Why We Stink: How Nepo Babies and Wealthfare Cheats Wrecked New York Sports, Part II.

(Please note bold new title.)

In 1957, after years of sporadic negotiations, Horace Stoneham and Walter O’Malley, the owners of the New York Baseball Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers, made their demands plain: if New York City did not subsidize massive new stadiums for their ball teams, the Giants and the Dodgers would move.

No ultimatum like this had ever been made before. 

Soon after World War II, cities such as Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Baltimore renovated or rebuilt publicly owned stadiums, in the hopes of attracting major-league baseball and football teams. But the idea of publicly subsidizing a new ballpark or arena for a particular, professional team—which would then own the facility in question and take its profits—was unheard of.

Then came Walter O’Malley.

For the first time, thanks to The O’Malley, professional sports teams would demand not only public subsidies, but also facilities built to the specifics they desired, in the places they preferred. Such demands have not stopped since.

Most fans must have been bewildered as to why any of New York’s sports teams were unhappy in that sepia year of 1957. All six teams in the city—the New York Yankees, the New York Giants, the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Football Giants, the New York Rangers, and the New York Knickerbockers—had all been highly successful for years, in the standings and at the gate.

Over the previous 70 seasons, the Yankees, Giants, and Dodgers had won a combined total of 53 pennants and 28 world championships—with the Yankees about to embark on another string of 6 pennants and 3 championships in the next 7 years. 

The football Giants, in their 32 years of existence, had won 9 division titles and 4 NFL titles, and tied for 2 more division championships. They had shredded the Bears in the last title game, 47-7, and were about to run up 5 more division firsts over the next 6 seasons.

The Rangers, in 30 years, had won 3 Stanley Cups and appeared in 6 Cup finals. The New York Knickerbockers, still just 10 years old, had already made 3 NBA finals, extending 2 of them to 7 games.

 

All of the city’s baseball teams usually sat or near the top of their leagues when it came to attendance. The football Giants, playing first in the enormous Polo Grounds and then in the even more enormous Yankee Stadium I, were equally successful. 

The Rangers and the Knicks fared a little less well at the box office—mainly because they had trouble always getting into Madison Square Garden, blocked by college basketball, boxing, the circus, and other events, in what was then truly “the World’s Most Famous Arena.”

All these teams were loved on a deeply personal level—particularly the baseball teams, which had been around the longest, and whose players often lived year-round in the neighborhoods where they played. 

And yet, the Dodgers and Giants wanted more. 

O’Malley, in particular, pointed to how both teams’ attendance had declined since baseball’s peak, postwar year of 1947—the Dodgers’ had dropped from 1.8 million to 1.2 mill; the Giants, from 1.6 million to just 654,000. 

Both teams blamed their aging ballparks, with a lack of parking and the declining neighborhoods that surrounded them.

 

The Dodgers were still second in the NL in attendance—but far behind the team he painted as the emerging dynasty in baseball. This was the Milwaukee Braves, in their newly renovated County Stadium, with over 43,000 seats surrounded by an ocean of parking space.

“How long can we compete on an equal basis with a team that can outdraw us 2 to 1 and outpark us 15 to 1?” wailed Walter. If nothing were done, he insisted with a straight face, the Braves would become “the new New York Yankees,” while the Dodgers themselves would become “the new Washington Senators.”