Ross Newhan returns to pen an interesting piece today for the L.A. TIMES on the lengths former Dodger Owner Walter O’Malley went to prevent the Angels from ever existing.

(This close from never knowing the wonderment of Rex the Wonder Dog)

Newhan:

According to newspaper and book accounts supported by personal recollections and interviews, the late Walter O’Malley, who moved his storied team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958, never wanted an American League team in what he regarded as his new, private and lucrative territory or believed the AL had legal rights to it.

Son Peter O’Malley denies his dad’s sentiment, but based on the facts of how SoCal’s AL franchise came to exist, there’s no doubt O’Malley did all he could to block off L.A. and Orange Counties from baseball entrepreneurs. Read more…

BROOKLYNITES STILL MAD AT O’MALLEY FOR DODGERS EXIT Along with Dick Williams, former Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley was voted for membership into the Baseball Hall of Fame. While members of the Veterans Committee and many fans may be happy with the selection, there’s still some in Brooklyn who’re bummed:

WCBS-TV via the AP learns that even 50 years later, fans in the NYC borough are still mad at O’Malley for moving the team from Ebbets Field to the sunny shores of Los Angeles. Upon hearing of O’Malley election, Borough president Marty Markowitz said he was “flabbergasted”.Markowitz, who was 12 years old when the Dodgers headed west, feels there should be no honor bestowed on the man who took away Brooklyn’s baseball birthright:

“For O’Malley, the bottom line was that it was his team to do what he wanted with, and he did it at the expense of breaking our hearts, at the expense of ripping out the hearts of the most enthusiastic fans in baseball.”However, some disagree with the scorn shoveled on the Dodgers’ owner. Historian John Thorn argues, “O’Malley’s role as the ‘Johnny Appleseed’ of baseball weighs heavily in his favor, compared to the injury done to the people of Brooklyn.”

Thorn continues that the 1957 relocation “made the ‘National Pastime’ truly national, rather than the provincial affair that it had been, with only two teams as far west as the Mississippi river and the rest of them in the east.”

O’Malley passed away in 1979, so he didn’t get to see the rise of Tommy Lasorda, or bask in the brilliant ownership of Fox or the McCourts. For shame.

DICK FINALLY MAKES IT IN; WILLIAMS ELECTED TO HALL: Dick Williams gets the call-up, as the long-time manager has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame:

The CONTRA COSTA TIMES reports that the 78-year-old was voted in Monday by members of the Veterans Committee. He’ll be joined by former commissioner Bowie Kuhn and former Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, among others.When the two-time World Series winner and his wife heard about his election, Williams said, “It just blew our mind.”

And it would have blown the minds of the Committee, if they had known about Dick’s dirty deeds outside a Florida hotel in 2000.

BUZZLE fondly remembers Williams found fondling himself furiously in Ft. Myers. Police were called to the hotel after many guests reported the retired skipper walking around naked and masturbating outside in public - instead of doing it in the decency of his own room.Williams was in town attending a Fantasy Baseball camp. Apparently, Dick took the ‘fantasy’ concept a little too far.

Just think if they had webcams back then. Dick could have made a new friend with an excitable English soccer stud.