This Day in Walter O’Malley History:
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Roscoe McGowen writes in The Sporting News of Walter O’Malley attending football games at La Salle Academy where his 15-year-old son Peter was a left end on the football team. “Mrs. (Kay) O’Malley and I had to see the game (against Fordham Prep), of course and we had a bad moment or two. One of Peter’s mates ran 93 yards for a touchdown — and it was called back because my big fellow was involved in a clipping penalty. But, he later caught a pass that helped to another touchdown and La Salle won it, 13 to 12, so things turned out all right.” Roscoe McGowen, The Sporting News, November 11, 1953
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Los Angeles Examiner columnist Vincent X. Flaherty writes to Walter O’Malley about the configuration for baseball in the vast Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum when the Dodgers debut in 1958. “The east end is the wrong end for baseball. I know you are thinking about cutting down on altering expenses. But you should put that diamond in the area that has the greatest concentration of seats — and that’s the west end...the horseshoe end. There will be days when you’ll fill (sp.) awful when you walk into the Coliseum and find out you have no more than a ‘lousey (sp.) forty thousand’ watching a game. I am no engineer but I’ve studied that place for years. If you have the plate at the Peristyle end what happens to the people sitting a mile away in the horseshoe end? You must remember the other end gets the shade and is cooler. Least of all, it would be the only major league park in America facing into the sun.” After reviewing the Rose Bowl in Pasadena and considering team-owned Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, where the Pacific Coast League Los Angeles Angels had played, O’Malley made arrangements to lease the Coliseum as the Dodgers’ temporary home beginning with the 1958 season.
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Walter O’Malley writes a letter to J.G. Taylor Spink, publisher of The Sporting News, requesting that Spink reconsider his decision to resign as Chairman of the Veterans Committee of the Baseball Hall of Fame. O’Malley cited Spink’s knowledge and regard for the history of baseball as reasons that Spink should retain the chairmanship. O’Malley’s October 20, 1959 letter was reprinted in The Sporting News. The Sporting News, November 11, 1959
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Walter O’Malley approves the purchase of 50,000 chairs for Dodger Stadium from the American Seating Company. The seats are to be Style #103 riser type with cast gray iron standards, hinges and seat arms and Northern rock elm wood, steam bent, for back and seat parts. The metal is to be treated with a rust inhibiting primer process with two coats of oven-baked enamel. The seats will arrive numbered per the Dodgers’ approved ticket layout.
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Kay and Walter O’Malley attend a formal dinner presented by the Danish Consul General and Mrs. A. C. Karsten. Guests were to enjoy the opening night performance of the Royal Danish Ballet at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, prior to dining with members of the ballet at Scandia. Ann Sonne, Los Angeles Times, November 11, 1965
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Walter O’Malley plays golf at Lakeside Country Club in Burbank with Arnold Palmer.
