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In 1946, Major League players Danny Gardella, Sal Maglie, Alex Carrasquel, Max Lanier, and Mickey Owen accepted $10,000 each to play in the Mexican League. In response Commissioner Happy Chandler banned them for five years on grounds that they violated baseball’s reserve clause. Gardella sued Major League Baseball and the New York Giants charging that the reserve clause was invalid.

By 1949 the case was still mired in the courts with the outcome unsure. Walter O’Malley stepped up in a turn of events that helped resolve the episode. His actions also helped secure his family’s ownership of the Dodgers.

Chandler offered amnesty to Gardella and a rumored settlement of $60,000. Late in the year, Gardella dropped his lawsuit.

In this letter, Chandler writes to Dodger owner Walter O’Malley about the case. “I want to thank you…for the very important part you played in helping to bring about the satisfactory settlement in the Gardella case.”

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After going to Mexico to earn more money in the off-season, Danny Gardella came under attack from commissioner Happy Chandler.

In this letter Gardella writes in part, “Cheap and monopolistic Happy Chandler banished all players (who) went to Mexico and I asked Fred Johnson to represent me in court and the reserve clause became infamous and the great American game tried to make proper changes like unions to shape the modern player.”

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A reflective Danny Gardella continues, “I hope I have been good for baseball…” One of the earliest players to train with weights, Gadella was also known for his ability to walk on his hands and perform acrobatic stunts.

In three Major League seasons, Gardella played 169 games and hit .267 with 24 homers and 85 runs batted in.

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When Walter O’Malley first bought a share of team ownership in the Dodgers, his eldest son Peter was 7 years old.

Young Peter soon developed a great love of the Dodgers and baseball. His favorite player growing up was Pete Reiser who won a batting championship when Peter was just four years old.

Shown here is a letter from Walter dated August 18, 1953, when his son was 16 years old.

Walter writes, “It just does not seem that fans of today have the interest in yesterday’s stars to set a date for our old friend Pete Reiser. His picture was the first ball player to be hung in my son’s room and he has always been a personal favorite.”

Decades later Emmy-winning film editor Rick Tuber put together a documentary on his father-in-law Reiser. He interviewed Peter O’Malley for the film. The former Dodger owner recounted tales from childhood and Reiser that now appear in the documentary.

After Walter moved the team to Los Angeles, his son’s role in the operation of the Dodgers grew. Eventually he assumed the presidency of the club.

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With two days left on the 1956 regular-season baseball calendar, the Dodgers were a half game in back of the Milwaukee Braves. Brooklyn then swept the Pirates in a double header on September 29 while the Braves lost to the Cardinals to put the Dodgers a game up with one day to go.

Needing a win to control their destiny and propel the team to the World Series the team gave the ball to Don Newcombe to bring home the pennant. Newk did what he did best in 1956 and the Dodgers were National League champs.

Shown here is a telegram dated October 1, 1956 sent from Yankee owner Dan Topping to Dodger owner Walter O’Malley. “Congratulations. See you Wednesday” the telegram says alluding to the World Series. The Dodgers would go on to win Game 1 and 2 before the Yankees came rolling back to win the Series 4-3.

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Revered by many and vilified by some, Walter O’Malley was one of the most influential owners in the history of Major League Baseball. Shown here is a check drawn on the Los Angeles Dodgers account made out December 15, 1958 to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles.

O’Malley moved the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958 and held the title of Chairman until his death in 1979.

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Warren Spahn’s illustrious career included thirteen 20-wins seasons. A lifetime record of 363-245 puts him in elite territory. The win total puts him behind only Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Pete Alexander, Christy Mathewson, Pud Galvin in baseball history.

A first-ballot choice for Cooperstown, Spahn received his plaque on August 6, 1973. Dignitaries throughout the game expressed their awe and praise to baseball’s winningest southpaw.

Shown here is a congratulatory telegram sent to Spahn from Walter O’Malley a month after the lefty’s induction.

Dated 26 days before O’Malley’s 70th birthday, the telegram reads in part, “When they put you in the ‘Gold Room’ they didn’t make a mistake.”

A lifetime National Leaguer, Spahn tormented the Dodgers for 21 years.

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The Dodgers are a cornerstone franchise in baseball. The long and storied history of the franchise includes one of the game’s greatest family stewardships, that of the O’Malleys.

Walter O’Malley first bought into the team in 1944 to begin a family reign that lasted more than 50 years. From that moment forward, he continually accumulated shares and built his influence. Though he gained controlling interest in 1950, it took another quarter century before the O’Malleys had sole ownership of the club.

To fully understand the chronology of the O’Malley ownership, we turn back the clock to 1897 when Charles Ebbets bought into the club. At that time the team played in South Brooklyn’s Washington Park. A less-then-desirable location, the park was near factories that bellowed out smoke and a polluted canal that filled the air with foul odors.

Ebbets wanted a new home for his team. In 1912 construction magnates Ed and Stephen McKeever bought out Ebbets’ partner Henry Medicus. Together Ebbets and the McKeevers built Ebbets Field in Flatbush.

When the stadium’s namesake passed away in April, 1925, Ed McKeever replaced Ebbets as team president. At Ebbets’ funeral Ed caught a cold then soon contracted influenza. He passed away two weeks later on April 29, 1912. His brother Stephen took over as Brooklyn’s president.

When Stephen died in 1938 he left his shares to his daughter Elizabeth “Dearie” McKeever and her husband James Mulvey. They maintained partial ownership over the next four decades.

In 1944 O’Malley, Branch Rickey, John L. Smith and Andrew Schmitz bought 25% of the team from Ed McKeever’s heirs. After Schmitz dropped out, the trio of O’Malley, Rickey and Smith bought 50% of the team from the Ebbets estate.

When Smith died in July of 1950, O’Malley and Smith’s widow decided not to renew Rickey’s contract as team president and general manager. The move forced Rickey to sell his shares and leave the club. O’Malley bought Rickey’s stake in the team.

Mrs. Smith sold her shares to Walter a few months before the team’s move to Los Angeles in 1958. Walter then controlled 75% of the club with the other 25% in the hands of the Mulveys.

Dearie Mulvey passed away in 1968 leaving her husband Jim with her family’s share of the Dodgers. When Jim died in 1973, the taxes on his estate forced his children to sell the remaining shares. In 1975 Walter O’Malley bought out that interest to end the McKeever/Mulvey 62-year run with the team. The move gave the O’Malleys sole ownership of the franchise.

Walter turned over the Dodger presidency to his son Peter in the 1970s. As club president, the younger O’Malley extended the Dodgers’ influence in the game worldwide.

The O’Malley reign over the Dodgers ran more than a half century. It includes the team’s only World Series triumph in Brooklyn, and five Fall Classic victories in Los Angeles. In 1978 the team became the first to draw 3,000,000 fans. Under Peter they surpassed that mark in 13 of the next 21 seasons. Their family remains one of the grandest and most influential in the history of the game.

In the collection is this historic correspondence to the Mulvey heirs from Walter O’Malley. Interestingly one of those heirs was daughter Ann who was married to Dodger pitcher Ralph Branca.

Dated March 12, 1975, the letter concerns O’Malley’s acquisition of the Mulveys’ interest in the Dodgers. This transaction was the final piece that gave him sole ownership of the team he first bought a part of in 1944.

The letter reads in part, “Another era in the history of the Dodgers has come to a close. I know that must leave you sad. Peter and I had hoped that conditions would have permitted the relationship to have continued but we also realize from our frank conversation talks with Bud and the lawyers that the taxes on Jim’s estate presented a problem that could only be solved by the sale of stock Fortunately, the company is able to work out a program with the bank that made its acquisition of the stock possible.”

The younger O’Malley had much to say about the letter.

“I thought my dad’s letter in 1975 expressed his thoughts very well,” Peter O’Malley said. “Dearie and Jim Mulvey were longtime friends of my family and then my sister Terry and I had the good fortune to know the next generation Bud, Chickie, Ann and their spouses.

“Spring training was a most enjoyable time of the year and we had an opportunity to keep in touch with the family for many years including exhibition games and St. Patrick’s Day parties.

“In 1969, we recognized the Mulvey family with the Jim and Dearie Mulvey Award named for Jim and Dearie, who had passed on November 24,1968. The award was presented annually to the outstanding rookie on the major league Dodgers in spring training camp. Several recipients of this award were Ted Sizemore (1969), Steve Yeager (1972), Fernando Valenzuela (1981) and Orel Hershiser (1983). My Dad could not have had better partners and our family could not have had better friends.”

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Walter O’Malley turned over the presidency of the Dodgers to his son Peter on St. Patrick’s Day, 1970. Under Peter O’Malley’s stewardship the team won World Series championships in 1981 and 1988 and was a box office hit.

The franchise was the first to draw three million fans and have reached that mark more than all other franchises combined. In the collection is a ticket stub from the final game of O’Malley ownership of the Dodgers. Dated Sunday September 27, 1998, the ticket is signed by Peter O’Malley.

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Under the leadership of Peter O’Malley the Dodgers remained a first-division club. From 1979 when he assumed the Dodger presidency until 1998 when he sold the franchise, the Dodgers finished first six times and won the World Series twice.

Peter O’Malley was also at the forefront of the expansion of baseball globally, helping introduce the sport to the Olympics and signing players from Asia when the practice was still in its infancy.