Touching Bases with Countries Around the World

Dr. Bob Smith, President of the International Baseball Association from 1981-1993, said, “The Dodgers have been absolutely marvelous in what they have done to help the game internationally. No organization has done more and few have come close.” “The World Game: Dodgers Strive to Bring Baseball to All Corners of the Globe”, Sid Robinson, 1992 Los Angeles Dodgers Yearbook Peter O’Malley always played the long game to develop baseball internationally and improve the chances of finding global talent to play in the major leagues. O’Malley provided assistance to every continent around the world long before it was fashionable in sports.

“The hobby of encouraging international baseball at both the amateur and professional levels has given me a tremendous amount of enjoyment,” Ibid. said O’Malley in 1992. 

On his direction in 1990, former 1965 World Series hero Lou Johnson went to Nigeria for two weeks and conducted workouts for 13-17 year-old Nigerian players. The next year, O’Malley hosted the Nigerian National Youth Baseball team at Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida so they could practice and train before they went on to play a baseball tournament in Canada.  Smart Adeyemi, working for the Nigerian Television Authority, said of the 1991 experience that, “There is no place like this (Dodgertown) when it comes to baseball.” Tom Riggs, Vero Beach Press Journal, July 19, 1991.

In 1997, Dodger international scout Jim Stoeckel conducted baseball clinics for 13-17 year-old players in Zimbabwe and South Africa. O’Malley provided significant financial assistance to the establishment of a baseball and softball field in Zimbabwe. Malcom Burne, International Baseball Rundown, July, 1998.

He knew for many years Manuel Gonzalez Guerra of Cuba, the honorary President of the Amateur International Baseball Association and sent him congratulations for Cuba winning the 1980 Amateur Baseball World Championship. The Dodgers employed superb instructors who were native-born Cubans, former major league players Leo Posada as a batting instructor, Lorenzo “Chico” Fernandez as the minor league infield instructor and Luis Tiant, the great “El Tiante” as a minor league pitching instructor. Cuban-born scout Mike Brito is heavily credited with the discovery and signing of Fernando Valenzuela, while fellow Cuba-born scout Ralph Avila worked closely with O’Malley to create the Dodgers’ state-of-the-art baseball academy “Campo Las Palmas” in the Dominican Republic, opened in March, 1987.

True to always expanding their international scope for talent, the Dodgers had two minor league players under contract in 1997 from the Netherland Antilles and signed a player from the U.S. Virgin Islands.

In Europe, O’Malley assisted baseball leaders from Italy. The Italy-Dodger relationship was established in March, 1973 when two Italian coaches and two players came to Dodgertown to participate in pre-season workouts. The coach of the Italian National team, Salvano Ambrosioni visited Dodgertown to learn Dodger instructional techniques. Dodger Coach Tom Lasorda, fluent in Italian, insisted Ambrosioni sit with during staff meetings. O’Malley frequently met with Italian Baseball leader Bruno Beneck in the 1970s and 1980s. Like O’Malley, Beneck avidly advocated baseball in the Olympic Games as he was also President of the European Baseball Federation. Aldo Notari received support from O’Malley when he was elected President of the International Baseball Federation. When the “Quadrifoglio,” a baseball complex was under construction in 1996 before it opened in Parma, Italy, O’Malley visited with Notari on site and said, “This baseball academy in Parma will be state of the art, that will attract the attention of the entire baseball world.” O'Malley met in Los Angeles in 2001 with Gigi Cameroni, Italian Baseball Hall of Famer (2005) who played as a catcher for the Italian National team. He also managed in Italy. His teams won three consecutive European Championships. Cameroni wrote a popular 1967 baseball instructional book titled Gigi Cameroni vi insegna il baseball. Historic Dodgertown was the site of a Dodger Adult Baseball Camp in November, 2014 and former Italian player, and senior youth coach for Italy Alberto Furlani was invited as a guest. Furlani won the adult camp Gold Glove Award for fielding.

O’Malley encouraged the country of Czechoslovakia by supplying them with baseball equipment necessary for a team with the assistance of Bill Arce, a baseball coach at the prestigious Claremont-Mudd College, also a great believer in baseball’s international reach. O’Malley wrote to Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn of his 1980 meeting with baseball officials in Denmark. O’Malley had a special relationship in that country as married his wife Annette in Copenhagen in 1971. Peter sent along two dozen baseballs, bats, and gloves to France on a request from Olivier Dubaut, who played baseball for the French National team in 1973 and who served on the Confederation of European Baseball. 

He developed a close friendship with the head of amateur baseball in the Netherlands, Guus van der Heijden, an instrumental leader in gaining European support for baseball as a gold medal sport in the Olympic Games. The Dodgers signed players from the Netherlands who pitched in their minor league system. O’Malley traveled there in 1977 for the European Amateur Baseball Championships to watch Italy against the Netherlands in the championship game. In 2002, he was back to attend the Haarlem Baseball Week and was invited to throw the first pitch for the Opening Ceremonies. Baseball is known there as “honkball.”

As a longtime president and trustee of the Little League Baseball Foundation, O’Malley visited Kutno, Poland, for the dedication of the Little League Baseball Stadium named for his friend, Baseball Hall of Fame player Stan Musial, whose father had immigrated from Poland. O’Malley sat with Musial during the ceremonies. In 1992, O’Malley traveled to Barcelona, Spain for the Olympic Baseball Tournament to celebrate with baseball leaders around the world the first time the sport had official gold medal status. While there, he was invited to throw the ceremonial first pitch on July 29, 1992 before the USA against Cuba game. Ed Piszek, a Polish American who served on the Little League Baseball Foundation Board of Trustees, attended dedication ceremonies of two baseball fields privately built by O’Malley in Ireland on July 4, 1998.  

O’Malley’s baseball connections to other Latin American countries were strong. He visited Ecuador in 1975 and discussed youth baseball efforts there. O’Malley became friends with bank president Alberto Bustamonte of Guayaquil, Ecuador. Through that friendship, on November 9, 1980, a Little League baseball scoreboard named for Walter O’Malley was inaugurated in Guayaquil. It was at the Miraflores League and involved the participation of the Guayaquil Norte Rotary Club. The Dodgers signed a minor league player from Ecuador to a contract in 1996.  Ecuador can boast of native-born Jaime Jarrin, the Dodgers’ Spanish-language broadcaster whose first season was 1959, a World Championship season. Jarrin’s broadcasting of the Dodgers and the World Series radio audience in Spanish would become so renowned, he would be elected to the broadcasters wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998. At a ceremony to honor Jarrin for the Hall of Fame on the field before a game at Dodger Stadium, O’Malley told the crowd, “Jaime, if you had a uniform number, we would retire it today.” In 1977, O’Malley donated baseball and softball equipment to youth programs in El Salvador. The Dodgers signed pitcher Hugo Pivaral from Guatemala to a minor league contract in 1993, the first time a player there had signed a professional baseball contract since 1951. Baseballreference.com Panama was represented by two minor league players in 1997 and the Dodgers that year also signed a minor league pitcher from Brazil.

With an increased scouting staff in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, the Dodgers enjoyed a surge of players from Venezuela in the 1990s. The development of catcher Carlos Hernandez, pitcher Omar Daal, and outfielder Roger Cedeno encouraged the Dodgers to open a baseball academy in 1996 in San Joaquin, Venezuela to sign baseball talent.

O’Malley was always aware of the baseball talent in Canada. At eight years old, he made his first trip there with his family on September 5, 1946 to see the Brooklyn farm club, the dominating Montreal Royals, leading the International League by 19 games with Jackie Robinson and his teammates playing Rochester that day. The Dodgers affiliation with Montreal continued through 1960. In 1968, Walter O’Malley led the National League Expansion Committee that selected Montreal to join the league in 1969.  

For the 1984 Olympic Baseball eight-team exhibition tournament in Los Angeles, Canada was one of three original invites with Japan and the United States to play at Dodger Stadium. In addition, Canada was a productive area for the Dodgers scout. They signed Eric Gagne in 1995, the 2003 National League Cy Young Award winner. Gagne is only the second Canadian, after Ferguson Jenkins, to win the top pitching award in the NL. Gagne may have been 2-3 in the won-loss column, but his 55 saves and a 1.20 ERA made him an easy choice for baseball writers.

From the middle East to the Pacific Islands, his goal was to expand baseball internationally. In 1985, O’Malley met with P.C. Bhardwdaj of the Amateur Baseball Federation of India at international baseball meetings. He corresponded with Harish Kumar of the Punjab Baseball Association and encouraged them in their efforts to support the growth of baseball.

O’Malley wanted to learn more about baseball talent in the Philippines and visited there in October, 1974 where he was impressed by the strong play of Philippine Little Leaguers. While there, he discussed the benefits of finding ways to improve their instruction and the hope to play games one day in Manila with the Dodgers. Rodolfo Tingzon, the president of the Philippine Amateur Baseball Association met with O’Malley in his Dodger Stadium office in 1975. Shortly after that meeting, O’Malley had arranged for an automatic pitching machine to be sent for use by that association.  He was in close contact with longtime friend Hector Navasero, a chief executive of a prominent Philippine pharmaceutical company and known as the “Father of Philippine Baseball.” Navasero served as longtime President of the Philippine Amateur Baseball Association, devoting more than 25 years to helping youth develop in the game he loved. In 1992, Max Alvarez, a columnist for the Philippines News sat with O’Malley in the President’s Box at Dodger Stadium on “Filipino Night.”  Alvarez wrote of his appreciation for O’Malley: “Peter O’Malley has opened up new baseball frontiers, making trips to various countries, and also making sure at home the Dodger program will remain a formidable brace – and an inspiration – for the growth and development of communities and the overall improvement in the lives of people.” Max Alvarez, Philippines News, September 30-October 6, 1992.  

Guam is a member of the International Baseball Federation and O’Malley became connected with Patrick Wolff, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a reporter for the Guam Tribune. Wolff met O’Malley at his Dodger Stadium office and they discussed the development of baseball on the island. O’Malley sent Wolff a letter stating, “Your many friends in the Dodger organization join me in sending you and the Guam Amateur Baseball League our very best wishes for a successful and enjoyable season beginning August 23, 1986.” Patrick M. Wolff, The Guam Tribune, August 8, 1986. In 1991, O’Malley sent Lou Johnson to Guam to speak about the dangers of drug and alcohol use.

On August 20, 1992, O’Malley met with Gerhard Koch, President of the Styrian Baseball Federation in Austria, at Dodger Stadium and enjoyed watching a Dodger game with him.

The Dodgers were always leaders in the international field where baseball had not yet gained a foundation, knowing there was talent around the world if a club had the dedication to search for it. In 1990, the Dodgers hired Jim Stoeckel as their international scouting coordinator whose mission was break the new ground in countries and provide instructional support. Stoeckel, who had been the head baseball coach at Davidson College in South Carolina and the led the Dutch national team to the European Championship in 1981, conducted clinics in the countries where the game was popular.  He also extended the Dodgers’ reach by teaching and presenting development clinics in Austria, the Bahamas, Belgium, Bonaire, Brazil, Costa Rica, Curacao, Jamaica, and he worked with Russian baseball coaches in Homestead, Florida. 

Wherever they threw, hit, or fielded a baseball, the Dodgers’ presence was made known.