By Andy McCue
University of Nebraska Press
488 pages
(Walter O'Malley, who owned the Dodgers from 1950 to 1979, was viewed as a visionary by some and a traitor by others for moving the team to Los Angeles in 1958. He was eventually elected to the Hall of Fame for his contributions to the game.)
"The economics of Ebbets Field were pressing Walter O'Malley to find a solution, but the barriers were daunting. The Ebbets Field site [in Brooklyn] was too small to support a larger structure, and the possibility of closing McKeever Place [a street] behind third base, or some other bordering street, was deemed impractical. The projected cost figure he had for a new stadium was $6 million, and O'Malley's team did not have that kind of money, especially with the added burden of paying [Branch] Rickey for his share of the team.
"The publicity-conscious architect Norman Bel Geddes contacted O'Malley in 1948 and offered a design for a new stadium he said would seat 80,400 people.... O'Malley was very willing to listen to people with new ideas, and Bel Geddes had plenty of those.
... "In the spring of 1952 [Bel Geddes] was at Vero Beach at O'Malley's invitation to help design Holman Stadium [the centerpiece of the Dodgers' spring training complex]. But he was not talking about a spring training park for 5,000. He was talking about a downtown-Brooklyn retractable-roof stadium of the future. It would include foam-rubber seats, with heating elements for cold weather, a seven-thousand-car garage, hot dogs from vending machines (mustard included), and a 'synthetic substance to replace grass on the entire field and which can be painted any color.' "
