The Toronto Dodgers?

May 24, 1958

By Keith Thursby
Times staff writer

A day after saying Los Angeles could lose the Dodgers if voters don't back a plan to build a stadium in Chavez Ravine, National League President Warren Giles turned politician. He played both sides of the fence.

Giles insisted to a Times reporter that he wasn't threatening Los Angeles or making an ultimatum when he suggested that a defeat of Prop. B in the June 3 election would mean National League owners would work to find the Dodgers a new city. Preferably one that wanted to build a new stadium.

"All I am doing is stating the facts," Giles told The Times' Frank Finch. "I am not presumptuous enough to indicate how the citizens of Los Angeles should vote."

Of course not.

In the same story, Giles said there would be no difficulty in finding a new city for the Dodgers to call home. He wouldn't get specific, but the story mentioned Minneapolis, Houston and Toronto as prospects.

Meanwhile, the issue seemed to bring out the best in two of Los Angeles' best quotes, Mayor Norris Poulson and City Councilman Patrick McGee.

"Los Angeles would be the laughingstock of the nation if we went back on our word," said Poulson. And in the other corner, here's McGee: "Giles' threat is an insult to the intelligence of the people of the city of Los Angeles."

keith.thursby@latimes.com

Comments

[Richard H]

"Los Angeles would be the laughingstock of the nation if we went back on our word,[selling the Dodgers Chavez Ravine if Prop B passed]" said [Los Angeles Mayor] Poulson.

What if Prop B had passed? Let's speculate.

Maybe the Dodgers would have gone back to New York if the City of New York build the stadium Robert Moses promised. Instead Shea Stadium was built for the expansion NL New York Mets.

Even before the Dodgers moved to L.A., Baseball teams were relocating. The Saint Louis Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles. The Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee. The Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas CIty. Of course the New York Giants moved to San Francisco the same year the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. This would hardly be the end of team relocation either, far from it.

There would also be league expansion. In a few years, New York got it's replacement NL team and Houston got an NL team. Washington, DC got a new AL team the year it's old AL team left for Minnesota. Of course, Los Angeles in 1961 would get an expansion AL team, the Angels. THis would not be the end of MLB expansion either, far from it.

Los Angeles would have gotten another NL team one way or another. Too many other team owners were filled with wanderlust in those years.

[Vincent]

I don't know if the Dodgers would have moved back to New York -- Moses had wanted them at the Flushing Meadows site that eventually became Shea, and O'Malley simply wasn't interested...his initial goal, as we all know, was to build a stadium near the Atlantic Avenue LIRR terminal (the area where an arena is now planned for the NBA's New Jersey Nets to move to in a few years).

What might have happened would have been a move to the Twin Cities, an area the Dodgers were familiar with since they had a AAA farm team in St. Paul. However, they would have moved to the ballpark in Bloomington, Minn. that was being used by St. Paul's archrivals, the Minneapolis Millers -- the same ballpark that would be occupied in 1961 by the original American League Washington Senators. In fact, before Los Angeles made overtures, Minneapolis-St. Paul was the market O'Malley was considering if he had to leave Brooklyn; it was deemed to have many of the same qualities that had made Milwaukee such a bonanza for the relocated Boston Braves (although we know that fizzled out a few years later).

If the Dodgers had left Los Angeles, it would have presented major logistical and scheduling problems, since San Francisco would have been the only West Coast franchise. The National League thus might have expanded to both L.A. and New York (although the majors expanded only because of the threat of Branch Rickey's proposed Continental League and congressional threats over MLB's anti-trust exemption). Of course, eventually the NL did take in new teams in NYC and Houston.