LA Sports Trade of the 20th Century

 

Stadium and Politics: LA’s mega trade

Los Angeles is no stranger to blockbuster sport trades. Jared Goff for Matthew Stafford being the most recent trade to have occurred in Tinseltown. One could argue that it comes with the territory for representing the city. It has to be a big splash or don’t do it at all. The trade I am talking about occurred about fifty years ago and it involves all sort of non-athlete players. How Walter O’Malley and Los Angeles got a stadium for the Dodgers.

            Dodger Stadium sits on top of Chavez Ravine looking down at Los Angeles. The “myth” as Andy McCue puts it in his article Barrio, Bulldozers, and Baseball The Destruction of Chavez Ravine is that families who wore mostly Mexican American were removed for the construction of a baseball stadium. McCue argues that both occurred, but that not necessarily in a direct manner as the city removed tenants in 1953 and the Walter O’Malley did not show interest in LA until 1957. Therefore, creating this myth that was amplified due to the images of officers removing residents that made it to the papers.

            There are quite a few players from different arenas that I want to introduce before I address the “myth.” Let us commence with the two Californian republicans that somehow are still used as positive and negative connotations depending on context. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. At the time Richard Nixon was Vice President and Ronald Reagan was union president of the Screen Actors Guild. The issue here was Public Housing. The incumbent mayor of LA, Fletcher Bowron a liberal republican, was in favor of public housing and had eleven sights in the city on his agenda. His adversary, Norris Poulson also republican, opposed public housing claiming it was a waste of money and socialism in disguise.

            Ronald Reagan supported Fletcher Bowron. However, in the 1953 mayoral election, Norris Poulson unseated Bowron. Nixon supported a measure for the city to get out of its contract for public housing. By 1953 after court rulings and political maneuvering the community was destroyed. The land was sold to the city for $1,279,000 under the condition that it would be for “public purpose.” Walter O’Malley did not have an interest in relocating his Brooklyn Baseball team until 1957. The gap suggests that it was political turmoil not Walter O’Malley and the Dodgers who removed the residents from their homes.

            Moving on from the political figures and their positions, we can focus on the trade between the city of Los Angeles and Walter O’Malley. LA gave the O’Malley 315 acres in Chavez Ravine in exchange for the minor league ballpark, Wrigley Field and its nine-acre plot. The city also threw in $4.74 million in land preparation for the stadium site and in exchange, O’Malley would build an invisible youth center.

            BUT WAIT! THERE IS MORE! Like all blockbuster trades there has to be some drama. Not all Angelenos were in favor of this move and enough signatures were gathered for a referendum. Prop B would be on the ballot in June for the people to decide. A ‘yes’ vote would approve of the move. Spoiler, it passed. It required some campaigning from stars such as Lucille Ball and Ronald Reagan who took part in the “Dodgerthon.”

            Fun fact to take away from here. Ronald Reagan flipped ideology when it came to welfare assistance programs. As Governor of California, he became a strict narc on welfare in the state and even challenged Nixon—president at the time—on his Family Assistance Program on combating poverty in the country. The fake cowboy really made Nixon seem liberal here, wild.

            Now back to the trade, who won? Yes, residents did get displaced, but the Dodgers won the World Series in 2020. And if the Mexican American population still had some resentment, the team did sign a young pitcher named Fernando Valenzuela who turned out to be a stud and swayed the hearts of the community the stadium displaced. So, a tie? All kidding aside the complexity is the point of it. There are so many angles that it is difficult to point to just one. Sports have a way of shaping the culture around a community. Give it time and it will continuously evolve.

            Finally, to address the “myth.” McCue argued that the time lapse was evidence that the image of a woman being removed by officers enhanced a sentiment that necessarily may not have been genuine. He further argues that the Arechiga family who were one of last few families to hold out till the end were not necessarily poor and had properties across the city that had living tenants. My answer to the “myth” is that the evidence presented is accurate and well thought out to an extent. Yes, Walter O’Malley’s decision to relocate his ball club did not cause the city of LA to displace residents from their homes. But if one of McCue’s arguments is that the Arechiga family were not some dirt poor Angelenos be forced to leave their only home, then it can be argued that the rich white owner benefitted from the system while it hindered a Mexican American family.

            My intent is not to get a movement to hate a team or forcing people to learn the history before supporting a team. It just isn’t that simple. Which ever way a person may think about this trade is up to them, I just wanted to bring it up since LA sports trades were a thing this week. To end it by taking a full quote from Benjamin Lisle’s book Modern Coliseum, “’It is not morally or legally right for a government agency to condemn private land, take it away from the property owner through Eminent Domain proceedings, then turn around and give it to a private person or corporation for private gain,’ –councilman Edward Roybal.”