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.”
