In a move that rocked the baseball world and signaled the end of one of the great family-owned dynasties in American enterprise, Peter O'Malley announced Monday that he plans to sell the city's most celebrated and successful sports franchise, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
"It's like a death in the family," said former City Councilwoman Roz Wyman, who worked with the O'Malley family to help bring the Dodgers to Los Angeles for the 1958 season, beginning an era that changed not only the face of the city but also the scope of professional sports in the United States.
During the 47-year reign of the O'Malleys, the Dodgers became the first Major League Baseball franchise to move to the West Coast, abandoning Brooklyn and heralding a succession of later franchise moves that helped to turn professional sports into a multibillion-dollar, bicoastal industry. The Dodgers brought cachet and class to a burgeoning metropolis of freeways and bean fields that was widely regarded in the late 1950s as a cultural wasteland.
"It finally occurred to me that this is the time [to sell]," O'Malley said Monday during a press conference at Dodger Stadium, the baseball edifice that his father, Walter, built with the city's help in 1962. "If you look at all sports, it's a high-risk business. Professional sports today is as high risk as the oil business. You need a broader base than an individual family to carry you through the storm."
The Dodgers are the last Major League Baseball team wholly owned by a single family. The other 25 are held by partnerships or large corporations, a trend that has accelerated in recent decades because of the vast sums of money involved in signing free-agent players.
After alluding to those changing dynamics, O'Malley, 59, said he discussed the team with his family over the holidays and reached a decision late last week. The team would present a heavy tax burden to his family if he were to die, O'Malley said.
"The thought [of selling] has been in my mind for a while, but with a lot more frequency lately," O'Malley said.
A genial, unemotional O'Malley insisted there were no other, hidden reasons for selling the franchise, which analysts believe could fetch more than $300 million, including the stadium and other property.
O'Malley had been involved for a time in negotiations with Los Angeles officials to explore the possibility of building a new football stadium on Dodgers' property. But O'Malley said he agreed to shelve those plans after city leaders decided to concentrate on using the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to lure a new National Football League team.
