This Day in Walter O’Malley History: August 11

The Dodgers’ first game of a doubleheader against the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field is the first Major League Baseball game to be televised in color. The Dodgers win, 8-1.

The Sporting News carries a review of a book written by Red Barber, radio and TV announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers, entitled “The Rhubarb Patch—The Story of the Modern Brooklyn Dodgers.” Barber writes about the history of the Dodger organization from during his time of employment from Larry MacPhail to Walter O’Malley. Barber’s first lines of the book are “All baseball teams are made up of human beings...somehow or other through the years the Dodgers seem to have been the most human of all major league teams. Things happen to the Dodgers that don’t seem to happen to other clubs. Players wearing a Brooklyn uniform at times glow in a special color and these same players when traded away revert to ordinary perspective.” The Sporting News, August 11, 1954

“Don Drysdale is one of the all-time greats” is a summation by Dodger President Walter O’Malley on the announcement of the retirement of Don Drysdale. Drysdale would win 209 games, all in a Dodger uniform, earned the Cy Young Award in 1962 with 25 wins and would pitch for three Dodger World Championship teams. One year earlier, Drysdale had pitched 58 scoreless innings, breaking the old mark of 56 scoreless innings held by Walter Johnson.

Kay and Walter O’Malley attend the musical “1776” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles.

Kay and Walter O’Malley send a telegram of congratulations to George Weiss, longtime baseball executive, on Weiss’ election to Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Yankee teams under Weiss’ leadership as general manager won seven World Championships, including five consecutive season from 1949 to 1953. Also, on this date, Walter O’Malley sends a letter of congratulations to Reginald H. Jones for his nomination to the Board of Directors of General Electric. O’Malley and Jones attended Penn. Jones would later be elected to Chairman of the Board and CEO of General Electric and serve in that role from 1972-1981.

Walter O’Malley tapes an interview at the NBC Studios in Burbank with local sports anchor Ross Porter and news anchorman Tom Brokaw. Porter would win many awards as a radio and television voice of the Dodgers from 1977 to 2004. Tom Brokaw would later host the “Today” show, and become the national anchor for NBC News. Brokaw also wrote the best selling book, “The Greatest Generation,” a narrative of Americans who lived through the Great Depression, served in the armed forces in World War II, and then came home to serve as leaders and parents of the next generation.

Maestro Zubin Mehta is a guest of Walter O’Malley for a Dodger game. Mehta has served as Music Director for the Montreal Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Mehta would later conduct concerts for the Three Tenors, including an “Encore-Three Tenors” concert at Dodger Stadium on July 16, 1994.