O’Malley History: March 18

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Introducing his new heart-shaped lake on the grounds behind Holman Stadium at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida, Walter O’Malley takes Dodger Director Bud Holman and sportswriter Roscoe McGowen on a little fishing trip. O’Malley made the lake in the shape of a heart as a Valentine to his wife Kay. From McGowen’s account in The Sporting News: “Lake Gowanus (after Brooklyn’s famed canal) is a heart-shaped body of water created by The O’Malley’s construction engineers when they were digging dirt to build that little stadium of which he is so inordinately proud, and which was named after Bud...Are there really fish in this Lake Gowanus, as you call it? was the first innocent but ill-advised question to The O’Malley. ‘Are there fish in it!’ The O’Malley responded, with a slight show of indignation. ‘Are there fish in it? Of course there are fish in it! There are a thousand bass in it and at least one of ’em is a foot and a half long.’ At first it was difficult to observe The O’Malley’s casting technique because the observer was almost blinded by the gaudy sport shirt he was wearing...It bore the illustrated drawings of every fish (The O’Malley claimed) to be caught in American inland or coastal waters. It had maps on it. It had the printed list of every fishing camp and fishing boat captain everywhere in the United States and Canada. ‘This shirt,’ said The O’Malley proudly, ‘is only one of three of its kind ever made. Harry Truman has one, I have this one and the fellow who had ’em made, Sol Yuryn, has the third one.’ Then suddenly the float on his line disappeared and The O’Malley began reeling in the line. Believe it or not, he had a fish and it was a bass.” Roscoe McGowen, The Sporting News, March 18, 1953