Walter O'Malley - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

O'Malley was mentioned several times in Danny Kaye's 1962 song tribute The D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song (Oh, Really? No, O'Malley!), which spins a tale of a fantasy game between the Dodgers and the Giants. At one point, the umpire's call goes against the home team:

Down in the dugout, Alston glowers

Up in the booth, Vin Scully frowns;

Out in the stands, O'Malley grins...

Attendance 50,000!

So ....what does O'Malley do? CHARGE!!

Just before the St. Louis Cardinals began a series of games against the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium, in 1963, the Los Angeles Times published a large cartoon, drawn by artist Pete Bentovoja, modeled on the movies about the German submarine captain. The captain is Cards' manager Johnny Keane; his "lieutenant" is Stan Musial. They wear Cardinal uniforms with naval officers' caps bearing the "St.L" emblem. While Keane and Musial are speaking, other crew members load bats, like torpedoes, into torpedo tubes; the bats have players' faces (and names and batting averages) drawn on them. Keane looks through the periscope; the inset shows a battleship with a large head of O'Malley, wearing a naval officers cap bearing the "LA" emblem and puffing a cigar. Keane: "Achtung Shtan ! I zought ve sunk sem last year?" Musial: "Yavohl, Mein Kommander, Ve vill blast zem vit bigger und better torpedoes zis zeazon!" (The Cards made a terrific drive for the pennant but finished the season six games back of the Dodgers.)

O'Malley was featured prominently in the HBO documentary film Brooklyn Dodgers: Ghosts of Flatbush, which chronicled his executive management of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers. The documentary focuses on the post World War II glory years of the franchise and presents a compelling case that O'Malley truly wanted to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn in a stadium near a railroad station, but he was unable to get the proper support from Moses.