worst owner ever

[oscargamblesfro]

what team owner is the worst ever? by worst, i mean which owner has done the most damage to the game in general, and/or his or her team. not someone stuck with a bad club for years. it doesn't matter whether the team was successful or not. some of the possible choices, feel free to add others:

andrew freedman
george steinbrenner
harry frazee
charles o. finley
marge schott

[Joltin' Joe]

Harry Frazee hands down!

[Brian McKenna]

The Phillies had the only two owners barred from the game:

William Cox and Horace Fogel

[oscargamblesfro]

by worst, i mean conduct that harmed the integrity of the game, worst lack of character, outrageous treatment of players and rules, etc...i.e. who is the worst person to own a major league franchise?

[Joltin' Joe]

by worst, i mean conduct that harmed the integrity of the game, worst lack of character, outrageous treatment of players and rules, etc...i.e. who is the worst person to own a major league franchise?

If you put it that way, Comiskey.

[Brian McKenna]

I don't see what Comiskey did to make himself stand out. People always want to blame the man for their problems. It is a cop out to blame Comiskey in any way shape or form for the tainted World Series. He conducted business very similar to those before and after him. You want to highlight someone, dig out the 19th century books and pick those that emulated the robber barons and their complete disregard for labor.

[Joltin' Joe]

I don't see what Comiskey did to make himself stand out. People always want to blame the man for their problems. It is a cop out to blame Comiskey in any way shape or form for the tainted World Series. He conducted business very similar to those before and after him. You want to highlight someone, dig out the 19th century books and pick those that emulated the robber barons and their complete disregard for labor.

I based my opinion on Comiskey on all the books I have read. But you're probably right about 19th century owners. Afterall they came up with the reserve clause and presented it as if it was some sort of a prestige award.:rolleyes:

[oscargamblesfro]

well, what i always find hypocritical about comiskey is that he was a former player. other than the phillies guys mentioned above,whom i've never heard of, all of the others mentioned so far were non-players. without getting into the whole 1919 thing, on the one hand, it's very surprising that a former player's rights guy like comiskey, who i think was one of the ringleaders of the player's league, was such a cheap ass...on the other hand, some of the biggest exploiters and or tightwads and biggest hypocrites, in sports, music, etc. are former athletes/ performers themselves...

[Brian McKenna]

I think it is good to discuss those "I've never heard of." Too many speak only of the big names. For example, Pat Moran has more World Series titles than Tony LaRussa.

[oscargamblesfro]

was fogel a former player? the name sounds vaguely familiar...

[Brian McKenna]

He was a sportswriter and some how got a manager's job with Indianapolis in 1897 and the Giants in 1902 before McGraw.

[Ursa Major]

Peter Angelo of the Orioles. His only saving grace is that he ran the best baseball announcer this side of Vin Scully out of town, and the Giants got him.

Finley is a tough call. He was a drunken, bullying tightwad who chased his best players from the team. But, he was an innovator in the Bill Veeck mode who really broke through the stuffiness of the game -- designated hitters and runners, colored balls, wild uniforms, facial hair on players, ballgirls in hotpants, and Billyball (i.e., wild baserunning that launched Rickey Henderson's career).

[Brian McKenna]

I love the Oscar Gamble Afro user name it reminds me of collecting baseball cards when I was a kid

[hellborn]

How about Chris von der Ahe of the St. Louis Browns?
Wasn't he totally ignorant, encouraging of umpire abuse, disdainful of his players, and involved in shady collusion behind the scenes?

[Brian McKenna]

von der Ahe definitely

also might want to note:
Arthur Soden
John Davidson
and a host of others that sparked the formation of the Players League

By the way, players who became owners were never benevolent: Spalding, Comiskey, Griffith, Monte Ward and others had little regard for the help. It is how business was conducted until the labor movement.

The players never had an effective voice until Marvin Miller. Landis always liked to tout himself as a players' commish but that is just because they were scared of him and brought few problems his way.

[oscargamblesfro]

soden was indeed cheap, and his cheapness was, in part, responsible for some of the remnants of the braves' 1890's dynasty fleeing to the red sox- guys like collins,dinneen,freeman etc..while the team was over the hill by that point, soden certainly was a contributing factor in plunging the most successful club of the 1800's into perennial cellar dwellers.

by the way, i have no idea who the john davidson you mention was, but he can't have sucked worse than the john davidson who croons and hosted "that's incredible!"

[abacab]

Amos Rusie could have been one of the greatest pitchers ever, but he chose to retire at age 27 instead of continuing to play for Andrew Freedman. Now that is a bad owner.

[Brian McKenna]

John Davidson owned the LOU Colonels in the American Association. In 1889 his woeful team was 27-111 and he was losing money fast - so he started fining his players to cover his losses. Some men were fined more than they made. Eventually, it led to six players striking. The fines were eventually "repaid" but Davidson wrote those checks on a closed account. He was forced out at the end of the year.

[Bill Burgess]

Comiskey
Frazee
George Leon Argyros, Sr. - Mariners
J. Earl Wagner

But the topper for the arch-villain -- I was born in Brooklyn. Can you guess?

[Dodger]

Amos Rusie could have been one of the greatest pitchers ever, but he chose to retire at age 27 instead of continuing to play for Andrew Freedman. Now that is a bad owner.

I agree that Freedman is the worst.

He came very close to orchestrating a situation where the entire NL would have been syndicate owned, which could have killed the game.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

What Bill, no Frank Navin on your list? :cool:

I gotta go with the Devil Rays owner, whoever that boob is.

[letsgocubbies]

Well, I'd say Comiskey.

[iPod]

Tom Yawkey.

[MasonDixon]

I'd think it would be whoever owned the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.

[theAmazingMet]

Walter O'Malley and Horace Stoneham. For stealing the heart of New York City for greed and money. They both represent the end of the "golden age" of innocence in sports and the beginnings of big business "who gives a damn about the fans" attitude.

[Steve Jeltz]

Amos Rusie could have been one of the greatest pitchers ever, but he chose to retire at age 27 instead of continuing to play for Andrew Freedman. Now that is a bad owner.

Rusie didn't retire. He sat out the 1896 season for a $5000 dollar contract and a return of a $200 fine that Freedman unjustly levied against Rusie. Rusie filed a civil suit for the $200 and, after the season, realizing the fiasco that Freedman created, other NL owners decided to pool their own money to meet Rusie's $5000 dollar contract demand and his return of the $200 fine from Freedman. Rusie returned in 1897 posting a 28-10 record and leading the NL in ERA.

The owners of the Cleveland Spiders were Frank and Stanley Robison, also the owners of the NL St. Louis Browns at the same time. The Robison's traded all of the best Cleveland players, Cy Young, Bobby Wallace, Jesse Burkett, Patsy Tebeau, to St. Louis, while the Spiders received St. Louis' discards. Thus, that was the reason for the 20-134 record in 1899.

The worst owner in my book is former Phillies owner William F. Baker. Baker singlehandedly created the Phillies losing aura. Whether it was the selling or bad trades of future Hall of Famers (Grover Alexander, Dave Bancroft, Eppa Rixey), or letting his stadium deteriorate to the point where it was literally life threatening for fans to come into,or leaving the team in such sorry financial shape, Baker left a mark on the Phillies that is still somewhat felt today.

[Bluesteve32]

I love the Oscar Gamble Afro user name it reminds me of collecting baseball cards when I was a kid
YoU mean this one:

[Bluesteve32]

As far as the worse owner, I'd say that the Seattle Pilots ownership was quite poor. I don't remember who this guy was, but that whole situation, then he bail out and sells to the Bug Selig group.

[Aa3rt]

As far as the worse owner, I'd say that the Seattle Pilots ownership was quite poor. I don't remember who this guy was, but that whole situation, then he bail out and sells to the Bug Selig group.

The local owners were Dewey and Max Soriano of Seattle, with some monetary backing from William Daley (former Cleveland Indians owner). This ownership group was woefully underfunded and I think that part of the blame for the failure of the Seattle Pilots deserves to be placed on MLB for awarding a franchise to owners that couldn't meet the financial demands that operating a major league franchise requires.

A couple of my nominees:

Bob Short, who traded away the nucleus of a decent Washington Senators team for a washed up, baggage-laden Denny McClain, only to see attendance drop when the team unravelled, and then abscond to Texas with the team in tow. (I might point out, for those who are unaware, that this is the same Bob Short who moved the NBA's Minneapolis Lakers to LA and then sold the Lakers, for an obscene profit, to Jack Kent Cooke.) MLB gets part of the blame for this one too-Short had already shown that he was a carpet bagger-and was looking for some Texas oil money to line his greedy little pockets. :grouchy

Peter Angelos, who has turned a once pround franchise into a haven of mediocrity. :ughh With one of the best stadiums in MLB, the seats go empty due to the poor product on the field. His frequent tantrums are legend in the Maryland legislature. He reminds me of a spoiled rich kid who goes into histronics whenever he doesn't get his way (which isn't very often). Time to sell to out, Pete, to someone who's interested in restoring respectability to the Orioles.

[PopTop]

I based my opinion on Comiskey on all the books I have read. But you're probably right about 19th century owners. Afterall they came up with the reserve clause and presented it as if it was some sort of a prestige award.:rolleyes:Don't kid yourself; the owners knew exactly what they were presenting in the form of the reserve clause, and it had nothing to do with honoring the players and everything to do with putting a leash on themselves the owners.

How about all 15 owners who initially voted against the Brooklyn Dodgers and the integration of baseball?

No votes from me for either Finley or Schott. They may not have been the best of people, but they also were not the worst of owners. Schott never gets enough credit for the fact she stuck up for her fans by demanding that the Reds always be the most affordable ticket in the majors, including concessions, while she was owner.

[dgarza]

H. Wayne Huizenga??? I don't know, just kinda throwing a name out there...
Not a bad person, I guess

[Chisox]

Any owner of the Saint Louis Browns has to be considered a favorite. Or is that least favorite?

[oscargamblesfro]

Any owner of the Saint Louis Browns has to be considered a favorite. Or is that least favorite?
i see your point, but in a way i'm flabbergasted that they managed to somehow survive in st. louis for over 50 years despite having only one postseason experience ( and that during wartime ball) and really only one legitimately strong team-1922, though the 02 browns were good enough for 2nd place also....

[Brian McKenna]

Don't kid yourself; the owners knew exactly what they were presenting in the form of the reserve clause, and it had nothing to do with honoring the players and everything to do with putting a leash on themselves the owners.

How about all 15 owners who initially voted against the Brooklyn Dodgers and the integration of baseball?


These were society's issues as much as baseball. Baseball players had (and have always had) it pretty good compared to other laborers in the 19th century. The remarkable aspect is that the reserve clause still exists today. MLB is a monopoly. They control all 30 (plus an array of minor leagues) corporations in the field. How would you like it is your company could keep you from getting another job in your field?

Baseball, in a way, started the Civil Rights movement. Viewing society as a whole, the 1 out of 16 that did vote for integration was well ahead, percentage-wise, of other large corporations in American business. This is a positive.

[Iron Jaw]

Peter Angelo of the Orioles. His only saving grace is that he ran the best baseball announcer this side of Vin Scully out of town, and the Giants got him.



I'll second Angelos.

[westsidegrounds]

Freedman was dire, no doubt about that. The official histories of baseball will tell you he was "a politician" ... read between the lines, or check contemporary accounts, and it becomes pretty clear that Andrew Freedman was a politician the way Tony Soprano is a haulage contractor. I'm not saying if you look in the dictionary you'll find his picture next to the word "connected", but I'm not saying you won't, either. IfyaknowwhaddImean. Yadiddnthearitfromme, though, OK? So, as far as bringing the game into disrepute, he's tops.

But for sheer straightforward "I have no idea what I'm doing but that ain't gonna stop me" idiotic inept clownish bungling, the Bob Short Award goes to:

Bob Short.

[MATHA531]

There is only one worst owner and that is that sub human piece of garbage slime ball Walter O'Malley for stealing the Dodgers from the borugh of Brooklyn despite the fact they were the biggest money makers in the National League and the 2nd biggest in baseball because he wanted more.

There is no close 2nd.

[yanks0714]

H. Wayne Huizenga??? I don't know, just kinda throwing a name out there...
I can go fort this one big time. This guy came into MLB saying he can buy a pennant. Raised ticket prices, parking, and concession to pay for the high-priced players he brought in. Proceeded to do so in '97. Then, tired of it all and proving his point, sold off the players, dismantled the team, and sold the team to the highest bidder......while leving the fans stuck with higher prices and a poor on field product.

Yes, King George tries to buy pennants too BUT he's hung in there for 32 years now and does turn his profits back into the ballclub.

Other bad owners:
Commiskey (I'm convinced he knew of the fix and profited by it + he was so cheap that led to the Black Sox).

William Baker Not well known but what he did to what was potentially a very good team and taking the fans across.

Peter Angelos Why does this guy think he knows anything about baseball? he's tried to be a cheaper version of Steinbrenner but with much less results. The O's used to be a proud franchise. Now, they are a joke.

Harry Frazee For obvious well documented reasons.

These are my top 5.

[64Cards]

Walter O'Malley and Horace Stoneham.
I would go with Stoneham. I guess you can give O'Malley some props for having succesful teams, making a lot of money and putting up an excellent ballpark, although what he did to Brooklyn was unforgivable. But every other pro sports owner should bow to a statue of O'M, because they were able to extort virtually anything from their communities after.

But Stoneham inherited the franchise with the most tradition and success in NY and before long it was a clearcut 3rd in fan support. His team won the pennant in 51 with the most memorable comeback, wins everything in 54 with a stunning upset, a 4 game sweep on the Injuns, he has the most exciting player in the game and within 2 years his team is drawing 600K. I got a feeling he had absolutely no marketing ability. He was going to move to Minneapolis because he thought he could copy the same success the Braves were having. But he goes along with O'Malley, goes to SF and ends up with possibly the worst ballpark ever built, in a horrible, cold location. Has some decent teams, but only could win 1 pennant, mostly because LA collapsed the last week of the 62 season. By the mid-70's the Giants were a mess on the field and at the gate, I think he was looking to move the team to Toronto or Tampa. Finally sold it, the Giants got some intelligent owners, began drawing well, finally got a great new park in a terrific location. [If I remember correctly, Horace wanted an ugly dome, blocking out SF's nice sunny weather] Horace was a boob.

[Brian McKenna]

The Brooklyn thing is a overdone. O'Malley made a tough decision and proved to be farsighted in his thinking. Financially, the game thrived because of it - New York got another team within four years and baseball tapped the West Coast.

Many other cities in baseball, and other sports have been so victimized.

[MATHA531]

The Brooklyn thing is way overdone. O'Malley made a tough decision and proved to be farsighted in his thinking.

The O'Malley thing can never be overdone. O'Malley was a piece of garbage, who decided that just because he was making a mint, and the Brooklyn franchise was the 2nd biggest money maker in baseball through the 11 year period from 1947 to 1957, it wasn't good enough for him. He lied through his head over heels, he had the unmitigated gall to be entertaining emissaries from Los Angeles in his private box during the 1956 World Series and then he kept telling the people in Brooklyn that he would build this beautiful domed satadium at Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues when he knew damn well this land was not owned by the City of New York and NY State law prohibited it from being condemned to give the land to another private organization.

And Brooklyn has never gotten a franchise back. It was indeed terrible what Irsay did to Baltimore but you got an NFL franchise back a few years later. Brooklyn never got and never will get its franchise back.

So there is no comparison, none whatsoever, between the Baltimore situation and the Brooklyn situation. And I saw plenty of games at Ebbets Field and the park was certainly not falling apart in 1957; it was younger than Wrigley Field, Fenway Park and Briggs (Tiger) Stadium which lasted well into the 1990's and are still operating today so don't tell me he had to get out. He made a real estate deal to sell the land Ebbets Field was built on for housing. He claimed he would take the Brooklyn games off free television and substitue pay television to pay for his ball park; despite the fact the technology did not exist in 1957.

I could go on and on describe what a sub human piece of slime this man was. May he continue to rot in hell!

[oscargamblesfro]

i think it all depends on what your criteria for worst owner is- is it the owner who moved a franchise out of town like o'malley, stoneham, etc, an owner who is extremely cheap like a comiskey, or an owner who wrecked a team or was a satellite of a more wealthy or powerful club such as a frazee?...i think this topic therefore can be broken down into three sub-categories

[Brian McKenna]

The O'Malley thing can never be overdone.
Yeah, I was over the top with my comments. I'll back off them. My apologies.

[steveox]

Peter Angelos. Hes the worst owner in my eyes.Hes a cheapskate he wont get big name money players in order to keep up with red sox or the yankees.

[Brian McKenna]

Peter Angelos. Hes the worst owner in my eyes.Hes a cheapskate he wont get big name money players in order to keep up with red sox or the yankees.

Yeah - you can't have a lawyer as an owner - they don't care about anything and they have very thick skin and always think they are right - baltimore is screwed.

[MATHA531]

...nor a banker (because all that counts is the bottom line and how they can screw people to increase their profits0. And guess what...the sub human slime ball O'Malley was both!

[sweaver]

Freedman was just this side of psychotic. There have been a lot of bad owners, but he has to win the prize IMO.

[efin98]

It's pathetic that fans hold a grudge for 48 years and refuse to accept that their "beloved" team ain't coming back. Get over it.:rolleyes:

[MATHA531]

No, no, we certainly know their not coming back.

But that doesn't mean hatred for this pathetic sub human piece of slime is not appropriate which is a completely separate issue.

[Brian McKenna]

No, no, we certainly know their not coming back.

But that doesn't mean hatred for this pathetic sub human piece of slime is not appropriate which is a completely separate issue.

you sound like my ex-wife

[MATHA531]

I thought the name of the thread was worst owner ever. How could any owner be any worse than this putrid piece of slime who screwed the best fans in baseball for his greed?

The other problem and this is important to many of us who grew up as Brooklyn Dodger fans is that as time passes and there are fewer and fewer of us left, the true story of what happened begins to blur. Some clown wrote a book recently trying to show the slmie ball was not the one totally responsible for this when it is clear that he was a deceitful well piece of garbage.

It is extremely important for the sake of baseball that this miserable excuse for a human being be kept out of the Hall of Fame which some have been pushing for.

I certainly think this qualifies in that category.

[Say Hey]

Tom Yawkey

[BringBackPedro]

Give it to Steinbrenner (wasn't he banned?) he shows no care for people, and unfairly blames Joe Torre, Brian Cashman, and (what was) Mel Stottlymyre.

Right now im watching the World Series on FOX with the T.V behind me.

How I hate Joe Buck...

[steveox]

Give it to Steinbrenner (wasn't he banned?) he shows no care for people, and unfairly blames Joe Torre, Brian Cashman, and (what was) Mel Stottlymyre.

Right now im watching the World Series on FOX with the T.V behind me.

How I hate Joe Buck...
George Wasnt Banned,,You must be taking about Marge Shott.

[wamby]

George Wasnt Banned,,You must be taking about Marge Shott.

Didn't George's dealings with Richard Nixon's re-election committee and Howard Spira get him suspended? I thought he got booted by both Bowie Kuhn and Fay Vincent.

[BringBackPedro]

George Wasnt Banned,,You must be taking about Marge Shott.

I think it got overruled. Google it.

[Brian McKenna]

he was suspended twice:

1) illegal contributions to the nixon campaign
2) hiring a gambler to dig up dirt on winfield


i believe number two was a ban that vincent lifted on his way out of office

[theAmazingMet]

I thought the name of the thread was worst owner ever. How could any owner be any worse than this putrid piece of slime who screwed the best fans in baseball for his greed?

The other problem and this is important to many of us who grew up as Brooklyn Dodger fans is that as time passes and there are fewer and fewer of us left, the true story of what happened begins to blur. Some clown wrote a book recently trying to show the slmie ball was not the one totally responsible for this when it is clear that he was a deceitful well piece of garbage.

It is extremely important for the sake of baseball that this miserable excuse for a human being be kept out of the Hall of Fame which some have been pushing for.

I certainly think this qualifies in that category.

It's funny and NO-ONE outside of Brooklyn will ever understand. Yes it was a shame when the Browns and Colts lost their football teams but at least they got them back! People can't equate with us Original Brooklinites because they never, NONE OF THEM! EVER had a beloved team so ripped from them, and never recovered them, If only existing teams had so much passion for their own EXISTING teams, then maybe they would understand!

[rainout]

I guess we all like Ted Turner. Remember when he made himself manager for a couple games? :laugh

[64Cards]

I've never been in Brooklyn in my life. I was 2 years old when they split for LA, a place I used to like to visit, my grandmother and some other relatives moved there in the mid-50's. But I can only imagine that if in 1969, the St. Louis Cardinals, after a decade with 3 trips to the WS and great fan support, all of a sudden had pulled up stakes and moved to San Diego or something. It had to be like getting your heart ripped out.

[MATHA531]

The theft of the franchise from Brooklyn was the most vile moment in the history of mlb and why people must never forget. As a matter of fact during the 60's the Smithsonian did a study and found the theft of this franchise was the turning point in many people's, not just from Brooklyn, view point of why baseball no longer gave a damn about the fans.

The fact is during the 11 year period from 1947 to 1957, the Brooklyn franchise won 6 NL championships, 1 World championship, lost the pennant on the last day of the season twice. Other than the Yankees, that's a run of success almost unprecedented in major league history.

The fact is the Brooklyn franchise led the NL in attendance during the 11 year period from 1947 to 1957 despite the fact, and remember this is the 50's, every home game and 2/3 of the road games not counting the 11 games in NY were on free television.

A sub human piece of slime owner not happy with making the 2nd most amount of money in baseball was not happy with that. While Brooklyn was celebrating the 1956 NL championship and playing in the World Series, this sub human was entertaining emissaries from LA in his private box.

He told the people of Brookyn it was the politicians who were keeping him from giving them a dream ball park at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues in Brooklyn. One small problem, that was not public land at the time and NY State law prohibited the city and/or state from condemning land beling to one private organization to give to another private organization. He also claimed he would finance the building of the stadium by taking the games off free televison and replacing it by pay television, despite the fact the technology did not exist in 1957.

Brooklyn never got and will never get a team back that made it special. Brooklyn is not the same as NYC; they were considered a separate city when the NL was formed in 1890 and considered a separate city throughout their history in the NL. The Mets represent nYC but do not represent Brooklyn.

There were 2 other nebulous franchise shifts in sports...The Colts from Baltimore but a couple of years later Baltimore got an NFL franchise back so there's a void of a couple of years but Baltimore has NFL football. Cleveland was another job almost as bad as Brooklyn, but not only did they get their team back but they even got the name back too so while there is a couple of years of void, it has been rectified.

What has been done to rectify what was done to Brooklyn? If you think the Mets are the substitute you know little about Brooklyn.

There was only one Brooklyn Dodgers and it was stolen from the people of Brooklyn by a sub human slime ball who was by far, and there is no close second, the worst owner ever.

[Chisox]

The Dodgers moving to LA may have been bad for Brooklyn, but it's just Brooklyn. It was wonderful for the MLB as it gave millions more the chance to experience major league baseball. That is what is most important. Without that move, baseball would be nothing today. The Braves moving to Milwaukee, Dodgers and Giants to California, Senators moving to Minnesota were very healthy moves for baseball. Maybe some poeple can't recognize that (a lot of) life does exist west of NY and having the teams concentrated in one area where nobody can see them outside of the northeast is a horrible thing. Maybe it was the worst thing Major League Baseball did for Brooklynites, but it was the best thing that happened for the rest of the baseball world. Who Brooklynites call scum I call a visionary.

[Brian McKenna]

The Dodgers moving to LA may have been bad for Brooklyn, but it's just Brooklyn. It was wonderful for the MLB as it gave millions more the chance to experience major league baseball. That is what is most important. Without that move, baseball would be nothing today. The Braves moving to Milwaukee, Dodgers and Giants to California, Senators moving to Minnesota were very healthy moves for baseball. Maybe some poeple can't recognize that (a lot of) life does exist west of NY and having the teams concentrated in one area where nobody can see them outside of the northeast is a horrible thing. Maybe it was the worst thing Major League Baseball did for Brooklynites, but it was the best thing that happened for the rest of the baseball world. Who Brooklynites call scum I call a visionary.

I have to agree with a lot of that because I'm from Baltimore and I'll give you O'Malley did the move and the positive consequences followed for all of MLB (not baseball but MLB) - especially the owner's pockets - but the vision was already there. he was the one who actually capitalized on it sure but he was lucky in that respect too.

- the PCL was highly successful for decades, they put on a quality show and the fans supported such
- the NFL had moved to the west coast in 1946, demonstrating the feasibility of air travel
- Don Barnes had the transfer of the St. Louis Browns to Los Angeles virtually completed in December 1941 but the Japanese military bombed Pearl Harbor, dashing the ambitious plans
- the braves moving to milwaukee (and the attendence boom) really opened everyone's eyes about the potential of the west
- what really made this move possible was television and advertisers like Gillette (the real visionaires). In 1951 coaxial cable was finally strung over the Rocky Mountains allowing live television to be seen throughout the nation (previously all video was taped and reran on the other side.) This immediately benefited the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams in the NFL, who had taken a big risk (guaranteeing visiting clubs higher gate receipts to compensate for the extra travel) uprooting to the West Coast from Cleveland in 1946. Soon, the major leagues would become interested in California.

Keep in mind that MLB is a monopoly and has always operated as such. Others have always paid the price, always a bigger price, for MLB decisions. Like the Negro leagues, the PCL was devastated by MLB's incursions. They developed the area or players and big daddy came in an took it. This encroachment is why "organized baseball" was developed. Why any minor league team would subjucate themselves within the framework of the National Association. This all was made possible because of television could not broadcast anywhere. They probably didn't realize it that day but when the coaxil cable reached California, the PCL would be changed forever.

If you want a modern example this very thing - almost the exact same sequence of events - look at how the WWE took over the entire professional wrestling market after Vince McMahon purchased the company from his father.

[steveox]

No one here is complaning about the st louis browns moved to baltimore.The only fans whining about browns moving to baltimore are those fans on lake erie.:clapping

[Captain Cold Nose]

No one here is complaning about the st louis browns moved to baltimore.The only fans whining about browns moving to baltimore are those fans on lake erie.:clapping
The Browns of St. Louis never drew. And, 40 years is 40 years. There were plenty of rumors about them moving, including to LA. It certainly can't be on the fans for what Art Modell did when the City of Cleveland wouldn't give him what he asked for. Unlike the Gunds or the Erteguns.
Two different stories, altogether. Besides, this is Baseball Fever. Football discussion is off topic.

[NeverGetOverIt]

The Brooklyn thing is a overdone. O'Malley made a tough decision and proved to be farsighted in his thinking. Financially, the game thrived because of it - New York got another team within four years and baseball tapped the West Coast.

Many other cities in baseball, and other sports have been so victimized.


O'Malley made a greedy, deceptive decision. Baseball at that time was a professional sport, not just a cash cow. The team was making money and was loved by New Yorkers, and the games were well attended. O'Malley was the worst owner, he betrayed the fans solely for greed. I hope he has the hottest spot in hell.:grouchy

[thenextsuperstar]

The Phillies had the only two owners barred from the game:

William Cox and Horace Fogel


:gt
:clapping

Those the names i would throw out there.

[Bluesteve32]

O'Malley made a greedy, deceptive decision. Baseball at that time was a professional sport, not just a cash cow. The team was making money and was loved by New Yorkers, and the games were well attended. O'Malley was the worst owner, he betrayed the fans solely for greed. I hope he has the hottest spot in hell.:grouchy

Sorry, that spot is reserved for people who drive too slowly in the fast lane of the freeway. :grouchy

[steveox]

Worst Owner is this man hands down!
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/net/20050127/capt.4bd1e9e1a09f75680467916ededa84e2
Orioles were one of the best franchises and peter angelos ruined it.

[mordeci]

My soapbox please! It's been my goal for some time to remind people what a scumbag John Brush was. Below is a re-print from what I posted in the "greatest villans" thread. The thing that seperates Brush from the others is that he was allowed to keep doing these thing for years, with 3 different teams (Indianapolis, Cincinnati, New York Giants).


Created and pushed through the "Brush classification system", a psuedo-salary cap that rated players based on last years stats and required all players in each class to be paid exactly the same, much lower than salaries at the time. This led to the players' strike of 1890.

Owned Cincinnati of the NL and Indianapolis of the Western League at the same time. Freely traded players back and forth to make the Reds the better team, which was against the rules at the time.

Traded Christy Mathewson to the Giants for Amos Rusie. A traded of one HOFer for another seems like a good deal, but Rusie had been out of baseball for over a year with arm problems. Rusie pitched 3 games then retired. Mathewson was 17 years old and had never pitched in the bigs. He turned out to be fairly good. Brush had secretly bought controlling interest in the Giants and made the trade to take Matty with him.

Even when he does something beneficial it was by accident. As owner of the Reds he solved his on-going fued with Cincy sportswriter Ban Johnson by getting him a job as commissioner of the Western League. When Johnson changed the name to the American League and declared it a major league, Brush refused to recognize the league and even went to court to keep the AL from putting a team in New York (not such a bad idea for us Yankee haters).

Boycotted the 1904 world series as owner of the Giants due to his still strong fued with Ban Johnson:

"The Giants will not play a post season series with the American League champions. Ban Johnson has not been on the level with me personally, and the American League management has been crooked more than once."
-John T. Brush

Sorry for the long post, but I really dislike John T. Brush.

As a Reds' fan it still breaks my heart that Mathewson had 378 wins for the Giants vs. 1 for the Reds.

[Victory Faust]

Although he certainly doesn't quality as "worst ever," Detroit Tigers owner Mike Ilitch has conducted a clinic on how to take a good franchise and totally run it into the ground.

The Tigers were one of the most respected franchises in pro sports when Ilitch purchased the team. Since then, the Tigers have notched 12 straight losing seasons. In addition, Ilitch was responsible for abandoning Tiger Stadium.

And, another notch on his resume: Ilitch was the first owner to install those rolling advertisements behind home plate. For that alone, he at least gets honorable mention.

[DoubleX]

Has anyone mentioned Jeffrey Loria yet? He's in the process of deliberately ruining his second franchise. He's like the owner from the movie Major League.

[Melottfan]

Chas. Comiskey. I'll tell you why. I blame him for the 1919 Series fix. He refused to pay his players top dollar. Only Eddie Collins, 2b, was earning an honest paycheck, so to speak, $14,500. Collins had it in his contract. The rest of the team earned between $3,000 to $9,000. Shoeless Joe Jackson I
believed made $6,000. Meal money players got $3.00 a day, compared to $4.00 what other teams of the day were getting. He refused to clean the unfiorms. When the players wore dirty uni's, Comiskey had money deducted from their checks to clean them. When they won the pennant in '19
their bonus, case of flat champagne. Let's not forget the bonus of $10,000 promised to Cicotte if he won 30 games. Comiskey had Cicotte out of the rotation in order not to pay Cicotte the bonus when Ciccotte won 29.

Comiskey hands down.

[Imapotato]

Well I wouldn't nominate Freedman or Brush...without them, baseball would have been alot different...their greed backfired for the greater good of the game

Just on what they did

William Cox of the Phillies...banned for life for gambling, what a way to spend money on a club then lose it in a blink of an eye...good going moron

[ArealBASEBALLfan]

That would have to be Comiskey becasue well you all know what happend

[Ubiquitous]

Chas. Comiskey. I'll tell you why. I blame him for the 1919 Series fix. He refused to pay his players top dollar. Only Eddie Collins, 2b, was earning an honest paycheck, so to speak, $14,500. Collins had it in his contract. The rest of the team earned between $3,000 to $9,000. Shoeless Joe Jackson I
believed made $6,000. Meal money players got $3.00 a day, compared to $4.00 what other teams of the day were getting. He refused to clean the unfiorms. When the players wore dirty uni's, Comiskey had money deducted from their checks to clean them. When they won the pennant in '19
their bonus, case of flat champagne. Let's not forget the bonus of $10,000 promised to Cicotte if he won 30 games. Comiskey had Cicotte out of the rotation in order not to pay Cicotte the bonus when Ciccotte won 29.

Comiskey hands down.

Okay most of this is just myths. For starters Ray Schalk was the highest paid catcher in the league. Buck Weaver was the highest paid third basemen, and Commy did not bench Cicotte to prevent a bonus from kicking in. Eddie failed to get to thirty and he had plenty of chances to get to 30 when he got to 29 wins. Joe Jackson's contract is his fault he signed it when he was in Cleveland that wasn't Charlie's doing.

[Rusty Barr]

Yeah, I think Comiskey was a tight wad. But I don't think he was any tighter than most owners during that time period. I think he gets a bad rap from the Black Sox sentimentalists.

BEFORE 1920 he was hailed often as one of the Best owners in baseball. He would often stand for hours under the bleachers before and after games interacting with the fans to hear what they thought about the team.

He also cared and tried hard to assemble a great team.

Frazee was the worst owner of all time to me. The guy totally destroyed the Red Sox franchise. I have a feeling had it not been for Frazee the Red Sox would have been the Yankees and vice-versa.

:atthepc

[sschirmer]

Any owner of the Saint Louis Browns has to be considered a favorite. Or is that least favorite?


Please tell me that you did exactly ZERO research before posting this. Bill Veeck should be involved in any conversation involving the BEST owners in BB history, not the worst!

[Gjm130]

You forgot JEFFREY LORIA!!!!!!
The guy single handedly killed two franchise regions: Southern Florida and Montreal.....:( :(

[EdTarbusz]

O'Malley made a greedy, deceptive decision. Baseball at that time was a professional sport, not just a cash cow. The team was making money and was loved by New Yorkers, and the games were well attended. O'Malley was the worst owner, he betrayed the fans solely for greed. I hope he has the hottest spot in hell.:grouchy

O'Malley also had an aging team, an undesirable ballpark and declining attendance. The Dodgers made money through the 50s but a portion of that came from World Series appearances and O'Malley had a team that was getting old and had a good chance of not being able to compete with the Milwaukee Braves. The Dodgers also had a higher overhead then most teams because of their large farm system.

The Brooklyn Dodgers attendance figures during O'Malley's tenure as president (1951-1957 seasons) do not support your statement that the games were well attended.

[MATHA531]

O'Malley also had an aging team, an undesirable ballpark and declining attendance. The Dodgers made money through the 50s but a portion of that came from World Series appearances and O'Malley had a team that was getting old and had a good chance of not being able to compete with the Milwaukee Braves. The Dodgers also had a higher overhead then most teams because of their large farm system.

The Brooklyn Dodgers attendance figures during O'Malley's tenure as president (1951-1957 seasons) do not support your statement that the games were well attended.

History, of course, shows that this is UTTER NONSENSE

1. Brooklyn had, by far, the best radio television package in baseball; better than even the Yankees. There was no possibility in an interuption of their cash flow. A radio television package the Milwaukee Braves could not possibly match in 50,000,000 years.

2. Due to this and good attendance for the times (drawing 1,000,000 was the delineation between good attendance and fair attendance) as the Dodgers drew over 1,000,000 even in their lame duck season when everybody knew what this piece of garbage was going to pull.

3. The farm system was producing as evidenced by the fact they were to win the World Series in 1959 and become very much a contender from 1961 on. The ground work for this was laid down while still in Brooklyn.

4. The Milwaukee thing, of course, proved to be an illusion.

There was no defense then and there remains no defense today for what he pulled. It is the blackest mark in the history of baseball and was one of the factors, when it was shown that no matter how well you supported your team, the need for greed transcended this, and helped paved the way for the demise of baseball as the national pastime as the ascendary of the NFL quickly followed.

There should have been a fail safe then where a Commissioner with a pair of you know whats could have stepped in and said this is not in the best interests of baseball which it clearly wasn't. And none of this how for the good of baseball, it was necessary to have teams on the west coast. That's true but it should have been an expansion team or a team that was a failure.

The Brooklyn Dodgers, and I know you continue with tyour theory as expressed in your reply which has no basis in reality, were far from a failure in the 1950's. They remain a symbol of the fact that greed transcends everything else, at least for some people. You base what you believe on what you read which in many respects tells half truths and more often lies about what happened in 1957. I was there and I know what happened from personal experience. Unfortunately, after all this time, you still don't get it.

[EdTarbusz]

I think that opening up the west coast was in the best interest of baseball and that is probably what the commissioner was looking at. Without an adequete stadium deal, I don't think there was any chance of the Dodgers remaining in Brooklyn.

Since O'Malley didn't posses a crystal ball any mention of post 1957 events isn't germane to this conversation, in my opinion.

I don;t think the Brooklyn Dodgers were in failure in the 1950s, but the there was a strong possibility that they were on their way to failure. I think that's what O'Malley wanted to avoid.

As far as you being there, what are your recollections of what went on in the Dodger and City of New York boardrooms?

[MATHA531]

I think that opening up the west coast was in the best interest of baseball and that is probably what the commissioner was looking at. Without an adequete stadium deal, I don't think there was any chance of the Dodgers remaining in Brooklyn.

Since O'Malley didn't posses a crystal ball any mention of post 1957 events isn't germane to this conversation, in my opinion.

I don;t think the Brooklyn Dodgers were in failure in the 1950s, but the there was a strong possibility that they were on their way to failure. I think that's what O'Malley wanted to avoid.

As far as you being there, what are your recollections of what went on in the Dodger and City of New York boardrooms?

There was a very lucrative stadium deal on the table. The Dodgers were being offered the exact same deal the Mets were later to get which turned out to be one of the best Stadium deals in baseball history.

The move was made for one reason and one reason only. The greed of Mr. O'Malley who not satisfied with being the biggest money maker in the National League, and there was no danger whatsoever of that changing everything cosidered, decided that wasn't good enough for him.

We must also throw in the give him anything he want immoral stand of the city officials in Los Angeles who didn't give a damn about the proper use of the land at Chavez Ravine.

From a baseball viewpoint, from a moral viewpoint, there was no justification for the theft of the Brooklyn franchise. From a greed viewpoint, well as noted that was the end of any notion that there was any civic responsibility in baseball which baseball tried to sell on the public. Even fans living outside of Brooklyn saw the immorality of this whole thing.

And this played a very very big role in the end of the dominance of major league baseball as the national pastime. From then on, it was the NFL.

And what happened post 1957 is very germane to show this was then and remains by far the blackest moment in the history of professional sports in this country. There is no close second.

[EdTarbusz]

I don't inderstand what was immoral about the Chavez Ravine deal or how immorality even factors into a discussion of baseball.

I think the Shea Stadium was not not considered lucaritive by O'Malley because he was on the record as wanting to own the stadium that the Dodgers played in. I think staying in New York would have also meant that O'Malley would be a second banana in both baseball and political circles, which he obviously wasn't in LA. I don't think the Dodger move was nessicarily made out of greed, but a move by O'Malley to protect his investment and move out of a stagnant situation. If Brooklyn Dodgers fans are looking for someone to blame for the move, they blame the city officials of New York, not Walter O'Malley. Dodgers ownership was on record as far back as 1948 that the only way the Dodgers could remain viable in Brooklyn was to replace Ebbets Field. Apparently New York officials never took this seriously.

[MATHA531]

I don't inderstand what was immoral about the Chavez Ravine deal or how immorality even factors into a discussion of baseball.

I think the Shea Stadium was not not considered lucaritive by O'Malley because he was on the record as wanting to own the stadium that the Dodgers played in. I think staying in New York would have also meant that O'Malley would be a second banana in both baseball and political circles, which he obviously wasn't in LA. I don't think the Dodger move was nessicarily made out of greed, but a move by O'Malley to protect his investment and move out of a stagnant situation. If Brooklyn Dodgers fans are looking for someone to blame for the move, they blame the city officials of New York, not Walter O'Malley. Dodgers ownership was on record as far back as 1948 that the only way the Dodgers could remain viable in Brooklyn was to replace Ebbets Field. Apparently New York officials never took this seriously.

Definition of greed: Greed is the selfish desire for or pursuit of money, wealth, power, food, or other possessions, especially when this denies the same goods to others. It is generally considered a vice, and is one of the seven deadly sins in Catholicism.

Mr. O'Malley certainly fits under this definition.

As far as putting the blame on the city officials in New York, what were they to do? Hand over to him property they did not own (Atlantic/Flatbush)..eminent domain laws exist to prevent this sort of thing.

Why didn't Mr. O'Malley go out, the same way Charlie Ebbets had a generation earlier, and negotiate with the Pennsylvania Railroad himself to set a fair price? Mr. O'Malley wanted the City of New York to condemn this land under laws designed to encourage building of public properties such as schools, hospitals, highways, whatever. Certainly the construction of a privately owned baseball stadium does not fit under this definition or do you disagree with that?

The fact is all the franchise shifts that occurred around that time were not because of handouts by various city politicians. In each case, the teams were moving into publically owned stadiums so why shouldn't Mr. O'Malley?

The future location of Shea Stadium was perfect. It was at the confluence of three highways to bring in his many fans who had moved to Long Island but also with subway connections to allow fans still living in Brooklyn easy access to the Stadium. And the lease deal with the Mets was, of course, considered one of the best in the history of sports. He could have had the same thing but wanted his own.

Now the immorality on the part of the city politicians in LA comes from the fact that they had originally condemned the land in Chavez Ravine, using eminent domain no doubt, for public housing. But that got bogged down and they decided to hand over the land (well O'Malley did give them back Wrigley Field but interestingly enough never made an offer to exchange the land at Ebbets Field, he had already sold that to make a profit but that's all another story isn't it)...much against, of course, what the intent of eminent domain laws were all about.

In blunt terms, O'Malley tried to blackmail the city officials in New York. As a baseball fan, I suppose I should have been in favor of that. As a taxpayer, it was something that the taxpayers of New York City did not deserve obviously.

It was also clear, even then, that it was the wrong place to put a ballpark given the lack of highway access to that area. Mr. O'Malley claimed the fans would all take the subways and the LIRR there at a time when the automobile was starting to become king in America. That too was very short sighted if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt or an indication that he was using Atlantic/Flatbush as a smoke screen, that he intended to move but wanted to try to seem like he was trying to save for history and also to have the fans continue to spend their money and loyalty on the team as long as he could.

You keep continuing to think there was any chance of a decrease in revenue. Channel 9 and the radio network had very deep pockets so there was no danger of that whatsoever.

And of course, while you seem to think we shouldn't use our knowledge of what ultimately has happened, a genius might have been able to figure it out. The fact is the Mets (and Yankees) thanks to their very favorable leases, the passion of East Coast baseball fans, and their regional networks have the ability to all but print money. That is why in the Forbes rankings of the value of baseball teams they far beat out the current imposter organization playing on the West Coast. That is a fact that cannot be argued. As a matter of fact, I have read several columnists talk about a bit of a problem in the LA National League's team cash flow problems. Don't know how true it is but clearly they are no match for the Mets.

All of this could have been O'Malley's but he felt the need for greed (see definition above). He told a generation of fans, tough luck, I don't give a damn how much you support the team. It is mine and I have the right to make more money on your backs because an immoral city government in Los Angeles is giving me free land.

Of course, we can't leave out some of the greedy things Mr. O'Malley did after his theft of the franchise from Brooklyn upon arriving in Los Angeles. Let's not forget the mockery he made of the game by playing his home games at a venue where many of the seats were so far from the action, they might as well have been in Pasadena. And then the ridiculous distances to left field with the screen (at least Ebbets Field was 297 to right field)...why did he do this and not play in Wrigley Field, a real baseball stadium? Then there was the fact he ripped all of the team's games off of free television waiting for the pay television that was still decades away. Or when he finally opened the Stadium at Chavez Ravine, there were no water fountains all the better to get you to buy soda and beer. Yes, these were all marks of a true sportsman.

And as noted, that is where the Commissioner had every obligation to step in and act in the best interests of baseball. Bowie Kuhn claims he would have (I do understand talk is cheap especially after the fact).

But as noted, ultimately baseball was the big loser because the ascent of the NFL, thanks to the NY based media hooking on to the NY Giants football team, immediately followed.

As I said, nobody will ever convince me that this wasn't one of the blackest moments in the history of baseball, the contempt for its fans in the pursuit of greed.

[EdTarbusz]

Public housing in Chavez Ravine didn't get bogged down by politicians. The plan was scrapped because of a referendum in which the voters voted down the plan.

O'Malley wanted the Board of Estimate to condemn the land he wanted so that he could pay a fair market price for it, The Board of Estimate (unlike Moses's department) had the power of eminent domain, but all five boros had a vote in it, and thwere was little interest outside Brooklyn for O'Malley's plan. To do it the same way that Ebbets did it was impossible.

If the Forbes rankings were available in O'Malley's lifetime, I get the impression that he wouldn't have cared if the Mets were more valuable than the Dodgers. he got what he wanted in LA, and I doubt that he would have been as powerful an owner if he stayed in New York, because he would havce always played second fiddle to the Yankees. i see him mainly as someone who feared for the future of his franchise and not the greedy ******* that he is usually portrayed as.

[MATHA531]

Public housing in Chavez Ravine didn't get bogged down by politicians. The plan was scrapped because of a referendum in which the voters voted down the plan.

O'Malley wanted the Board of Estimate to condemn the land he wanted so that he could pay a fair market price for it, The Board of Estimate (unlike Moses's department) had the power of eminent domain, but all five boros had a vote in it, and thwere was little interest outside Brooklyn for O'Malley's plan. To do it the same way that Ebbets did it was impossible.

If the Forbes rankings were available in O'Malley's lifetime, I get the impression that he wouldn't have cared if the Mets were more valuable than the Dodgers. he got what he wanted in LA, and I doubt that he would have been as powerful an owner if he stayed in New York, because he would havce always played second fiddle to the Yankees. i see him mainly as someone who feared for the future of his franchise and not the greedy ******* that he is usually portrayed as.

So Ed, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this. You have your viewpoint, which you are certainly entitled to and I don't begrudge it, and I have my view point. Nobody is ever going to change my belief of what kind of greedy scoundrel O'Malley was. I will always believe that being a lawyer he knew Atlantic/Flatbush was a no go from the start. As a pragmatic person, he had to know it was not the right place for a 60,000 seat ballpark. That was true then and remains true to this day. The perfect location was Flushing Meadow; it was then and it is now.

His actions, which you didn't answer about, once he got to LA speak for themselves as to just what kind of a "sportsman" he was.

There is only one question here from a sports viewpoint. Did the Brooklyn fans who supported the team through thick and thin, and the attendance figures show that as the Dodgers led the National League by a wide margin in overall attendance during the 10 year period from 1947 to 1956. You can't put it in 21st century terms, you put it in 20th century terms. All teams suffered from a decrease in attendance as the 50's wore on. The Milwaukee thing turned out to be an illusion but even with their attendance figures, Milwaukee had no radio/tv market to speak of and the Dodgers were rolling in lots of money from their radio network and television situation. That simply cannot be left out of the equation.

But as time passes, and the people from Brooklyn whose hearts were broken by this greedy person start leaving this world, the myth of how Walter O'Malley did everything he could do to keep the team in New York and when big bad Robert Moses didn't fall for his blackmail had no choice but to move the team to the West Coast as he was in danger of losing money, which is absurd of course and what you seem unable to understand, will become fact rather than fiction.

Mr. O'Malley represented the worst in baseball ownership and his theft of the Brooklyn franchise was the first step in the degradation of major league baseball as the national pastime. Of that, there can be little doubt if one examines the facts carefully.

But as I said, you're entitled to your opinion, wrong as it may be.

[digglahhh]

Whoa!

I didn't know the ghost of Robert Moses was a member of BBF...

The clash of egos between O'Mallley and Moses was a big part of the whole feud and, ultimately, the outcome. Neither Moses nor O'Malley, despite occasional lip service paid to contrary, were willing to budge on their positions/demands. The merits of the Queens deal aside, I believe that O'Malley truly believed that he was backed into a corner.

But, discussing the whole situation with the crestfallen Brooklynites who wear faux PTSD as a self-righteous badge of their conviction is like debating the finer nuances of Darwin's theories on evolution with the Pope (or Carl Everett).

Despite what you may feel, MATHA, the moral imperative in the situation was not the fragile emotional states of the Brooklyn Dodger fanbase, it was making the move that was best for the city (Dodger fans' feelings being but an element of that), or from a Commish perspective what is best for the sport of baseball as a whole. The absurdly irrational perspective of the Bk devotees is evidenced in statements like the one condemning L.A's offer as immoral. L.A. has the same moral obligation to its population as New York did to its population - to make a decision in the best interest of the city. It's not supposed to look out for the interests of diehards from BK, and public housing referendum was voted down, as Ed mentioned. Welcome to capitalism, hombre - sucks doesn't it?...

The Dodgers were not "stolen." The Supersonics were stolen!

[digglahhh]

But as noted, ultimately baseball was the big loser because the ascent of the NFL, thanks to the NY based media hooking on to the NY Giants football team, immediately followed.

Grasp for straws much?

[Bill Burgess]

Here are some of the Brooklyn attendance numbers, according to Total Baseball.

1941 - 1,214,910 - 1st place
1942 - 1,037,765 - 1st
1943 - 661,739 - 1st
1944 - 605,905 - 3rd to Giants/Cubs (Walter's 1st. year as a Brooklyn investor.)
1945 - 1,036,386 - 1st
1946 - 1,796,824 - 1st
1947 - 1,807,526 - 1st (1st yr. of Jackie Robinson)
1948 - 1,398,967 - 4th after Cardinals, Giants, Braves
1949 - 1,633,747 - 1st
1950 - 1,185,896 - 2nd to Phillies (1st yr. of TV)
1951 - 1,282,628 - 1st
1952 - 1,088,704 - 1st
1953 - 1,163,419 - 2nd to Milwaukee's 1st season
1954 - 1,020,531 - 4th after Milwaukee, Giants, Cardinals
1955 - 1,033,589 - 2nd after Milwaukee
1956 - 1,213,562 - 2nd after Milwaukee
1957 - 1,028,258 - 5th after Milwaukee, Cardinals, Phillies, Reds (fans knew the team was probably leaving, and still turned out!)

From the chart above, I hope it is obvious that Walter enjoyed the most loyal fans in the game. They had a much smaller fan pool than had the Yankees, and yet, they continuously poured into little Ebbets Field, which was much less luxurious than was Yankee Stadium, which enjoyed a much better neighborhood, and better transportation convenience via subways.

Ebbets Field only held 32,000. So, the fans were averaging about 14,000 fans/game all through the 50's. That averages out to about .43% of capacity/game.

It was these fans who Walter was indebted to for his wealth. He started with a lot of money, and ended up a multi, multi millionaire, all due to his fans.

Walter O'Malley enjoyed the most loyal fans in the game. I do not see baseball as a bakery. There is normally a special bond between a baseball team owner and his fans. Under normal circumstances, the owner owes his wealth to his fans. They are his bread and butter, put the meat on his table, pay for his kids' education and his parents health care. The fans pay his players' salaries, his ballpark's maintenance, and all his park vendors, from the concessions to the parking.

It is the fan's who pay for it all. And from the chart above, I don't see the argument for leaving. Walter was a very lucky man to have such fans. Not all his fans were rich. Most were blue collar working stiffs. And many ended up being black. And despite the apartheid social climate outside Ebbets Field, there was harmony, and a good sportsmanship feeling inside its walls.

Walter was dazzled by the Milwaukee move. Despite his being supported by his fan base, he wanted more. More fans, bigger, better ballpark, more wealth.

He was like the guy who married his pretty high-school girlfriend, and after a successful 10-year marriage, gets his head turned by a gorgeous, rich woman, and dumps the loyal partner who stood by him in the lean years, and goes for the 'greener pastures'.

I will never have any sympathy for the scumbag that they just had the horrible taste to honor with the Hall of Fame. Sorry all of you guys calling it a 'business decision'. Baseball should be about more than the money. And for those who treat it that way, honoring them with the Hall of Fame is an ongoing ugly disgrace. But then again, the game of baseball has seldom been about doing the right thing.

[Let's Go Mets!]

Walter O'Malley enjoyed the most loyal fans in the game. I do not see baseball as a bakery. There is normally a special bond between a baseball team owner and his fans. Under normal circumstances, the owner owes his wealth to his fans. They are his bread and butter, put the meat on his table, pay for his kids' education and his parents health care. The fans pay his players' salaries, his ballpark's maintenance, and all his park vendors, from the concessions to the parking.

It is the fan's who pay for it all. And from the chart above, I don't see the argument for leaving. Walter was a very lucky man to have such fans. Not all his fans were rich. Most were blue collar working stiffs. And many ended up being black. And despite the apartheid social climate outside Ebbets Field, there was harmony, and a good sportsmanship feeling inside its walls.

Walter was dazzled by the Milwaukee move. Despite his being supported by his fan base, he wanted more. More fans, bigger, better ballpark, more wealth.

He was like the guy who married his pretty high-school girlfriend, and after a successful 10-year marriage, gets his head turned by a gorgeous, rich woman, and dumps the loyal partner who stood by him in the lean years, and goes for the 'greener pastures'.

I will never have any sympathy for the scumbag that they just had the horrible taste to honor with the Hall of Fame. Sorry all of you guys calling it a 'business decision'. Baseball should be about more than the money. And for those who treat it that way, honoring them with the Hall of Fame is an ongoing ugly disgrace. But then again, the game of baseball has seldom but about doing the right thing.

Agree on all points, and those of Matha.

Sorry Ed, but none of your points are convincing.

Simply put, Walter O'Malley was a greedy pig.

May he continue to rot in his grave.

[EdTarbusz]

Here are some of the Brooklyn attendance numbers, according to Total Baseball.

1.

For a boro with 3 million people (and probably the same number on Long Island) and the supposedly most rabid fans in baseball, these attendance figures stink. Ebbets Fiekl should have been averaging about 25,000 per game. If the fans were coming out, the attendance figures should have stayed at 1947 levels. The fact that Ebbets Field usually had less then half capacity says volumes about the the condition of the park and the the difficulty of reaching it. From 1953 onward, especially, after the Braves move, the attendance stunk, especially for a team that won three pennants.

[MATHA531]

For a boro with 3 million people (and probably the same number on Long Island) and the supposedly most rabid fans in baseball, these attendance figures stink. Ebbets Fiekl should have been averaging about 25,000 per game. If the fans were coming out, the attendance figures should have stayed at 1947 levels. The fact that Ebbets Field usually had less then half capacity says volumes about the the condition of the park and the the difficulty of reaching it. From 1953 onward, especially, after the Braves move, the attendance stunk, especially for a team that won three pennants.

And what about the rest of the NL?

Also there are lots of things about baseball in the 50's that you simply don't and can't comprehend.

Brooklyn played only about 2 night games a week, the Tuesday night game of a mid week series, the Wednesday and Thursday games were afternoon games..pretty hard to get working people to the ballpark eh...the Friday game of a weekend series was a night game...every Saturday was Ladies Day...all women were allowed into the ballpark for a 50¢ service charge and not counted in attendance...thousands of local kids in various cub scout packs, church organizations and others attended the Saturday games as part of the Knothole game promotion...not counted in paid attendance...every Sunday was a one admission double header or just about every Sunday cutting down no doubt on your attempt to come up with an average attendance because you probably divided by 77 (for the 77 home games) when you were lucky, since rain outs were made up as single admission double headers unlike today, if a team in the 1950's had more than 65 or so openings...that would certainly change the attendance figures don't you think.

And all this was achieved with the Dodgers rolling in a pretty penny from Channel 9 which televised every home game (and 2/3 of the road games with an additional 11 road games televised by the Giants) with the Dodgers controlling the pre game show (Happy Felton's Knothole Gang before every home game) and the post game (Happy Felton's Talk to the Stars)....the Dodgers also controlled the pre game radio show (Warm Up time with Marty Glickman, Ward Wilson and Gussie Moran in the later years that I remember) plus had a large radio network throughout New York State.

Ebbets Field was well served by public transportation but admitedly not by automobiles and not particularly close to the LIRR where many Dodger fans took refuge as the 50's went on. It was far easier to watch the game on television than to get home from work at 6:30 sit down and eat dinner and then try to get from home to the ballpark. When these same people were living in Brooklyn, no problem. They could go home, eat dinner, get on the subway or the trolley and make Ebbets Field in time for the first pitch at 8:00 PM...it is this that made the Shea Stadium future location the ideal spot for the ball park. That of course is very easy to see in 20/20 hindsight of course. I don't know how well you and the others here who are joining in the discussion know New York City but you can look at a map and see just how ideal the Shea Stadium location was.

Can you imagine the crowds that would have attended during the 1964 and 1965 World's Fair at Flushing Meadow with the championship Dodgers playing there!

Sorry Ed...in 1950 terms, the Dodgers were reeking in plenty of money and drawing very well indeed. Every thing I can see about this tells me Atlantic/Flatbush was a smoke screen...he had something going on and as a lawyer, an officer of the courts,. knew what New York's eminent domain laws said.

And it is very clear now that at the end of 1956, on the Dodgers return to the USA from their trip to Japan after the World Series, the plane stopped over in Los Angeles so he could be helicoptered over Chavez Ravine and he told the LA city officials (doggone, history might really have been different if that helicopter had crashed) not to worry, he was coming but he would have to play out the 1957 season in Brooklyn while he made all the arrangements, got the Giants owner to change his plans to move to Minneapolis, secured the LA PCL franchise from Phil Wrigley in exchange for the Ft. Worth AA franchise, bought a plane...all this should have made clear his true intentions. Yet he lied and lied to the people of Brookyn how he was making every effort to stay; all the better to protect his gate and give his fans false hope but he was gone. For these lies alone, he is disqualified from the Hall of Fame on moral issues. He should have had the you know whats to tell the people of Brooklyn he was gone but he couldn't pass up the last dimes he could squeeze from them, now could he. Is that the mark of a gentleman? or a lying scoundrel? Try to defend that you O'Malley lovers.

And of course what happened when he got to LA? He took the games off free television, figuring pay tv was just around the corner. He was wrong of course but deprived millions of his new fans the opportunity to see his team. He played in a ridiculous ballpark, the LA Coliseum which made baseball a travesty instead of the baseball field he owned namely Wrigley Field which he magnanimously agreed to give to the city of Los Angeles in exchange for the handout at Chavez Ravine. And of course when O'Malley Stadium opened in 1962, there were no water fountains. This is a fact you can easily check out; all the better to force his fans to buy soda or beer with their O'Malley dogs. Was this the sign of a gentleman or a true sportsman? Or of a greedy lawyer turned foreclosure banker (his original job with Brooklyn Trust). A heartless piece of slime if you ask me.

Ed, unfortunately you spend a lot of time defending the theft of the Brooklyn franchise from its ancestral home from a distance with little actual knowledge of what baseball meant to communities in the 50's and no knowledge of NYC and remember that while not a founding member of the National League, Brooklyn was a member of the NL from 1890 onward. If the Brooklyn franchise were failing or not making more money than any other team in the NL, there might be some justification for the move. As it was, it was not in the best interests of baseball as it showed that fan support meant nothing if more dollars were at stake. Baseball on the West Coast? Of course...there were plenty of failing franchises available or perhaps expansion teams. It's really too bad the PCL never went ahead with its plans to be a 3rd major league. None of this garbage then would have ever happened.

Mr. Rickey would never have done this...99% of the other owners would never have done this. Why wasn't Criosley in Cincinnati looking to get out; after all he was playing in an old ball park and making 1/2 the money at best O'Malley was making? What about Carpenter in Philadelphia? Same thing. Or Galbraith in Pittsburgh? or Gussie Busch in St. Louis? or even Phil Wrigley in Chicago? All of them were playing in old ballparks and not making nearly the money O'Malley was making in Brooklyn. You dispute those facts too. But all of those had loyalty to their fans and theri cities.

As far as the issue of Ebbets Field, I wouldn't argue with anybody it could have survived till today. But it must be noted, both Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, ballparks every bit as old and antiquated as Ebbets Field, neither of which in suburban settings with loads of parking, are still going strong today and a good part of the charm of the Cubs and Red Sox. And as far as the neighborhood bit is concerned, well there is the chicken and egg syndrome. Part of the demise of the neighborhood (and as with many neighborhoods in Brooklyn is on the verge of a renaissance in the same way as Williamsburgh) was caused by the construction of the apartment houses Mr. O'Malley sold the land (making a profit) where Ebbets Field stood. And never offering to exchange it to the city for the land he claimed he so desperately wanted to build a ballpark in Brooklyn. That is a fact that cannot be denied.

Yes in the short term it might have been a good business decision but in the long run it helped destroy the concept of baseball being a sport and yes, the timing is there, it was one of the factors in the surge of popularity of the New York Football Giants who were just a blip on the horizon until 1958 when many of the displaced Brooklyn fans became big Giant fans. And this was one of the big pushes that helped make the NFL America's national pastime because New York is the media capital of the world and the media adopted the Giants as the blue collar team for New Yorkers. There clearly were other forces involved but anybody familiar with history can easily see this was a big contributing factor to it. For the good of baseball, it behooved the Commissioner to step in and protect the interests of the Brooklyn fans while making other arrangements for the West Coast. At the very least, he should have ordered O'Malley to leave the name and traditions in Brooklyn so that when the inevitable expansion came, the Brooklyn Dodgers could have been born again the same way the Cleveland Browns were. I know, Ed, you're from Cleveland and claim it's not the same thing but most people from Cleveland I talk to simply feel there was a short hiatus of the Cleveland Browns franchise and the current Cleveland Brown franchise has the legacy of Paul Brown, Jim Brown and all the rest. Certainly you won't see them honored at a Baltimore Ravens old timers day. And this is thanks to the Commissioner of the NFL having the courage to do the right thing. A far cry from Mr. Ford C. Frick and the dumb President of the National League Warren Giles who upon announcing in June 1957 that the National League had voted to allow the theft of the franchise along with the transfer of the Giants to San Francisco, was asked how the NL could not have a team in New York. And this bird brain said, "Who needs New York?" A brilliant statement, don't you think what with the national media located in New York.

But I digress. They were villains and part of this travesty but the most tragic day in Brooklyn baseball history, however, occurred on that dark day late in the 1930's or early in the 1940's when the Brooklyn Trust Company, which owned a good deal of equity in the Dodgers and had several loans outstanding, had to send one of its young lawyers to sit in to protect their investment. It narrowed down to a choice of 2. Walter O'Malley or Bill Shea. Somehow if on that day Bill Shea had been chosen, I assure you the Dodgers would still be in New York today, owned by Fred and Jeff Wilpon getting read to open their state of the art ballpark at Citi Field. And worth much more than the LA National League team is today.

History certainly dealt Brooklyn a low blow the day this scoundrel walked into the Dodgers offices and started down the road to hell.

[Let's Go Mets!]

And it is very clear now that at the end of 1956, on the Dodgers return to the USA from their trip to Japan after the World Series, the plane stopped over in Los Angeles so he could be helicoptered over Chavez Ravine and he told the LA city officials (doggone, history might really have been different if that helicopter had crashed) not to worry, he was coming but he would have to play out the 1957 season in Brooklyn while he made all the arrangements, got the Giants owner to change his plans to move to Minneapolis, purchased the LA PCL franchise from Phil Wrigley, bought a plane...all this should have made clear his true intentions.

The man truly is in heaven, as Walter O' surveys his gold mine.

[digglahhh]

MATHA,

I may have been a little harsh in my previous post; that's just my writing style and perhaps a kneejerk from having this discussion so many times with Dodger fans speaking from their hearts and not their heads.

But, please, don't discount the intelligence and familiarity with the issues many of us on BBF have. You speak as if there can be no other legit interpretation of the proceedings. I may be confrontational, but I leave room for for conflicting conclusions drawn from reason.

To say that others simply don't know because they didn't live through the situations is a straw man; it's not sufficient reasoning for making educated determinations of motive and drawing informed conclusions of historical events in general, so it shouldn't hold much weight here either.

I'm aware of many of the attendance nuances (loopholes) you mentioned, as I would assume Ed is. I am not even 30, but I've lived my entire life in NYC and devoted much time to the study of the history of baseball, and this situation in specific. O'Malley was certainly no saint, and his motives are open to question, but it is not the open-and-shut case you claim it to be, IMO.

O'Malley, if you believe anything he said at all, was concerned about the future of the franchise. Virtually all your statements relating to Dodgers organization at the time could be applied to the U.S. auto industry at the time as well. We've seen how that has worked out.

I have plenty of beefs with O'Malley, but much of what he did was a business decision. Perhaps it was shortsighted. And, certainly, it was partially fueled by his feud with Moses. But to act as if his intention was to stab Brooklyn fans in the back, for its own sake, is to discount the complexity of the situation. You're obviously smarter than that.

It's not your take that puts me off, it's the over the top conviction with which you present it.

You have a soft spot for the Dodgers, that's cool. I'll admit my bias as well; I have a perpetual axe to grind against Robert Moses. But there is plenty of wiggle room within the spectrum of reason and informed opinion. That's all I truly ask that you grant.

[Mongoose]

MATHA,

I may have been a little harsh in my previous post; that's just my writing style and perhaps a kneejerk from having this discussion so many times with Dodger fans speaking from their hearts and not their heads.

But, please, don't discount the intelligence and familiarity with the issues many of us on BBF have. You speak as if there can be no other legit interpretation of the proceedings. I may be confrontational, but I leave room for for conflicting conclusions drawn from reason.

To say that others simply don't know because they didn't live through the situations is a straw man; it's not sufficient reasoning for making educated determinations of motive and drawing informed conclusions of historical events in general, so it shouldn't hold much weight here either.

I'm aware of many of the attendance nuances (loopholes) you mentioned, as I would assume Ed is. I am not even 30, but I've lived my entire life in NYC and devoted much time to the study of the history of baseball, and this situation in specific. O'Malley was certainly no saint, and his motives are open to question, but it is not the open-and-shut case you claim it to be, IMO.

O'Malley, if you believe anything he said at all, was concerned about the future of the franchise. Virtually all your statements relating to Dodgers organization at the time could be applied to the U.S. auto industry at the time as well. We've seen how that has worked out.

I have plenty of beefs with O'Malley, but much of what he did was a business decision. Perhaps it was shortsighted. And, certainly, it was partially fueled by his feud with Moses. But to act as if his intention was to stab Brooklyn fans in the back, for its own sake, is to discount the complexity of the situation. You're obviously smarter than that.

It's not your take that puts me off, it's the over the top conviction with which you present it.

You have a soft spot for the Dodgers, that's cool. I'll admit my bias as well; I have a perpetual axe to grind against Robert Moses. But there is plenty of wiggle room within the spectrum of reason and informed opinion. That's all I truly ask that you grant.

There's not too much wiggle room here. Walter O'Malley was completely responsible for the Dodgers' leaving. He was the first of the "suits" to own a ballclub; prior to him you had sportsmen and baseball men. O'Malley was the first guy who seriously set about wringing every last cent out of baseball, to the exclusion of every other priority - including the long term good of the game.

He was the forerunner of the money-grubbing owners and mercenary ballplayers of today. Whenever anyone feels a lack of enthusiasm for rooting for a team because they realize the team doesn't care about them...

...it must be remembered that O'Malley is basically the guy that introduced that cynicism into baseball.

[MATHA531]

MATHA,

I may have been a little harsh in my previous post; that's just my writing style and perhaps a kneejerk from having this discussion so many times with Dodger fans speaking from their hearts and not their heads.

But, please, don't discount the intelligence and familiarity with the issues many of us on BBF have. You speak as if there can be no other legit interpretation of the proceedings. I may be confrontational, but I leave room for for conflicting conclusions drawn from reason.

To say that others simply don't know because they didn't live through the situations is a straw man; it's not sufficient reasoning for making educated determinations of motive and drawing informed conclusions of historical events in general, so it shouldn't hold much weight here either.

I'm aware of many of the attendance nuances (loopholes) you mentioned, as I would assume Ed is. I am not even 30, but I've lived my entire life in NYC and devoted much time to the study of the history of baseball, and this situation in specific. O'Malley was certainly no saint, and his motives are open to question, but it is not the open-and-shut case you claim it to be, IMO.

O'Malley, if you believe anything he said at all, was concerned about the future of the franchise. Virtually all your statements relating to Dodgers organization at the time could be applied to the U.S. auto industry at the time as well. We've seen how that has worked out.

I have plenty of beefs with O'Malley, but much of what he did was a business decision. Perhaps it was shortsighted. And, certainly, it was partially fueled by his feud with Moses. But to act as if his intention was to stab Brooklyn fans in the back, for its own sake, is to discount the complexity of the situation. You're obviously smarter than that.

It's not your take that puts me off, it's the over the top conviction with which you present it.

You have a soft spot for the Dodgers, that's cool. I'll admit my bias as well; I have a perpetual axe to grind against Robert Moses. But there is plenty of wiggle room within the spectrum of reason and informed opinion. That's all I truly ask that you grant.

Trust me, I respect your opinion and it is evident you have made a study of this. But the fact remains, most have not. They believe what they read or see on television or are unable to grasp certain things.

1. I have heard a popular talk show host in New York, I won't tell you his name but his initials are CR, open up a record book and say to his audience, "What is so magical about the Brooklyn Dodgers. Look at this, they were only drawing 1,000,000 and more." Of course he had no clue about the attendance figures and the fact 1,000,000 in paid attendance in that day and age was considered very good. And the fall in attendance from 1947 to 1956 was mirrored by every other major league team as throughout the country the central cities were being deserted in favor of the good life in the suburbs and the two car garage.

2. Most people don't have a clue about what baseball meant to us growing up in Brooklyn as well as our parents and grandparents. It was the bond the cemented generations and I understand it may sound very strange today but that was then and this is now.

3. Recently we have been treated by a blitz from the Los Angeles National League team trying to deflect the blame from O'Malley to Bob Moses. I have always contended, and continue to do so, that while Bob Moses for the most part had a lot to answer for when he met his maker, on this issue he was absolutely right. Atlantic/Flatbush was not the right location for a 60,000 seat ballpark. Nor did he have the legal right, under New York eminent domain laws, to seize the land or buy the land or whatever from the Pennsylvania Railroad. Some say well Moses was all powerful and could do whatever he wanted. Well, as noted, it was clearly against the law. Don't you think there would have been taxpayer suits against this? Take a look at what's happening right now over the same land which today is public property and eminent domain is not an issue. Moses had it right on this issue. History shows the best location for the new Dodger ballpart was the future location of Shea Stadium in every which way. If you disagree with this, please explain what I'm missing.

4. It also cannot be disputed that Brooklyn was the biggest money maker in the National League even in 1957.

5. As an ardent anti Bob Moses person, I'm sure you read the "Power Broker." I believe there is only one mention of the Brooklyn Dodger situation in that book which was well over 700 pages long.

5. Ed gave an average attendance and % of the filled ballpart in his post. I would love to know what divisor he used to represent the number of openings. He and I have had ongoing discussions on this through the years.

The vast majority of people today, have been led to believe that Walter O'Malley was on the verge of bankruptcy in a failing Brooklyn market and that Robert Moses refused to assist him by holding back on land that wasn't being used for anything. Therefore O'Malley had no choice but to move. (The recent ";documentary" on HBO tries to drive home this point and helped him to be elected to the Hall of Fame. To people who just take some time to try to examine all the facts and try to understand baseball and indeed America in the mid 1950's were completely different than today, would understand at the very least tha he was the one primarily responsible for this tragedy and that there is no way he should be in the Hall of Fame.

Regards to you and I respect the study you have done of this but I still believe that while you can come up with a reasonable intelligent argument to make that there was a shared responsibility for this and what's the big deal, it's 51 years since it happened. But you really can't divorce the issues that people who lived through it felt then and continue to feel now.

Regards,

Matha

[yanks0714]

Wayne Huzienga, formmer owner of the Florida Marlins. Bought the Marlins only because he could as a rich guy who wanted anotehr toy to play with. Felt he could 'buy' a chanpionship. Did so in 1997.

Once he did he lost all interest in the team. Jacked up ticket prices; parking prices, concession prices were left. Rationalized it by saying he had to pay the high-priced players he brought into 'buy' his championship.

Got his championship, began selling'trading off his high priced players, then sold the team at a significant profit to himself. The fans were left with the high prices for tickets, parking, and concessions...and a awful on field product. Just gouged the fans.

Say what you want about George Steinbrenner, but he's had the Yankees since 1973. He's stuck in there. He turns the profits back into the team.

Huzienga, nothing more than a pitiful footnote in the game's history.

[baseball junkie]

Whoever the genius was that sold Babe Ruth.

[Paul Wendt]

The Phillies had the only two owners barred from the game:

William Cox and Horace Fogel

Brian,
What does "barred from the game" mean?
I don't know precisely so I will defer and use "bard".

Elsewhere you explained that John Davidson was forced out after 1889. That sounds like a bard.

George Steinbrenner was bard twice,
- 1974 Nov 27 for two years (the convicted felon thing, Billy Martin didn't make it up!)
- 1990 Jul 30 for life (the Howard Spira hire).

Marge Schott was bard twice.
re her "million dollar *******", etc
>>
On February 3, 1993, she was fined $25,000 and banned from day-to-day operations of the Reds for the 1993 season.
<<

re Hitler and Japs, etc
>>
On May 5, 1996, Schott once again made statements favorable towards Adolf Hitler, whom she believed "was good in the beginning, but went too far." In response, Major League Baseball again banned Schott from day-to-day operations through 1998. Later in the month, Schott was quoted in Sports Illustrated as speaking in a "cartoonish Japanese accent" while describing her meeting with the prime minister of Japan.
<<

with a third perhaps on the way
>>
On April 20, 1999, Schott agreed to sell her controlling interest in the Reds for $67 million to a group led by Cincinnati businessman Carl Lindner. At the time she was facing a third suspension from Major League Baseball, failing health and an expiring ownership agreement with her limited partners, who planned to oust her.
<<

Sources:
biographical articles at Wikipedia
- Marge Schott, three direct quotations
- George Steinbrenner, all details

[Paul Wendt]

In my own time as an adult fan, George Steinbrenner re his second "ban" and Marge Schott re her first probably "damaged" "Baseball" more than any other owners. (I believe that commonly so-called bans cover suspensions and expulsions. That is what I mean here.)

Perhaps they damaged Baseball more than any owners during the preceding two to six generations, but only because their predecessors did not enjoy the same opportunities for damage. Marge Schott, to extend her example, was able to damage Baseball "a lot" rather than "a little" partly because of the norms in baseball news reporting during her time. Two or six generations earlier the baseball news industry would have protected Baseball from some potential damage in a Schott ownership, as it protected Baseball from some potential damage in the worst behavior of its players.

--
For recent local damage, consider
- Jeff Loria (in two cities?)
- Blockbuster Huizenga
- Peter Angelos (later years in one city)

From long ago,
- Andrew Freedman (who can top that?)

Well, some league presidents or commissioners may be able to top that! Presumably the league and Baseball officers have some broader power or influence, so they are capable of greater damage under some conditions.

--
Some owners have caused great local damage by winning political campaigns for egregious high public contribution$ to new ballparks. Such damage may be good for Baseball (probably it is, in most cases), so the "bad" owner is merely a "good" player in a "bad" game played by Baseball. In other words, those owners have caused damage precisely because they have been good owners in Baseball's terms.

[Mongoose]

I know he's not on the same level as O'Malley, but I'd like to give special mention to Fred Wilpon.

The period in which he emerged as the Mets principal owner, was marked by his philosophy being imposed on the team...

Gone were all the "colorful" players who'd won it all in 86. Guys like Dykstra, McDowell, Mitchell, etc. were replaced by a bunch of "safe" veterans. The end result was the famous "Worst Team Money Could Buy". Players with any personality continue to be shipped out to this day - for example: Lastings Milledge wound up with a roughly comparable year to Ryan Church and his potential upside is much higher... Plus he was 23 and locked into a low salary for years to come. But Milledge made the mistake of showing enthusiasm and recording a rap video, so he was soon gone.

Petty players with Wilpon's ear instigate disastrous personnel decisions like the Kazmir trade.

For the most part, Wilpon's Mets have been a parade of colorless mercenary veterans. Wilpon's era has made being a Mets fan a trying experience.

And there's his greed: Wilpon was not satisfied with paid attendance of 4 million fans a year... There weren't enough luxury boxes and too many seats for the peasants; he had to agitate for a new stadium that solved these "problems". Citi Field now has many more luxury boxes, but 15,000 fewer seats. The goal was to extort more fans into buying season tickets. And what if they don't have $3000 up front to lay down for a pair? Too bad!

The problem is the whole move to exclude the public is largely on the public's coin.

And because Wilpon has no respect for his own franchise's history and accomplishments, it was built as a supposed homage to Ebbets Field!

As I stated in another thread, the Brooklyn stuff seems monumentally insincere because Citi Field is an inversion of what the old Ebbets Field stood for. My father and uncle who remembered it well described the place as homespun, working class and rambunctious.

Citi Field was built to exclude the fans who would have been the old Ebbets Field fan base and who didn't have to be excluded... and Citi Field will do this while wearing an Ebbets Field costume.

Nice.

The Mets were always considered New York's "People's Team" unlike the Yankees. At this point the only real difference is that the Mets don't win as much.

So I humbly move to nominate Wilpon for (dis)honorable mention.

[Bill Burgess]

OK. I have something I need to get off my chest here. I would like to address my comments to all of the people who continue to let Walter O'Malley off the hook for moving the Dodgers away from Brooklyn, and referring to it as a 'business decision'.

That phrase gives me a problem. A big problem. In fact, a very HUGE problem.

Some of you guys, and when I refer to you that way, know that I respect you. Some of you, like digglahhh, who I have respected the hell out of for years, are obviously very intelligent people. Your baseball opinions prove that, beyond any dispute.

But in this case, you have so missed what baseball is about that I'm-frankly-shocked. If baseball was about money, or business, none of us would be here, and baseball-fever couldn't possibly exist. Baseball has spent its long history trying to convince us that its not just about business, attendance, money and profit. It needs us to believe that it loves us, wants to please us, make us happy, and cares about us. (Wink).:laugh:):rofl::blush:

We are all here for a passion for the game. Does anyone realize that more books have been published about baseball than football, basketball, boxing, golf, and all other sports combined? Surprising but true!

Baseball has a way of capturing its fans, and holding them, despite the scourges of gambling, Color Ban, reserve clause, steroids, fixing, cheating, enlivening the balls, and assorted other BS. And that's a lot of loyalty!

A non-baseball man, (a suit, as Mongoose put it), came into the game as a millionaire, got A LOT richer, and then, even though getting more filthy rich, killed his goose that was laying him golden eggs, and moved elsewhere, just to spoon with a much larger goose, who laid him much bigger golden eggs.

Before O'Malley, baseball had been run by family dynasties, for the most part. Most of them were baseball men. Men with a insatiable passion for the game. Some, like Bob Quinn, invested everything they had and left with nothing but their passion.

O'Malley was getting filthy rich in Brooklyn. He had options to move to the Shea location and get richer. The man had good, solid 'business decisions' that could have stayed in Queens.

Baseball is not about 'business decisions'. If it were, we'd not fight so hard here on Fever. We fight out of our passion, our love for baseball.

An owner's relationship with his fan base does indeed include many business decisions. But so does every marriage. Does that mean that a marriage is based on those 'economic decisions'? I sure hope not and I know none of you O'Malley apologists believe that either.

Just because a baseball owner must make many business decisions, how can anyone possibly think that the decision to move a team away from its roots should be based on mostly the economics.

That is the same thing as saying that a divorce should be based mainly on 'business decisions'. What bad names would we call a man who left his wife because he could do better with a rich woman? Wouldn't we all here call him some pretty vile names? Wouldn't that be a betrayal of a trust that was supposed to be sacred and transcend one's finances?

If my wife ran up my credit card on me, I wouldn't divorce her. I'd just take the card away.

Baseball has spent its entire history trying to cultivate its fan base. No owner worth a damn has had the luxury of ignoring his fans. Most treat them well, try to convince us that his team is OUR TEAM. Cultivate brand loyalty.

Walter O'Malley was indeed an outsider who put the dollar above his team, his fans, and his honor. To suggest that he got obsessed with his personal feud with Robert Moses is not clever. Yes, Moses was a real prick and a ML idiot who was an obstacle. But it wasn't Moses who decided to screw every fan in Brooklyn. He was a problem, but he wasn't insurmountable.

O'Malley left town because he let himself get dazzled by the Milwaukee move, and had dollar signs in his eyes.

Was it in the best interests of baseball for a team to be planted in LA? Yes. It was. But a good, loyal, producing franchise like Brooklyn didn't need to be sacrificed on the altar of commerce.

O'Malley could have went West and started from scratch. That would have been in the best interests of baseball.

There was plenty of sin to go around. Commissioner Frick, Horace Stoneham, the other baseball owners who had to approve the move, the LA officials.

The LA officials were like the sultry seductress who lures a man away from his wife, out of pure self-interest. If they had had any integrity, they should have petitioned to have a new, expansion team. They didn't need O'Malley.

[MATHA531]

I know he's not on the same level as O'Malley, but I'd like to give special mention to Fred Wilpon.

The period in which he emerged as the Mets principal owner, was marked by his philosophy being imposed on the team...

Gone were all the "colorful" players who'd won it all in 86. Guys like Dykstra, McDowell, Mitchell, etc. were replaced by a bunch of "safe" veterans. The end result was the famous "Worst Team Money Could Buy". Players with any personality continue to be shipped out to this day - for example: Lastings Milledge wound up with a roughly comparable year to Ryan Church and his potential upside is much higher... Plus he was 23 and locked into a low salary for years to come. But Milledge made the mistake of showing enthusiasm and recording a rap video, so he was soon gone.

Petty players with Wilpon's ear instigate disastrous personnel decisions like the Kazmir trade.

For the most part, Wilpon's Mets have been a parade of colorless mercenary veterans. Wilpon's era has made being a Mets fan a trying experience.

And there's his greed: Wilpon was not satisfied with paid attendance of 4 million fans a year... There weren't enough luxury boxes and too many seats for the peasants; he had to agitate for a new stadium that solved these "problems". Citi Field now has many more luxury boxes, but 15,000 fewer seats. The goal was to extort more fans into buying season tickets. And what if they don't have $3000 up front to lay down for a pair? Too bad!

The problem is the whole move to exclude the public is largely on the public's coin.

And because Wilpon has no respect for his own franchise's history and accomplishments, it was built as a supposed homage to Ebbets Field!

As I stated in another thread, the Brooklyn stuff seems monumentally insincere because Citi Field is an inversion of what the old Ebbets Field stood for. My father and uncle who remembered it well described the place as homespun, working class and rambunctious.

Citi Field was built to exclude the fans who would have been the old Ebbets Field fan base and who didn't have to be excluded... and Citi Field will do this while wearing an Ebbets Field costume.

Nice.

The Mets were always considered New York's "People's Team" unlike the Yankees. At this point the only real difference is that the Mets don't win as much.

So I humbly move to nominate Wilpon for (dis)honorable mention.

Are you seriously trying to tell us the Mets should not be leaving Shea Stadium? Whetehr rightly or wrongly, Wilpon wanted to model the new ballpark after Ebbets Field what with its small cozy confines. To achieve that, smaller is better. Of course somebody has to pay. Hopefully the deal with Citigroup will not fall aprt because of the apprent problems the bank is having. I don't think greed played in here.

The Mets have been a successful team recently. I know they haven't won the whole kit and kaboodle (sp) but that's just as much a matter of luck. They have built a team capable of winning which is all you can do and leave the rest to the baseball gods. The Scott Kazmir trade certainly doesn't look good but it was done on the advice of some of the baseball people; especially Rick Peterson. Whether Kazmir will ever become a truly dominant pitcher, well the jury is still out on that. It was a poor trade but it wasn't done for reasons of greed. It was simply a wrong baseball decision.

They've had some "characters" the last few years. Certianly Pedro Martinez. Jose Reyes is a "character" and is condemned for that.

I think to a degree Wilpon faced many of the same problems the current owners of the Los Angeles National League baseball team does...namely he was very leveraged because while rich in terms of most of us, he wasn't overly rich and didn't have the ability to print money the Yankees acquired. But once he got his own network, the value of the franchise has skyrocketed and he and osn Jeff have allowed Omar Minaya, for better or for worse (I think for the most part better but there are those who might disagree a tad) make the baseball decisions.

They must be doing something right as Forbes rates them the third most valuable franchise in the major leagues behind only the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Unfortunately, new stadiums come with price tags. But the days of being able to walk up to the window on game day and buy a general admission ticket for $1.50 as I did when I was a kid and sit in the upper level behind home plate have long since ended and ended long before Wilpon acquired sole control of the team.

Is he the greatest owner? No. Is he one of the worst? I don't think anybody can fairly say that.

[Mongoose]

Are you seriously trying to tell us the Mets should not be leaving Shea Stadium? Whetehr rightly or wrongly, Wilpon wanted to model the new ballpark after Ebbets Field what with its small cozy confines. To achieve that, smaller is better. Of course somebody has to pay. Hopefully the deal with Citigroup will not fall aprt because of the apprent problems the bank is having. I don't think greed played in here.

The Mets have been a successful team recently. I know they haven't won the whole kit and kaboodle (sp) but that's just as much a matter of luck. They have built a team capable of winning which is all you can do and leave the rest to the baseball gods. The Scott Kazmir trade certainly doesn't look good but it was done on the advice of some of the baseball people; especially Rick Peterson. Whether Kazmir will ever become a truly dominant pitcher, well the jury is still out on that. It was a poor trade but it wasn't done for reasons of greed. It was simply a wrong baseball decision.

They've had some "characters" the last few years. Certianly Pedro Martinez. Jose Reyes is a "character" and is condemned for that.

I think to a degree Wilpon faced many of the same problems the current owners of the Los Angeles National League baseball team does...namely he was very leveraged because while rich in terms of most of us, he wasn't overly rich and didn't have the ability to print money the Yankees acquired. But once he got his own network, the value of the franchise has skyrocketed and he and osn Jeff have allowed Omar Minaya, for better or for worse (I think for the most part better but there are those who might disagree a tad) make the baseball decisions.

They must be doing something right as Forbes rates them the third most valuable franchise in the major leagues behind only the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Unfortunately, new stadiums come with price tags. But the days of being able to walk up to the window on game day and buy a general admission ticket for $1.50 as I did when I was a kid and sit in the upper level behind home plate have long since ended and ended long before Wilpon acquired sole control of the team.

Is he the greatest owner? No. Is he one of the worst? I don't think anybody can fairly say that.

Matha, I've got lots of respect for you, but... Yeah, I'm telling you the Mets shouldn't have left Shea Stadium. As far as municipal affairs go, all we seem to hear is that the city is broke. Transit fares are set to rise yet again - I can't even count how many times since Bloomberg's election... Much of the tax base is evaporating... There's even talk of turning the East River bridges into toll bridges.

In a climate like this, to demolish a perfectly good facility and spend upwards of $1,000,000,000.00 (including "improvements to infrastructure") on a new one is nuts. And make no mistake, one way or another the bulk of this will come out of the public till. I could list all the ways, but it's been documented on other threads and I've got work to do.

The main reason for Citi Field was to generate more season tickets, luxury box revenue and franchise value for Fred Wilpon (and a few cronies).

Honoring Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers is just a moral fig leaf.

Maybe such fiscal shenanigans aren't unique among owners, but given New York's situation they're inexcusable.

As far as the product on the field, I stand by what I said. Wilpon is the main culprit for all the anonymous forgettable teams of mercenaries we've had since the 86 team was dismantled.

Is Wilpon the worst owner? I never said he was. Is he a bad owner? At best, he keeps the team good enough to draw fans but doesn't seem too fanatical about making them good enough to win it all (I give George credit for really wanting to win). At worst, he's a money-grubbing jerk that feels Mets fans should take a hike if they can't afford season tickets.

Yeah, I'd say he's a bad owner.

[MATHA531]

Matha, I've got lots of respect for you, but... Yeah, I'm telling you the Mets shouldn't have left Shea Stadium. As far as municipal affairs go, all we seem to hear is that the city is broke. Transit fares are set to rise yet again - I can't even count how many times since Bloomberg's election... Much of the tax base is evaporating... There's even talk of turning the East River bridges into toll bridges.

In a climate like this, to demolish a perfectly good facility and spend upwards of $1,000,000,000.00 (including "improvements to infrastructure") on a new one is nuts. And make no mistake, one way or another the bulk of this will come out of the public till. I could list all the ways, but it's been documented on other threads and I've got work to do.

The main reason for Citi Field was to generate more season tickets, luxury box revenue and franchise value for Fred Wilpon (and a few cronies).

Honoring Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers is just a moral fig leaf.

Maybe such fiscal shenanigans aren't unique among owners, but given New York's situation they're inexcusable.

As far as the product on the field, I stand by what I said. Wilpon is the main culprit for all the anonymous forgettable teams of mercenaries we've had since the 86 team was dismantled.

Is Wilpon the worst owner? I never said he was. Is he a bad owner? At best, he keeps the team good enough to draw fans but doesn't seem too fanatical about making them good enough to win it all (I give George credit for really wanting to win). At worst, he's a money-grubbing jerk that feels Mets fans should take a hike if they can't afford season tickets.

Yeah, I'd say he's a bad owner.

Let me just throw one thought out at you without getting into a whole argument.....

Nobody could foresee the meltdown of the national's and NYC's economy. Last summer with a weak dollar tourists were jamming NYC for bargains, snapping up real estate and in general the economy was booming.

Then came Lehman Brothers and the whole thing caved in. If we knew then what we know now, of course there might have been second thoughts about building new stadiums such as Citi Field, Yankee Stadium III, the Meadowlands, the Rock. But I don't think it's fair to criticize the decision that after 44 years, it was time for Shea to go.

To my way of thinking, baseball, at least in New York as I noted, stopped being fan friendly with the resurgence of the Mets in the mid 1980's when the concept of being able to walk up to buy a general admission ticket (figuring at the time they would be about $5) became a thing of the past, when they decided, based on the fact they were drawing large crowds, to make all seats reserved seats and the $5 general admission ticket because a $10 Upper level Reserved. Since that happened, I have never attended another Met game at Shea.

The economy will determine quite a bit. If they're unable to sell all the luxury boxes in this decayng economy or all the seats, prices will come down and they will be begging for the blue collar fans to return. Only time will tell. But I'll leave you with one thought. I recently had a bout with kidney stones. I called my urologist, he listened to me and simply said to me, "This too shall pass." And you know something, he was right!

[digglahhh]

Nice post, MATHA. I respect your civilty (as well as your intellect and knowledge on the subject) and I'll respond in kind.



1. I have heard a popular talk show host in New York, I won't tell you his name but his initials are CR, open up a record book and say to his audience, "What is so magical about the Brooklyn Dodgers. Look at this, they were only drawing 1,000,000 and more." Of course he had no clue about the attendance figures and the fact 1,000,000 in paid attendance in that day and age was considered very good. And the fall in attendance from 1947 to 1956 was mirrored by every other major league team as throughout the country the central cities were being deserted in favor of the good life in the suburbs and the two car garage.

CR doesn't know his ass from his elbow, this is not news. Ironically, he (specifically his lips) are intimately familiar with is MF's ass.


2. Most people don't have a clue about what baseball meant to us growing up in Brooklyn as well as our parents and grandparents. It was the bond the cemented generations and I understand it may sound very strange today but that was then and this is now.

I'll grant that it was a far greater "glue" than it is today. The romanticism with which this dynamic is referred is quite likely a bit overblown. That's nobody's fault, per se. The eras of yore are always mythologized over the accumulation of scores of pages of syruppy prose.

Is it possible, that your affinity for this time and dynamic makes it difficult to divest yourself emotionally from the situation. That wouldn't make any of your assertions invalid, but it would be worthy of recognition.


. Recently we have been treated by a blitz from the Los Angeles National League team trying to deflect the blame from O'Malley to Bob Moses. I have always contended, and continue to do so, that while Bob Moses for the most part had a lot to answer for when he met his maker, on this issue he was absolutely right. Atlantic/Flatbush was not the right location for a 60,000 seat ballpark. Nor did he have the legal right, under New York eminent domain laws, to seize the land or buy the land or whatever from the Pennsylvania Railroad. Some say well Moses was all powerful and could do whatever he wanted. Well, as noted, it was clearly against the law. Don't you think there would have been taxpayer suits against this? Take a look at what's happening right now over the same land which today is public property and eminent domain is not an issue. Moses had it right on this issue. History shows the best location for the new Dodger ballpart was the future location of Shea Stadium in every which way. If you disagree with this, please explain what I'm missing.

In many respects, Moses did do whatever he wanted. Moses was right in his perspective, legally speaking. Though I suspect that he wouldn't have let a little thing like the letter of the law interfere had he liked the plan, and respected O'Malley. And, yes, one can argue that the Shea location was optimum. But, the charge levied against O'Malley isn't that he wasn't enough of a visionary to recognize a wonderful option. The charge is that he hijacked the franchise. So, you'd basically have to prove a conspiracy of sorts: He know the Shea location was great, argued against it anyway because he wanted to fight the battle he knew he would lose, which would ultimately give him a justification for moving the franchise. Simply missing the boat on Flushing Meadow would only be evidence of poor judgment, not nefarious motive, per se.


4. It also cannot be disputed that Brooklyn was the biggest money maker in the National League even in 1957.

Well, that doesn't mean one can't look to improve the situation and plan for the future (again, not that O'Malley made the best decisions, but we shouldn't be arguing to extol the virtues of complacency)


5. As an ardent anti Bob Moses person, I'm sure you read the "Power Broker." I believe there is only one mention of the Brooklyn Dodger situation in that book which was well over 700 pages long.

From what I've read there was a chapter about the Dodgers in the first draft of the book, and it was cut during the editing the process. The original manuscript was over 1,000 pages, I believe. It also allegedly featured a chapter about Jane Jacobs, among other topics.



But you really can't divorce the issues that people who lived through it felt then and continue to feel now.


I commend you for at least acknowledging this.

[digglahhh]

To briefly address Mongoose and Bill.

When I say "business decision," I'm not saying that makes it something I agree with. Plenty of evil is done in the pursuit of profit. The road to riches is not paved with consideration, benevolence and rigid moral convictions.

One can say that as one of the early "suits," O'Malley ushered in a lot of ugliness, and corporate think that has had detrimental effects on the game. One can also say, that the same breed of owners turned baseball into the booming business it is today, and are partly responsible for the expansive industry many benefit from (and also, in some ways, resent). The modern owner made baseball bigger, there were many decisions made to that end. We can debate whether bigger means better (or worse), but that's all I mean when I say business decision.

Of anybody to defend decisions on the basis of making "business sense" I'm as unlikely as anybody here - how many other self-avowed Marxists do we have at BBF, after all?

Sports represent weird "business models." As fans we invest our hearts (and also some bucks). As owners, one invests their bucks (and maybe some heart). Our wishes are not exactly the same, so it is often difficult to see decisions through the eyes of the other party. We can't pretend baseball isn't subject to dynamics of big business, while benefiting from things that large institution brings. We don't have to endorse moves because they make business sense, we don't even have to endorse the underlying values of big business. But, I think it is fair that we at least entertain the idea of judging business moves on their own terms, even if they are incongruent with our values as fans (or Marxists.)

[Bill Burgess]

To all who excuse Walter O'Malley for moving the Dodgers. And to those who believe he is an acceptable candidate for the Hall of Fame.

I am not fighting a general fight against 'business decisions'. I am debating only one 'business decision'. One and only one.

For anyone to shield O'Malley from criticism, to suggest he was justified in taking the Dodgers to LA, hear me clearly.

O'Malley had the option to go to the Shea location, and look at what happened to the Mets. The Mets had fantastic attendance, in support of a terrible team. Imagine how much better the attendance might have been with a pennant contender!

A baseball owner's 'business decisions' normally conform with pleasing his fans. To some extent. Money of course is important. Very important.

In deciding to take the Dodgers out of NY, meant that he had to give 0% of consideration to the very fans who had made him filthy rich, and might have made him even much more filthy, filthy, filthy rich in the Shea location.

Would the Brooklyn fans have been angered by that move. Yes, they would have been outraged. But . . . infinitely less outraged by taking them out of NY!!!

For Walter O'Malley to make the decision to steal Brooklyn's team meant that he put 100% of his decision on money, and 0 on the fans who had made him a multi, multi millionaire.

We are not debating business ethics in general, or capitalism/Marxism. We are merely discussing whether Mr. O'Malley was the worst owner who ever operated in MLB. And in view of that, Mr. O'Malley is easily one of baseball's arch-criminals.

The Browns had lost their fan base in St. Louis. The Braves had lost their fan base in Boston. The Senators/Giants might have been losing money for their owners. The Dodgers were not a money-losing business proposition.

The Dodgers were financial winners. Mr. O'Malley was an outsider suit who made all of his choices without regard for his fans. He didn't want to remain in NY, after he saw the profit of the Braves in Milwaukee.

And Milwaukee, by the way, proved unable to sustain their attendance, once the novelty of having a ML franchise had worn off. And hence lost their team to Atlanta. If it ain't broke, don't destroy it.

[Mongoose]

Let me just throw one thought out at you without getting into a whole argument.....

Nobody could foresee the meltdown of the national's and NYC's economy. Last summer with a weak dollar tourists were jamming NYC for bargains, snapping up real estate and in general the economy was booming.

Then came Lehman Brothers and the whole thing caved in. If we knew then what we know now, of course there might have been second thoughts about building new stadiums such as Citi Field, Yankee Stadium III, the Meadowlands, the Rock.

You're completely right about O'Malley and we generally agree here as well, but I feel I have to point a few things out to you.

The weak dollar cut both ways. Oil was skyrocketing and there were other problems before those recent events. In spite of what you say the City was crying poverty that whole time:

http://www.transalt.org/files/newsroom/magazine/031Winter/14transit.html

The only way the public could have gotten a worse return for the money than Citi Field would have been if Wilpon had taken all that money and physically eaten it. (At least that would have been interesting to watch.)

Even if the money had been given away, people would have at least been able to buy stuff and stimulate the economy.

Using it for the new stadiums was more or less like flushing it down the toilet.


But I don't think it's fair to criticize the decision that after 44 years, it was time for Shea to go.

Matha, Ebbets Field was older than Shea when it was demolished, and I know you didn't agree with that. Shea was sound and now was not the right time for a new stadium.

And with all due respect... I'm not sure Ebbets meant more to you than Shea meant to me. It was the house of all my best baseball memories.


To my way of thinking, baseball, at least in New York as I noted, stopped being fan friendly with the resurgence of the Mets in the mid 1980's when the concept of being able to walk up to buy a general admission ticket (figuring at the time they would be about $5) became a thing of the past, when they decided, based on the fact they were drawing large crowds, to make all seats reserved seats and the $5 general admission ticket because a $10 Upper level Reserved. Since that happened, I have never attended another Met game at Shea.

At that time an underemployed teenager could still afford a partial season plan, and I had one. I think General Admission tickets continued until at least 1990, but your observation is largely correct and tends to support my point:

The real gouging didn't start until Wilpon emerged as de facto king of the Mets. Like yourself, that was also the time I became disenchanted with the team. Wilpon's money grubbing actually turned me off of the team I grew up with. How better to judge a bad owner?


The economy will determine quite a bit. If they're unable to sell all the luxury boxes in this decayng economy or all the seats, prices will come down and they will be begging for the blue collar fans to return. Only time will tell. But I'll leave you with one thought. I recently had a bout with kidney stones. I called my urologist, he listened to me and simply said to me, "This too shall pass." And you know something, he was right!

Words of wisdom, but one shouldn't have to hope for a grim future in order to simply see a ballgame.

[mrakbaseball]

Not to say he's the worst owner but, Hiroshi Yamauchi has owned the Mariners for over 16 years. In that time, he's seen zero games in person. 0 games in the Kingdome, 0 at Safeco Field, 0 anywhere else in North America, 0 in Peoria, Arizona. I can't think of any other owner who has owned a team as long as Yamauchi, who has never seen a game in person. Unbelievable. The definition of an absentee owner.

[Let's Go Mets!]

Wilpon would rate around tenth in my book.

Speaking of bad owners, I'm surprised there's so little mention of Charles O. Finley.

What do you think New York baseball history would be like if that nut job owned one of the teams?

Nevertheless, Walter O'Malley has my vote hands down. He was the worst thing that could ever happen to a Dodger fan, and he took that jerk Horace Stoneham with him while Joan Payson laughed all the way to the bank.

I don't see Robert Moses as the culprit in any way.

[MATHA531]

Mongoose...

Some great points; especially the point about Shea Stadium being holy ground to Met fans in the same way Ebbets was to Brooklyn fans....except we could have lived with the loss of Ebbets Field in exchange for a state of the art ballpark say in Flushing Meadows...and the math is about right...EF opened in 1913 and hosted its last mlb game in 1957, that comes to 44 years of active service. Shea opened in 1964 and saw its last mlb game in 2008, 44 years.

I heard somebody make the same point as you on some talk radio show youknow that Shea was still serviceable but really the water pipes were springing leaks all over from what I understand and it really would have cost quite a bit to bring it up to standard. Mr. McCord, the current owner of the Los Angeles National League baseball team spent quite a bit of money to upgrade Chavez Ravine Stadium. We wonder how long it will last. I will give the devil his due, however, about the tlc the park was given unlike the last few years of the M Donald Grant regime when the family of the late Ms. Payson had run out of money and the City of New York was broke and unable to maintain any of its property (to the nay sayers who throw out well see this is what happens with a municipally owned stadium, to pay the devil his due, I know O'Malley would not have allowed the park to deteriorate the same way and of course that helped lead to its premature demise if indeed it's premature.

However, in his defense, let's think back. Just before 9/11, contracts were about to be let to replace the two baseball stadiums but had to clearly be deferred. In that time, Wilpon never threatened to move the franchise unless he was given a new ballpark.

Obviously for a long while, Wilpon did run the team as a small market team for reasons we referred to above and did have a rather low maximum budget during the years the Yankees were stealing the city as NY was traditionally a NL team.

But, at least in my opinion, especially based on recent history, I respectfully disagree that he is one of the worst owners in baseball today.

But you probably have more heart in the Mets as I do and are in a better position to make up your mind on this.

Regards,

[Bobby_Ayala]

Not to say he's the worst owner but, Hiroshi Yamauchi has owned the Mariners for over 16 years. In that time, he's seen zero games in person. 0 games in the Kingdome, 0 at Safeco Field, 0 anywhere else in North America, 0 in Peoria, Arizona. I can't think of any other owner who has owned a team as long as Yamauchi, who has never seen a game in person. Unbelievable. The definition of an absentee owner.

Can't think of any other absentee owner. :think:

[Mongoose]

But, at least in my opinion, especially based on recent history, I respectfully disagree that he is one of the worst owners in baseball today.

But you probably have more heart in the Mets as I do and are in a better position to make up your mind on this.

If you look at the list of other nominees for worst owner in history, you have:

*various lawbreakers
*a bigoted fool
*Steinbrenner
*incompetent bunglers
*people who didn't care about winning
*people with personality problems
*people with personality problems that prevented their team from winning

The thing about Wilpon is that because I'm not in a position to buy season tickets (or stick John Q. Citizen with the bill like most ST holders) Wilpon regards me with malicious intent. He has deliberately configured a new stadium in the hopes that fans like me would be excluded from ever seeing a game at his ballpark again.

Make no mistake: that's exactly what it means when an owner builds a facility sized so it can only house season ticket holders. I realize that in Wilpon's mind "it's only business" and he doesn't personally dislike or even care about any of the excluded fans one way or the other... But this still constitutes malicious intent towards most of his fan base.

O'Malley still outranks Wilpon because O'Malley had malicious intent for all of his fan base; but considering the "cozy confines" of the new stadium, I'd have to conclude Wilpon has malicious intent for the vast majority of his fan base.

The on-field product has generally been depressing, but even if he was fielding an all-star team... Who cares if you can't see them?

So I think this leap-frogs Wilpon past the competition; he ranks a solid second behind O'Malley, who is the Babe Ruth of evil suits.

[digglahhh]

Bill,

I guess all I have left to say is that I don't think the charges match the record. You can prove short-sightedness and poor judgment on O'Malley's behalf. You can probably even prove that ego contributed to that poor judgment. You can make a very strong case for greed as a motivator for his actions. Or course, nobody acknowledges the partial paradox of holding both of those allegations simultaneously. If he was so greedy, why did he give up the goldmine was Flushing?

If he turned down the great location to move West and we cite the financial successes of the Mets as evidence of the potential in Flushing, then maybe greed wasn't so driving him after all. If he simply missed the boat on Flushing, then we have poor judgment, but not necessarily a basis for greed.

I'll grant greed, regardless. I just wanted to point out that slight internal contradiction between lambasting him for not taking Shea, talking about how profitable it would have been, and accusing him of such abject avarice.

Anyway, greed is par for the course. To make the charges of him being among the worst (or the single worst) stick, I'd need to see credible charges of malice - of him hurting the fans of BK for it's own sake, not as a nasty byproduct of improving his own situation.

I see a lot of this attitude as similar to a guy still in love with a girl (or other guy) who left him for somebody else, who the guy considers to be a bum. That alone doesn't qualify the girl as a horrible person, and the fact that you hurt doest make the charges against her character any more credible than they are othewise. It seems like many BK fans use their angst as an argument in and of itself, and I don't really see it that way.

[Fan of 1969]

Ed Short of the Washington Senators who may have hired Ted Williams but it was only used as a ploy to get fans to pay the highest priced tickets in MLB at the time for a club which was always second division. His main interest was to move to Dallas Ft. Worth and once again steal a team from DC.

[Lucas718]

Peter Angelos.

He had a ballpark that was sold out every night. He had a competitive team. He had the support of the fans. Then he systematically destroyed it all. Attendance is down 50% from 1997.

Before he took over, the Orioles had never had more than 3 consecutive losing seasons in their history. 2009 will be the 12th consecutive losing season under his ownership.

He over-ruled the people he hired to make baseball decisions.
He refuses to spend money on quality free agents. They tend to make offers just good enough to miss out on an actual signing.

I could go on and on and on.

[Brad Harris]

From a Cincinnati-centric POV, I nominate John T. Brush for doing just about everything he could to kill baseball in this city, from loaning players to his Indianapolis Western League club, to pulling strings to get Ban Johnson away from the Commercial Gazette and onto greener pastures and for sending virtually any promising talent (from Christy Mathewson on down) to the Giants in anticipation of his eventual abandonment of the club. Had the guy paid as much attention to the one major league club he held a majority stake in during the 1890s rather than stargaze at the Big Apple for most of the decade, the Reds would likely have started the 20th Century with a very competitive team.

Not that Brush didn't make his team's success his number one priority in NY at least, but the man tried to kill the American League, cancelled the 1904 World Series and was essentially responsible for orchestrating the death of major league baseball in Baltimore for the first half of the century also.

Brush was Freedman's major ally in the league (eventually buying the Giants from him after stocking it with the Reds' best players) and led the move towards holding all NL clubs in a mutual trust (the ultimate syndicated plot.) Prior to that Brush's salary cap plan for professional baseball was adopted by the leagues in 1889, a leading cause of J.M. Ward's Players League revolt.

A highly successful owner in a business sense, Brush got everything he wanted in terms of the success of his own ballclub. That club just happened to be the New York Giants. The man had a great deal of responsibility for nearly ruining the two league system - not just once, but - twice! He sold out the fans of Cincinnati in favor of not just another NL team, but of his previous interest (in a minor league) before then. Odious behavior from the standpoint of this Reds fan. To me, Brush seems like a combination of the worst features of Jeffrey Loria, Andrew Freedman and Arnold Johnson.

[Victory Faust]

Peter Angelos.

He had a ballpark that was sold out every night. He had a competitive team. He had the support of the fans. Then he systematically destroyed it all. Attendance is down 50% from 1997.

Before he took over, the Orioles had never had more than 3 consecutive losing seasons in their history. 2009 will be the 12th consecutive losing season under his ownership.

He over-ruled the people he hired to make baseball decisions.
He refuses to spend money on quality free agents. They tend to make offers just good enough to miss out on an actual signing.

I could go on and on and on.



I feel your pain. Mike Ilitch did the exact same thing to the Tigers before Dave Dombrowski came onboard. In fact, the Tigers during the first decade of Ilitch's reign saw one of the worst 10-year periods in the history of baseball.

The Orioles always had such a great tradition -- "The Oriole Way" permeated every nook and cranny of the franchise, from the lowest minor league team to the big club. I would love to see the team turn it around, because it would be good for baseball to once again have a strong team in such a great baseball town as Baltimore.

[Born in 57]

CBS and their brief tenure as owners of the Yankee's (pre Steinbrenner) ranks among the darkest hours of the franchise and an even worse investment of CBS's money.

They oversaw the collapse of the on-field dynasty with complete apathy, and watched the stadium itself crumble to a soon-to-be-condemned structure. All while losing millions in the process.

[Dalkowski110]

I would say Andrew Freedman. Yes, I know he did some good, but the bad things he did were REALLY bad. As someone said earlier, he seemed just this side of psychotic.

[Tampa Bay Giants]

I love the Oscar Gamble Afro user name it reminds me of collecting baseball cards when I was a kid

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k243/So_Fla/hair_3.jpg

[Brad Harris]

what team owner is the worst ever? by worst, i mean which owner has done the most damage to the game in general, and/or his or her team. not someone stuck with a bad club for years. it doesn't matter whether the team was successful or not. some of the possible choices, feel free to add others:

andrew freedman
george steinbrenner
harry frazee
charles o. finley
marge schott

I won't argue about Steinbrenner, though I disagree strenuously that he's been bad for the Yankees or MLB, but how on earth was Marge Schott bad for the game in any kind of historical sense?

[Matthew C.]

I won't argue about Steinbrenner, though I disagree strenuously that he's been bad for the Yankees or MLB, but how on earth was Marge Schott bad for the game in any kind of historical sense?

Surely there is some no-named forgotten guy who was around for only a couple of years only and had horrible teams and lost money. Almost all of the guys mentioned so far are big-namers. It is hard to become recognizable as an owner if you don't reach some success (or at least own a high-profile club. Just a thought.

[Paul Wendt]

The Orioles always had such a great tradition -- "The Oriole Way" permeated every nook and cranny of the franchise, from the lowest minor league team to the big club. I would love to see the team turn it around, because it would be good for baseball to once again have a strong team in such a great baseball town as Baltimore.
but all this was "done and gone" under Edward Bennett Williams (1980-88).

In 1985 or 1986 Eddie Murray complained that the Orioles had abandoned the Way, based on his observations of spring training and of young players who rose to the parent team from its system. His friend in management, now a Red Sox VP (name?), essentially learned from Murray that they might all need to leave soon. He says that some in the Red Sox team consider themselves the vessel of the Oriole Way. --people who moved from Baltimore to San Diego, or San Diego to Boston, and Baltimore to Boston if they reached back for a few more.

(Current Red Sox president Larry Lucchino came to the Orioles and rose to the presidency with Williams. Much of the management team, and the Oriole Way of course, they inherited from the Hoffberger Brewery.)

[Brad Harris]

Surely there is some no-named forgotten guy who was around for only a couple of years only and had horrible teams and lost money. Almost all of the guys mentioned so far are big-namers. It is hard to become recognizable as an owner if you don't reach some success (or at least own a high-profile club. Just a thought.
Sure there are, but those guys wouldn't qualify for the "worst owner" in baseball history title, would they? As a friend much wiser and older than me used to say, "you have to be good to be that bad." The truly inglorious men who rose to the occasion had to stay in the game long enough to make a lasting impression.

[Lucas718]

but all this was "done and gone" under Edward Bennett Williams (1980-88).

In 1985 or 1986 Eddie Murray complained that the Orioles had abandoned the Way, based on his observations of spring training and of young players who rose to the parent team from its system. His friend in management, now a Red Sox VP (name?), essentially learned from Murray that they might all need to leave soon. He says that some in the Red Sox team consider themselves the vessel of the Oriole Way. --people who moved from Baltimore to San Diego, or San Diego to Boston, and Baltimore to Boston if they reached back for a few more.

(Current Red Sox president Larry Lucchino came to the Orioles and rose to the presidency with Williams. Much of the management team, and the Oriole Way of course, they inherited from the Hoffberger Brewery.)

Yep, a lot of people like to blame Angelos for this but the Oriole Way was abandoned years before he took over. It's no coincidence that they have only had 8 above .500 seasons and only 2 playoff appearances since they last won the World Series in '83. In fact they have only won 90 games once in that time frame.

Angelos wasn't responsible for the demise of the Oriole Way, but he hasn't done much to restore it either. He gets all the blame for the past 11 dismal seasons.

[Matthew C.]

Sure there are, but those guys wouldn't qualify for the "worst owner" in baseball history title, would they? As a friend much wiser and older than me used to say, "you have to be good to be that bad." The truly inglorious men who rose to the occasion had to stay in the game long enough to make a lasting impression.

I disagree - if you are so bad that you can't even do your your job well enough to last more than a year or two, you are "worse" at it than somebody who is good, but makes a habdful of big mistakes over a long career.

[Ubiquitous]

Being an owner isn't really a "job". You can't really be fired from being an owner. You are the guy that fires other people. About the closest you can get to being fired is what happened to William Cox and the Phillies. He owned the Phillies for less than a year because it turned out he was betting on baseball games. Cox certainly wasn't the worst owner the leagues ever saw.

Basically an onwer, besides Cox, ownly lasts a few years because they run out of money or die.

[Paul Wendt]

From a Cincinnati-centric POV, I nominate John T. Brush for doing just about everything he could to kill baseball in this city, from loaning players to his Indianapolis Western League club, to pulling strings to get Ban Johnson away from the Commercial Gazette and onto greener pastures ...
Have you read any of Ban Johnson's baseball coverage? If so, what parts of the job did he do well? Did Johnson ever say anything to reveal whether he might have been content with a career as baseball editor? It seems to misfit BanJ as we know him.

In those days many writers got involved in baseball club or league management including major league owners Horace Fogel (phillies) and Charles Murphy (cubs). By the way wikipedia places Murphy at the Cincinnati Enquirer and Times-Star. He "joined the New York Giants front office in 1905" --maybe a Brush connection?

[All-StarLF1713]

I don't see what Comiskey did to make himself stand out. People always want to blame the man for their problems. It is a cop out to blame Comiskey in any way shape or form for the tainted World Series. He conducted business very similar to those before and after him. You want to highlight someone, dig out the 19th century books and pick those that emulated the robber barons and their complete disregard for labor.

comiskey was overly stingy. the 1919 scandal was mostly (i think) a revolt against comiskey bc he wouldnt even pay to wash ther uniforms. oh and about damage to the game,, bud selig

[Ubiquitous]

Yes Eddie Cicotte accepted $10,000 because Comiskey wouldn't pick up a $10 laundry tab.

The Chicago White Sox were the highest paid team in the game back then.

[Brad Harris]

Have you read any of Ban Johnson's baseball coverage? If so, what parts of the job did he do well? Did Johnson ever say anything to reveal whether he might have been content with a career as baseball editor? It seems to misfit BanJ as we know him.

In those days many writers got involved in baseball club or league management including major league owners Horace Fogel (phillies) and Charles Murphy (cubs). By the way wikipedia places Murphy at the Cincinnati Enquirer and Times-Star. He "joined the New York Giants front office in 1905" --maybe a Brush connection?
I don't think Johnson becoming a league executive or even abandoning sportswriting a bad move. What I find poor form on Brush's part is that he maneuvered to get Johnson the job specifically to kill public criticism of his shady/stingy moves. Johnson was a vociferous critic of Brush's management of the team and Brush pulled strings to get Johnson out of Cincinnati for precisely that reason. The quality of Johnson's reporting and/or management talents were immaterial to that point (though I'd certainly be interested to learn more about his journalistic career.)

[Victory Faust]

Tom Monaghan, owner of Domino's Pizza and the Detroit Tigers from 1984-1993 deserves some consideration.

He bought the team right as the Tigers were primed to win the World Series, with a roster full of bright young stars. Then he refused to pay Lance Parrish, Kirk Gibson and Jack Morris decent money, and they all walked even though all but Morris had indicated they wanted to stay here. Parrish all but begged to stay, and Gibby was a hometown boy who was criticized by the owner because he didn't shave every day (!)

Monaghan made many other idiotic business decisions, including hiring Bo Schembechler as team president -- a man who had never worked a day in baseball. But the team owner was a University of Michigan football fan, so he hired Bo to run the baseball team, with, as one might expect, disasterous results.

Within five years of walking into a world championship, Monaghan had destroyed the Tigers. They were the worst team in baseball in 1989, and never fully recovered until the mid-2000s. He has to be in the top ten worst owners ever, IMO.

[PACrdfn]

Quote "It was indeed terrible what Irsay did to Baltimore but you got an NFL franchise back a few years later. Brooklyn never got and never will get its franchise back". Quote

I agree about Brooklyn, although(and I know that it is a baseball board) Irsay isn't as much of a villain as people make him out to be. He only got the Colts because Carroll Rosenbloom tried unsuccessfully to get a new stadium built in Baltimore. He didn't like that junkyard known as Memorial Stadium, which was obsolete from the moment that it was built from what I heard. So, instead of moving the team, he traded franchises with Irsay, taking over the Rams while Irsay got the Colts. The blame for the Colt departure should be placed on the City of Baltimore for not building an appropriate facility. Irsay gave them 12 years to get one. That was more then enough time.

Meanwhile, back to baseball. Here are the owners that I think were/are the worst:

1. Charlie Finley: He lied when he bought the Athletics, from what I heard, saying that he would never move the team, then he was trying to move it a few years later. Also, he was the one who kicked Mike Andrews off the team during the 73 World Series after he made a few errors. He was vilified after he did that, and, Bowie Kuhn made him reinstate Andrews.

2. The McClatchy-Nutting group in Pittsburgh: I know that McClatchy had a hand in the building of PNC Park, but, because of him and the Nuttings, they haven't been able to fill it with a good team. They have had ineffective GM's during their ownership who draft who they can sign and not the best available player in the Amateur Draft. They also have signed real "winners" in recent years, like Derek "Operation Shutdown" Bell and Raul Mondesi. I think that Steinbrenner questioned McClatchy's ownership when he bought the team because he didn't think he was wealthy enough or something like that.

[ol' aches and pains]

by worst, i mean conduct that harmed the integrity of the game, worst lack of character, outrageous treatment of players and rules, etc...i.e. who is the worst person to own a major league franchise?

By those criteria, which was what the original poster intended four years ago, my vote goes to Marge Schott. An admirer of Adolf Hitler, she referred to the Red's African American players as her "Million-Dollar N-----s". If she were a character in a book or a movie, you'd say she was too over the top to be believable. You couldn't make up somebody that ignorant.

[Brad Harris]

By those criteria, which was what the original poster intended four years ago, my vote goes to Marge Schott. An admirer of Adolf Hitler, she referred to the Red's African American players as her "Million-Dollar N-----s". If she were a character in a book or a movie, you'd say she was too over the top to be believable. You couldn't make up somebody that ignorant.
Marge suffered from foot-in-mouth syndrome, a product of a previous generation in a politically correct world and a woman in a men's club. She was hardly the stain on the game that people make her out to be, particularly in light of the villianous and excrable cast of characters her ignorant remarks allegedly catapult her ahead of.

[Ubiquitous]

Yes, this was the same era in which Al Campanis got on nightline for Jackie Robinson's 40th anniversary for breaking the color barrier and proclaimed that blacks did not have the mental capacity to hold managerial and front office positions and that they were not good swimmers because of bouyancy issues. This guy was the Dodgers GM for 20 years.

Marge was not alone in her racism.

[Victory Faust]

Yes, this was the same era in which Al Campanis got on nightline for Jackie Robinson's 40th anniversary for breaking the color barrier and proclaimed that blacks did not have the mental capacity to hold managerial and front office positions and that they were not good swimmers because of bouyancy issues. This guy was the Dodgers GM for 20 years.

Marge was not alone in her racism.


Good point. And the racism goes both ways; I've heard countless references to "white men can't jump" and people saying how black athletes are so much better than white ones, which is racist as hell and utterly ridiculous.

Somehow, though, when the racism is aimed at Whitey, nobody utters a peep.

[Brad Harris]

Marge was not alone in her racism.
Nor is racism a particularly grievous mark against the "integrity of the game."

[Ubiquitous]

Depends on what 'integrity of the game" means. If we are talking about between the lines and based on playing rules then almost nothing done besides what is done by players on the field has anything to do with the integrity of the game. But life isn't that simple. Almsot all companies if not all of them have mission statements and corporate beliefs. So if someone or some group is doing something that contradicts the mission statement or beliefs then they most certainly are hurting the integrity of that business.

[Brad Harris]

An owner who won't invest in the team, who defrauds their fans or who runs off good players, who won't negotiate with the union in good faith, who doesn't honor their player contracts,....that's a bad owner.

One who makes a racist remark and gets her hand slapped for it? That's quite another thing entirely.

Marge did a lot to bring fans out to the ballpark, making the team entertaining for fans. She made some poor decisions when it came to cost-cutting, but that wasn't any worse than most owners in the game. Hardly the odious blight on the game many of the other candidates in this thread turned out to be.

[Captain Cold Nose]

Let's not turn Schott into a credit to the sport because she gets overly maligned for her racist tendencies. Besides foot in mouth, she did away with scouting to the point where the team went years without properly developing pitching, allowed Pete Rose to do as he would despite lack of production that often goes with trying to play everyday at 44, hired Tony Perez as manager when she really had zero intention of keeping him and then cut him loose as soon as she could, and was ultimately removed because it turns out the auto dealerships that made the bulk of her fortune weren't really so much a fortune at all. She was cooking the books and was caught and was shown the door for it. That's how to run a team?

She's not really deserving to be at the top of any worst owners list. But she was not a good owner.

[Ubiquitous]

I don't know if you can really blame Schott for the scouting thing. Baseball was trying to centralize scouting during the 80's and many teams subscribed to this centralized approach to scouting. I believe the Phillies were another team that went this route which was a big reason for the mass exodus to the Cubs.

[Captain Cold Nose]

I don't know if you can really blame Schott for the scouting thing. Baseball was trying to centralize scouting during the 80's and many teams subscribed to this centralized approach to scouting. I believe the Phillies were another team that went this route which was a big reason for the mass exodus to the Cubs.

At least there was an approach. Schott was rather outspoken about it and was basically of the opinion of "what am I paying these guys for?"

Not the worst, no. But more than just a few crass and ignorant remarks.

[Ubiquitous]

And I believe Schott subscribed to the centralized scouting bureau. Schott's opinion of scouts during the 80's was not atypical. A lot of owners thought.

I'll have to pull out Dollar Signs on the Muscle to find out which teams subscribed to it, it has been awhile.

[Solair Wright]

This is always an interesting list to add to. Jeffrey Loria may not be the best owner, but far from the worst. If you were to ask me who was the worst, I think it would have to be without a doubt Walter O'Malley. He chased the Brooklyn Dodgers two seasons after winning the World Series in 1955, moveing them to Los Angeles. To add insult to injury, they won the World Series five times in the Dodgers' tenure in Los Angeles, the most recent in 1988.

[Captain Cold Nose]

This is always an interesting list to add to. Jeffrey Loria may not be the best owner, but far from the worst. If you were to ask me who was the worst, I think it would have to be without a doubt Walter O'Malley. He chased the Brooklyn Dodgers two seasons after winning the World Series in 1955, moveing them to Los Angeles. To add insult to injury, they won the World Series five times in the Dodgers' tenure in Los Angeles, the most recent in 1988.

Going to an untapped market and winning makes one a bad owner?

I know you mean something else, but that is what you said.

[Solair Wright]

Going to an untapped market and winning makes one a bad owner?

I know you mean something else, but that is what you said.

Well, not exactly. He has had some issues, and those have all but been fixed. I reiterate that he's far from a bad owner, but still not one of the best. I'm still content with Walter O'Malley as the worst owner in baseball.

[Iron Jaw]

Peter Angelo of the Orioles. His only saving grace is that he ran the best baseball announcer this side of Vin Scully out of town, and the Giants got him.

Finley is a tough call. He was a drunken, bullying tightwad who chased his best players from the team. But, he was an innovator in the Bill Veeck mode who really broke through the stuffiness of the game -- designated hitters and runners, colored balls, wild uniforms, facial hair on players, ballgirls in hotpants, and Billyball (i.e., wild baserunning that launched Rickey Henderson's career).

I agree with you on Angelos.

[Captain Cold Nose]

Well, not exactly. He has had some issues, and those have all but been fixed. I reiterate that he's far from a bad owner, but still not one of the best. I'm still content with Walter O'Malley as the worst owner in baseball.

I was referring to O'Malley, not Loria. What I asked is not really applicable to Loria. I'm no fan of O'Malley, but outside of the Brooklyn perspective, he didn't seem to do that badly. So how does that make him the worst owner if you're coming from an unbiased approach?

[Mongoose]

Going to an untapped market and winning makes one a bad owner?

I know you mean something else, but that is what you said.

Walter O'Malley was less interested in an untapped market than he was in a whole lot of free prime real estate. When the citizens of Los Angeles flinched at giving him Chavez Ravine, he was ready to bolt Los Angeles.

Here's a link which contains a scan of an article from May 24th 1958 in which O'Malley threatens to leave for Toronto, among other places, if the people of Los Angeles don't cave in to his demands:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2008/05/the-toronto-dod.html

Walter was the kind of guy where: if at any time some little green men stepped out of a spaceship and offered him more land and more incentives, he'd have moved the team to Mars.

Walter O'Malley's fan base was fanatical enough to have made his team the number one money maker in the league; this is indisputable. O'Malley was the first guy in sports history to tell such a fan base that this didn't matter because he believed he could make more money elsewhere. Walter told everybody loyalty and support counted for nothing, and that the fans really didn't matter. In this sense, he was a pioneer.

Walter O'Malley was responsible for demolishing the perception/reality of bonds of loyalty linking team, player, fan and community. The fact that it's all very obviously about the money and nothing else is the biggest problem with baseball today. Players are largely mercenary and teams want to bleed every last cent out of everybody. The best seats at ballparks these days are unaffordable and mostly bought by corporate entities who often don't use them. Real fans, at least places like New York, are relegated to the nosebleeds, which run $20 to $50. Ballparks are shrunken to maximize season ticket sales; if you can't afford some sort of season plan - you no longer matter.

Sure, it was always about the money at the end of the day, but O'Malley stripped the veneer of civility from the whole set-up and paved the way for every greedy fan-hostile scheme imaginable - up to personal seat licenses and beyond. He was the forerunner.

O'Malley set the benchmark.

Which makes him the obvious choice for Worst Owner Ever.

[Mongoose]

I was referring to O'Malley, not Loria. What I asked is not really applicable to Loria. I'm no fan of O'Malley, but outside of the Brooklyn perspective, he didn't seem to do that badly. So how does that make him the worst owner if you're coming from an unbiased approach?

Well, I just explained that in the above post. Even from the perspective of his own petty self-interest, though, he was short sighted.

Basically, Stoneham was going to move the Giants no matter what. If O'Malley had done nothing, he would have had the NL franchise for the #1 market all to himself. As it turned out, he made himself a legendary pariah and wound up with the NL franchise for the #2 market. What a genius!

As stated, he was so blinded by all that free acreage he failed to realize the money he could have generated just by taking Robert Moses' generous offer of a ballpark at Flushing Meadows. After the Yankees dynasty ended in 1964 he would have owned the media capital of the world.

And what would that have meant?

The Mets have been a poorly run organization for almost their entire history; they are a start-up franchise with no history of their own. Their fan base wound up rooting for them by default. Even so, their franchise valuation is higher than that of the Dodgers. This means the Mets have higher potential earning power than the Dodgers - and no wonder: their market is bigger and baseball crazy.

If a team with the Dodgers' history and pedigree had remained in New York for all their championship years, they'd almost certainly be worth more than even the Yankees. They'd be a marketable brand in a way the Mets aren't and will never be - and that the Dodgers can never have a chance to be again.

Yeah, O'Malley made a lot of money, but if he hadn't been fueled by greed so intense that it blinded him, he would have made even more money.

Which makes Walter O'Malley not only a moral pariah, but a fool.

[ol' aches and pains]

Marge suffered from foot-in-mouth syndrome, a product of a previous generation in a politically correct world and a woman in a men's club. She was hardly the stain on the game that people make her out to be, particularly in light of the villianous and excrable cast of characters her ignorant remarks allegedly catapult her ahead of.

I'm sorry, but I must take issue here. A Major League owner is a highly visible spokesperson for the sport. To have one of them making comments praising Hitler and using the "N word" in the public arena cannot be excused as a "product of a previous generation in a politically correct world". It's beyond ignorant, it's spectacularly stupid. My father was a product of a previous generation in a politically correct world, and from Alabama to boot, and I never heard him use that word.

Schott was a disgrace to the game, and a poor excuse for a human being. Remember when an umpire (was it John McSherry?) collapsed and died of a heart attack on the field on opening day in Cincinnatti? Schott's reaction was "first it snows, and now this!" Maybe you can name a more despicable owner, I can't think of one.

[Mongoose]

I'm sorry, but I must take issue here. A Major League owner is a highly visible spokesperson for the sport. To have one of them making comments praising Hitler and using the "N word" in the public arena cannot be excused as a "product of a previous generation in a politically correct world". It's beyond ignorant, it's spectacularly stupid. My father was a product of a previous generation in a politically correct world, and from Alabama to boot, and I never heard him use that word.

Schott was a disgrace to the game, and a poor excuse for a human being. Remember when an umpire (was it John McSherry?) collapsed and died of a heart attack on the field on opening day in Cincinnatti? Schott's reaction was "first it snows, and now this!" Maybe you can name a more despicable owner, I can't think of one.

Oh, I can name one; and so can you.

Who was more destructive to baseball?

A bigoted fool who made numerous ignorant statements?

or

A guy who

* Stripped the biggest media center in the world of 2/3 of its baseball teams, thereby ending baseball's golden age and paving the way for baseball to be deposed as National Pastime?

* Rewarded his fan base's decades of strong support through good times and bad by moving the team 3000 miles away to get his hands on a few hundred acres of prime real estate?

* Showed the world that baseball is just another ugly cutthroat business in which loyalty meant nothing, contrary to what baseball had been telling telling congress, the courts and the American people for decades?

And as far as racism goes, what did Marge Schott ever do except open her mouth? A big reason O'Malley wanted out of Ebbets Field was because African-American people had moved into the neighborhood. Schott might have talked the talk, but O'Malley walked the walk.

It was Branch Rickey who engineered the breaking of the color barrier. As soon as O'Malley forced Rickey out, Jackie Robinson knew his days were numbered. Robinson was unceremoniously traded to the Giants, led by Leo Durocher whom Robinson despised, at the end of the 1956 season. Jackie Robinson retired rather than report. Walter O'Malley thereby forced Robinson into retirement and caused his career to end on an ugly note. Shirley Povich wrote a good column that seems to suggest how O'Malley felt about Robinson and African-Americans in general:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE4DC113CF936A25757C0A9619482 60&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

O'Malley, who had bought out Rickey's stock in the Dodgers several years earlier, and Buzzy Bavasi, then the Dodgers' general manager, never particularly liked Robinson, whose combative nature was just what most club owners look for in a managerial or front-office candidate. When the Dodger owner was once asked before Robinson was traded if he were considering Robinson as a potential manager, O'Malley puffed on his cigar. ''Robinson can't manage himself,'' O'Malley snapped. ''How can you expect him to manage 25 ballplayers?''

Nice.

In answer to your question: O'Malley is a more despicable owner.

[Captain Cold Nose]

Thanks for the unbiased, objective opinion I was looking for.

[EdTarbusz]

Here's a link which contains a scan of an article from May 24th 1958 in which O'Malley threatens to leave for Toronto, among other places, if the people of Los Angeles don't cave in to his demands:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2008/05/the-toronto-dod.html

.


The story convieniently doesn't mention that O'Malley had a deal in place with LA city officials that the Dodgers would be able to build a stadium at the Chavez Ravine site if they would relocate to LA.

[Mongoose]

Thanks for the unbiased, objective opinion I was looking for.

I detect a hint of sarcasm in this answer. Perhaps I'm mistaken. If you feel any of the points I've raised are not valid or accurate, please explain why.

[Captain Cold Nose]

I detect a hint of sarcasm in this answer. Perhaps I'm mistaken. If you feel any of the points I've raised are not valid or accurate, please explain why.

I feel you speak well for your side of the argument. I'll leave it at that.

[Mongoose]

The story convieniently doesn't mention that O'Malley had a deal in place with LA city officials that the Dodgers would be able to build a stadium at the Chavez Ravine site if they would relocate to LA.

I believe the whole sordid story is on the scanned newspaper page that's on the linked page.

Either way, this just goes to show you that Walter wasn't interested in being a "pioneer"; he was interested in the big land grab. If he didn't get the big land grab, he was moving the team again.

It's too bad some Martians didn't show up at that time with a better deal: then Walter would have been a "pioneer" in Outer Space. Knowing the situation, he'd have persuaded Stoneham to move the Giants to Uranus to cut travel costs for the league...

[EdTarbusz]

I believe the whole sordid story is on the scanned newspaper page that's on the linked page.

Either way, this just goes to show you that Walter wasn't interested in being a "pioneer"; he was interested in the big land grab. If he didn't get the big land grab, he was moving the team again.

It's too bad some Martians didn't show up at that time with a better deal: then Walter would have been a "pioneer" in Outer Space. Knowing the situation, he'd have persuaded Stoneham to move the Giants to Uranus to cut travel costs for the league...

If LA reneged on the promised deal, why shouldn't O'Malley consider leaving the area?

[Tampa Bay Giants]

As far as Marge Schott being a bad owner, I certainly don't agree with her Hitler comments and what she said about the "Million Dollar N______," and a lot of other things that she did like asing that the Reds didn't need scouts because "all they do is sit around and watch baseball games".

But I sure appreciated the $3.50 ticket, $1 hot dog, $1 soda and $5.00 parking while she was the owner.

I think she was just an over-zealot fan who bought the team and was out of her league.