A TALE OF THREE CITIES: NEW YORK, L.A. AND SAN FRANCISCO IN OCTOBER OF ‘62 (7 page)

But the Stanford-educated Otis
Chandler eventually took over the family business. He was
conservative, but bound to re-make the paper not as a mouthpiece
for the Republican Party, but to turn it into a world class
journalistic organization on par with the
New York
Times
,
Washington Post
and
The Times of London
. Chandler succeeded by opening bureaus in every major news
center; not just New York and D.C., but the Deep South where the
civil rights struggle was underway; in Asia where the Cold War was
getting hot; in Moscow, London, Paris and everywhere else opinions,
politics and policy were being made, formed and
expressed.

The
Times
also covered local and state issues with a fine
toothcomb. Its editorial page was diverse, thought provoking and
worthy. Its coverage of the film business was equal to trade
magazines like the
Hollywood Reporter
and
Daily Variety
. But what
separated the
L.A. Times
from all
competition, making it the best newspaper in the world, was an
unbelievable sports section. It was like picking up a copy
of
The Sporting News
seven days a
week. It covered high school sports and blanketed the Angels,
Lakers, USC, UCLA and all other athletic endeavors. A talented
staff of columnists, reporters and beat writers covered the
colorful commentary of USC coach John McKay, the Southern homilies
of UCLA coach Red Saunders, the dry wisdom of Bruins basketball
coach John Wooden, and the odd Kabuki dance between the Dodgers’
front office and manager Walter Alston.

The heart of the
Times
was a brilliant wordsmith named Jim
Murray. Murray, like so many on the West Coast, was an East Coast
transplant who came to the paper from
Time
magazine, where he covered Hollywood during an
era of true decadence; the last of the studio system, Mob influence
and Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack. Murray once went on a date/interview
with Marilyn Monroe, which was broken up when the sex symbol
excused herself to leave with another guy. Joe DiMaggio had been
lurking in a nearby booth at the Brown Derby.

Murray came to the
Los
Angeles Times
in 1961. He wrote with a
social
pathos
, imbuing his
sports
reportage
with observations
that the University of Alabama, for instance, was not deserving of
the term
National
Champion so long
as they neither played integrated opponents, traveled to the North,
or had black players on their roster themselves. It also did not
make sense to call the Crimson Tide number one team when they lost
their bowl game
after
the final
Associated Press poll. Murray was, quite simply, the best
sportswriter who ever lived.

The difference between Murray and
the San Franciscans’ Hoppe, Caen and McCabe was a chasm wider than
the Grand Canyon. The elitist view of themselves was embodied by a
1960s column McCabe wrote in which he claimed to have been spared a
parking ticket in Paris when the
gendarme
learned of his San Francisco pedigree.

“
You mention
that you are from San Francisco and you are immediately a gent, as
distinct from the yahoos who bully blacks and throw tear gas at
kids . . . and live in ticky-tack houses and go to ticky-tack
supermarkets,” McCabe wrote. He somehow determined that the
reception given to black jazz artists (who achieved superstar
status in New Orleans, for the most part) in Paris nightclubs
equaled the "grace" that would have been accorded the descendants
of a million slaves had
they
lived
amongst the French populace.

A San Franciscan, “in the eyes of most Europeans,”
is really “a civilized European,” and The City was an “Arcadian
enclave” separated from the backwards burgs of America’s “fly over
country.”

“
San Francisco,
like John Kennedy, has been formally canonized in Europe,” McCabe
wrote . . . “It comes as no news to anyone that Europeans hate our
guts,” he continued, apparently quite distressed that a continent
that in the 20
^th
Century started two world wars killing 150
million people, as well as a political ideology – Communism – that
by the 1960s was well on its way to “achieving” its eventual total
of 100 million murdered human beings, somehow “hated” the very
people who were responsible for ending both world wars and thus the
150 million dead; and would eventually end Communism and its 100
million murders. This was like the convicted mass killer who hates
the prosecuting attorney who puts him behind bars, then has the
temerity to
possess knowledge of his crimes!

McCabe also seemed resilient to the rather obvious
fact that the Vietnam War we were fighting at that very time was
one we were engaging in because the French themselves had mucked it
up so badly in the first place. He no doubt remained clueless to
the fact that the Middle East was a mess not because of America,
but because the French, after the Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) had
tried to colonize Syria, Lebanon, Algeria and other Arab
populations, used the Foreign Legion to brutally suppress
inevitable rebellions, then again left it up to the U.S. to pick
the pieces.

McCabe in his column wailed against our nation’s
tendency towards wealth and power thrust upon the whole world. The
elite columnist again seemed unable to see that with which was
placed before thine eyes. Here were a few tiny agrarian colonies,
separated by an ocean from the salons of political, economic and
military influence, yet in a scant 200 years we had become the most
powerful empire in the annals of Mankind. McCabe and his kind were
the last people on God’s Earth to embrace knowledge of the fact
that such a thing could happen only by a divine, guiding hand.

The “traveling American . . .
tends to be a quite awful advertisement for his country,” he wrote,
apparently in all cases with the exception of those times when the
“traveling American” is feeding starving Berliners; liberating
fence-setting Frenchmen already hanging Swastikas while learning
how to speak in the
Deutsche
language; providing an alternative to the gulags and
concentration camps for millions . . . all at great cost in
treasure and life, and apparently out of pure
benevolence!

“
He does not care about people in
Paris,” McCabe wrote, which is like saying the policeman who saves
the life of a man does not care that the man hates him for saving
his life. Apparently, Jack and Jacqueline Kennedy were the sole
anti-dotes to American rudeness. Cheating on a man’s wife was a
virtue the French could admire, in McCabe’s view. So too were gay
bathhouses where a disease called AIDS would be allowed to foment
in McCabe's beloved San Francisco, and then spread to the rest of
the world.

While the Dodgers toiled with a considerable degree
of success in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Walter O’Malley
set out to build a baseball palace that would stamp greatness upon
his legacy. Brooklynites called him the “most hated man since Adolf
Hitler.” If O’Malley was going to be given credit as a visionary
and important figure in the game’s history, his Dodger Stadium
would have to be his monument.

He had found Chavez Ravine, a plot of undeveloped
city-owned ground, given to him to do with as he pleased. Illegal
Mexican immigrants, "squatters" in O'Malley's view, inhabited the
area. They camped out rent- and tax-free. The Arechiga family lived
there and put up a big stink over the proposed stadium, even though
they did not own the land. The “do gooders” and “bleeding hearts”
of course found solitude in their plight. The city then paid
Arechiga and others for the land they did not own, and the
construction crews moved in.

By 1962 the project was completed,
ready to be unveiled in all its glory. It was immediately unique in
its design, architecture and location; a place of wonder. Sitting
on a rise about two miles from downtown, it was totally surrounded
by urbanity – freeways, a teeming population, skyscrapers, sprawl –
yet in traveling up a slight but steady palm tree-lined grade, fans
had the immediate illusion, in true movie style, of a park . .
.
in a park
, amid foothills and
foliage. The view at night was spectacular; a lit-up downtown, and
beyond that the vast basin of countless film and photo images. Its
parking lot was spacious, with ticket-holders directed to
convenient spots near their seats. Freeway access from every area
of Los Angeles seemingly directed all roads to Dodger
Stadium.

Next to the Dodger offices fans traversed a steep
stairwell under a cluster of greenery designed to resemble the
Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Fans felt like they were on tour of a
John Huston or Cecil B. DeMille movie.

In contrast to the filthy, stinking Candlestick,
Dodger Stadium was so clean fans felt they could eat dinner off its
polished floors. The bathrooms were pristine. The concessions
offered many choices; fresh, tasty foods, and grilled Dodger Dogs
on crisp buns. Cheerful concessionaires sold bright souvenirs.
Ushers directed fans to their seats with service and a smile.

The stadium was built for maximum fan comfort, a
baseball-only facility in which all seats were angled “on” home
plate instead of a “50-yard line” location hidden behind a pillar
in right field. Seats were built wide with plenty of legroom. No
more hard, wooden benches. Its luxury boxes were an innovation that
O’Malley came up with after seeing similar seating arrangements
during the exhibition tour of Japan.

The Diamond Room catered to stars and celebrities,
who enjoyed posh accommodations, gourmet food and cocktails while
watching the game, but despite this part of the fan experience at
Dodger Stadium immediately included “hob-nobbing” with movie stars
at a stadium located 15 minutes from Hollywood Boulevard. The
co-mingling of average fans was immediately an easy-going affair,
with a sense of Democracy amongst Dodger Stadium fans. A wide
diversity of people came to share their love of baseball and the
team. There had been a long-simmering feuds between the Latino and
white population of Los Angeles. Dodger Stadium went a long way
towards healing much of that divide.

The warm weather gave the palm
tree-studded stadium a sense of tropical paradise; shirtsleeve
crowds and plenty of girl watching. The team immediately chose to
play Saturday night games, a first that gave fans a chance to enjoy
a weekend at the beach and still make it to the ballgame. With Vin
Scully announcing into fan-held transistor radios, Dodger Stadium
somehow seemed wholesome, something “good,” as James Earl Jones
said in
Field of Dreams
; a family
oasis in the middle of a city rife with smog, traffic, crime,
prostitution, X-rated movies, homosexuality, gangs, corruption and
greed. Fans arrived at Dodger Stadium and it was like “dipping
themselves in magic waters.” It was immediately modern and at the
same time nostalgic.

When the first game was played on April 8, 1962, the
hoopla was extraordinary. Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick,
National League President Warren Giles, and Roman Catholic
ecclesiastic James McIntyre were among the honored guests. An army
of blue-shirted usherettes met a crowd of 52,564. Every review was
A-plus. The place was fantastic in every way; the greatest stadium
in all of sports.

A video of O’Malley shows him sitting in his luxury
suite, overlooking the field like a potentate. He smiles and puffs
on his big cigar, secure in the knowledge that after all the
lawsuits, bad press and angst, he had pulled it of; he was one of
the “lords of baseball.” Not even a 6-3 loss to Cincinnati could
dampen spirits.

San Franciscans grudgingly acknowledged the
greatness of Dodger Stadium. Some things were just too spectacular
to deny. They would find fault with the Dodgers and their fans,
which tended to leave in the seventh inning to beat the traffic,
but the stadium itself was a monument.

It certainly did not look good for “Frisco,” the
name they hated to be referred to, in April of 1962. The two teams
had been in California for four seasons. The only team to make it
to, and win, a World Series was Los Angeles. Candlestick was a
joke. NoCal was getting fed up with SoCal hegemony. 1962 was a
particularly good Southern California sports season. USC went
unbeaten, shut out Notre Dame, 25-0 and defeated Wisconsin in the
Rose Bowl, 42-37 to capture the National Championship. The Lakers
extended Boston to seven games in the NBA Finals.

The Trojans and Bruins regularly dominated Cal and
Stanford in all sports. The dynamic of the schools was beginning to
take on a political edge, with Cal and Stanford playing the role of
jealous losers forced to lie about their opponents.

While L.A. had the Lakers, the Warriors did not move
to San Francisco from Philadelphia until the 1962-63 season. The
expansion Angels looked to be a mini-success. The A’s were still in
Kansas City, six years away from their move to Oakland. The Rams
consistently had the upper hand over the 49ers. The Raiders were
nobodies playing on a high school field. Now this fabulous new
Dodger Stadium threatened to catapult the already-favored Dodgers
to a big championship season. Willie Mays and the Giants were The
City’s last, best hope to prevent more indignity.

Go ahead, take a bite out of the Big Apple