How did Walter O'Malley get into the Hall of Fame?

Question

No way this should have ever happened. This is the man who took the Dodgers out of Brooklyn 50 years ago, and really has never been forgiven.

and why is MLB recognizing this guy, when they fail to let Gil Hodges into the HOF? Thats definitely a slap in the face to Brooklyn and New York City.

Hodges was a beloved Dodgers player in te 1940's and 1950's and managed the 1969 World Champion Mets, the team that replaced the Dodgers after O'Malley stole them from Brooklyn.

The is a bad move on the part of the HOF.

Answer 1

No one knows what credentials are needed to be enshrined in the HOF, just that each candidate receive 75% of the votes of the Baseball Writers Association of America or veterans committee. So let's just say there's no standard of achievement for getting in.

It's my guess that O'Malley got in because he moved baseball forward as a business, both for the teams specifically and the league in general. O'Malley understood that a winning team means greater profits. Happy, loyal employees meant winning, so that's why the Dodgers treated its people better than most other teams. Since the Dodgers vacated Brooklyn, it has become routine for teams unhappy with their stadium accommodations to demand a new one -- paid largely by the community -- or else they'll move to a city that will. It's heartless and cruel, but it's profitable.

From a league standpoint, baseball grew geographically. In 1957, the 16 teams were mostly clustered in the Northeast: Kansas City was the farthest West and Washington the farthest South. Now MLB teams are spread out much more evenly throughout the US, plus one team in Canada. Thanks in part to O'Malley, MLB emerged from its regional roots to a national spectator sport.

It's important to remember some of this may have happened anyway. The Giants moved from the Polo Grounds to SF that same year, so national expansion was inevitable. Other sports team owners also began making decisions based on profit first (as they all do now), so that also would have happened anyway.

O'Malley's legacy is that he knew these things a little before most others and acted before anyone else. Baseball as a business is much better off having adopted these principles. (I'm not sure the same is true of baseball as a game. It's tough to get to work on time after those late-ending playoff games.) For better or for worse, baseball evolved rapidly, and O'Malley was at the vanguard of that change. That's why he's going to the Hall of Fame.

As for Hodges, it's a travesty he wasn't inducted years ago.

Answer 2

Walter O'Malley's being a good guy or bad guy depends on whether you live in Brooklyn or Los Angeles; he's either the person who took baseball out of Brooklyn or opened up the West Coast to baseball. And there's no question that the Dodgers were an excellent team during the 1950s and 1960s, when he was president and owner, winning 8 NL pennants and 4 World Series.

And Gil Hodges actually has a pretty weak argument for the HoF unless you give him lots of managerial extra credit. Looking at the Baseball Reference website, he has no similar players enshrined; his 10 closest in similarity scores are Norm Cash, George Foster, Tino Martinez, Jack Clark, Boog Powell, Joe Adcock, Rocky Colavito, Lee May, Willie Horton, and Roy Sievers. All are Hall-of-the-Very-Good types. See the link below.

Answer 3

I think that while many see O'Malley as the one who took the Dodgers from Brooklyn, others see him as the man who introduced major league baseball to the West Coast. Regardless of one's feelings for him, he does deserve credit for opening up that part of the country. I'm sure someone else would have done it at some point, but he was the first.

As for Gil Hodges, he was a great player who I feel still falls slightly short of Hall consideration. That, however, is just my opinion.

Answer 4

The worst that can be blamed on the Hall (more to the point, the Hall board) -- and this is considerable -- is the appointments it made to the Executives committee. This particular subset of the Veterans Committee was shamelessly stacked to induct a couple of olde-tyme, good ol' boy doofi.

As a candidate, I supported O'Malley, but only quarter-heartedly. His migration of the Dodgers and convincing the Giants to come along was a bold move, and he was a big NL power broker (some say he ran the league) for over 20 years. He wielded transformative influence over organized baseball's fortunes.

That doesn't mean he was a nice man.

Answer 5

He made his fortune as an attorney who foreclosed on the homes of blue-collar families who were trying their best to make ends meet during The Great Depression. That in itself should keep him from any accolades or awards...personally, he was a piece of garbage....and that finally spilled into his later main profession, with the escape from Brooklyn, destroying the major foundation for that borough.

You mention Hodges - who should be in the HOF - and the same can be said of Mel Harder, a top pitcher for Cleveland and Buck O'Neil, who did so much to keep the grand memories from NLB alive and was a true ambassador for the game of baseball.

Answer 6

He was voted in by the Veteran's Committee. He should be looked at helping the west coast finally get a baseball team and so that more people could watch and enjoy baseball. He contributed a lot to baseball and deserves to be recognized. It is a great move.

Answer 7

Are you kidding? He brought baseball to the other side of the US. Up until that point baseball didn't extend past the mid-west. he brought The Dodgers, and helped The Giants, come to CA and in the process spread baseball throughout the US.
He was definitely a pioneer in doing that. The money didn't hurt either...

Answer 8

Like him or not, he owned the team and had the right to move it to where he could make more money.
Hodges may make the Hall someday. He deserves it.

Answer 9

Those that voted wanted to recognize his many contributions to the game of baseball, well deserved in my opinion.

Answer 10

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