The Dodgers' Owners

We are going to take a look back at all the former owners of the Dodgers. Not in depth, but just a glimpse at the evolvement of the team. Most of them, you know at least something about; others, not so much.

Ferdinand Abell and Charles Byrne were the two main owners that formed the 1883 team that would one day become the Dodgers. Abell was a casino owner, putting up the bulk of the cash to form the team. Abell also supplied most of the money to build Washington Park, the team’s home. Bryne was a New York City realtor. He graduated from St. Francis Xavier College, and after graduation, he worked as a reporter for a newspaper. The team at first was simply called The Brooklyn’s. It cost $30,000 dollars to build Washington Park. In 1883, they were a member of the Inter-State Association of Professional Baseball Clubs. They won the Championship, so with the increased interest, they moved the team to the American Association in 1884. The team would move to the NL in 1890 and begin their journey as the Bridegrooms. Abell was also a huge part of merging the Baltimore team with Brooklyn in 1898.

Byrne died in 1898, and his shares were purchased by Abell and Charles Ebbets. Abell continued to be part of ownership until he was bought out by Ebbets in 1907. He died in 1913.

Ebbets was born in NYC in 1859. His father was actually misidentified by Ken Burns in his Baseball documentary as Daniel Ebbets. His actual father was John B. Ebbets, a tavern owner in Manhattan. His family had started in the colonies in 1700 when a bricklayer from England, Daniel Ebbets, arrived in New York. His mother, who was of Dutch descent, had her family roots back even further since her family came to what was then New Amsterdam in 1640. Ebbets worked his way up through the Dodger organization from selling peanuts, scorecards, and tickets, to begin with. By 1890, he had saved enough money to invest in the team. By 1898 he owned 80% of the stock. When Byrne died, Ebbets was named team president.

Charles realized that Washington Park was not the venue for the type of team he envisioned, so he started looking for another place to build one. He settled on a place in Flatbush known as Pig Town… so-called because of all the squatters that lived there. One of the attractions was the fact that nine separate trolley car lines crossed that area. Charlie had realized you had to get fans to the game. He quietly began buying up lots, and by 1911, he had acquired 5 1/2 acres of land for the bargain price of $100,000. In 1912 he sold half of his shares in the Superbas to raise the $700,000 to build a new park.

The new park, Ebbets Field, was completed in 1913 and opened with an exhibition game against the Yankees on April 5th. The Phillies beat Brooklyn 1-0 on opening day in front of a packed house of 25,000. In addition to his running his baseball team, Charlie was active in politics. He held office in various Brooklyn districts, but after being defeated by 777 votes for New York State Senator in 1901, his political aspirations were over. Charlie was married twice. After he and his first wife divorced in 1922, he remarried, and they bought a house in Clearwater in 1924. He moved the Robins there for spring training. in April of 1925 when he returned to New York he moved into the Waldorf-Astoria hotel where he would stay when the team was in town. He felt unwell and stayed in the hotel for two weeks. On the morning of April 18h, he fell into a deep sleep, only awakening a couple of times briefly. He died that afternoon of heart failure, and his funeral was on the 21st. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. That day all games in the National League were canceled and the flags flew at half-staff in his honor.

Charles was a hands-on owner who brought many ideas to the game. Some are still in use today. Lady’s Day was one of his ideas, along with expanding the schedule from 140 to 154 based on the travel teams made. He brought in separate locker rooms and separate batting and fielding practices. Before that, both teams would practice on the field before the game. He brought in the rain check and was the first to propose that the players wear numbers. Truly he was a baseball pioneer.

When Ebbets died, Ed and Stephen McKeever became the principal owners of the team. Ed became president. But Ed caught a cold at Ebbets funeral and died on April 29th. So Stephen became acting president. Wilbert Robinson was elected president of the team for a while, but in October of 1932, he was elected president of the team by the shareholders. Partial ownership at this time was shared by the Brooklyn Trust Company. McKeever would stay president of the team until his death in 1938.

In 1938, the ownership of the team was split between the Brooklyn Trust Company, Jim and Dearie Mulvey, Grace Slade Ebbets, Charlie’s first wife, and Joseph Gillieaudeau. When McKeever died, the Mulveys had inherited his shares. One of the members of the Brooklyn Trust was Walter O’Malley, who was a lawyer with the firm. He was assigned as the Dodger’s lawyer in 1942 when Larry McPhail resigned as GM to join the war effort. He slowly began buying shares, and in 1945, he became, along with several others, a minority owner in the team, along with Branch Rickey, the Mulvey’s, and James Lawrence Smith.

Smith died and left his shares to his wife in 1950. O’Malley bought Branch Rickey’s 25% of the team in 1950 and became the principal owner. Most of us know the history of the team from the beginning of his tenure. He was not a huge Jackie Robinson fan. He went to war basically with Robert Moses over the building of a new park in Brooklyn, which led directly to the Dodger’s move to Los Angeles. He actually, for a time, abolished the use of the title of GM, not wanting anyone to step into Rickey’s shoes. Director of Player Personnel was the title for a while. Mrs. Smith sold her shares to the Mulveys and O’Malley when the team made their move to Los Angeles. Seeing Milwaukee’s attendance jump when the Braves moved there from Boston had to be part of the reason O’Malley made the move. He was, after all, a very smart businessman, and more attendance meant more money.

In 1975, he bought out the Mulvey’s and became the sole owner of the Dodger franchise. If the Mulvey name sounds familiar, the Dodgers would give the Dearie Mulvey award to their best performing Rookie in spring each year. Although it felt like he was the sole owner for ages, simply because he was pretty heavy-handed running the team, he was in that position only from 75-79. When he died in 79, ownership passed to his son Peter and daughter, Terry Seidler.

Peter O’Malley would run the Dodgers from 1979 until 1997. To me, this period was one of the best for Dodger fans. The team would win two World Series, 1981 and 1988. They would produce several Rookies of the Year, including five straight, Karros, Piazza, Mondesi, Nomo, and Hollandsworth. They were very competitive throughout that time. Dodger Stadiums’ ticket prices stayed family-friendly for many years. The team had a family atmosphere. Only one manager was at the helm, Lasorda. But his kids were not really into running a baseball team, so when he did decide to sell, he ended up selling the team to a corporation, and the friendly prices and family feeling became a memory.

O’Malley sold the Dodgers to the Fox Entertainment Group, which was owned by Ruppert Murdock, a newspaper magnate, in 1998. Fox, as its own entity, owned the team until 1999, when Robert Daly became a minority owner and stepped in to run the team. One of their first orders of business was to break most Dodger fans’ hearts and ship Mike Piazza out of town in an ill-advised trade over the head of the GM, Fred Claire, in 1998. Piazza was traded simply because FOX felt his contract demands as a free agent were way too high. By today’s standards, it would be a steal. During the period 1998 to 2003, the team was not very successful, failing to advance to the playoffs at all. In 2004 Fox News Corp, the controlling company in Murdock’s empire, sold the team to Frank McCourt, a parking lot mogul, and got $430 million.

McCourt’s ownership tenure, 2004 to 2012, was tumultuous, to say the least. To cover his costs, he raised ticket and concession prices almost every year. He was going to develop a project which would have built a football stadium, and an adjacent retail project was shelved after a story leaked about the plans. He made many improvements to the stadium, and those investments raised the team’s value to well over $700 million according to Forbes. His first team in 2004 made the playoffs. His GM choice, was Paul DePodesta. One of his trades sent the Dodgers starting catcher, Paul LoDuca, and two other players to Miami for He Sop Choi, Brad Penny, and a minor leaguer. He then traded three rookies to the D-Backs for Steve Finley. Choi was a total bust hitting .161 with no homers in LA. Finley hit 13 homers in LA. None bigger than his division-clinching Grand Slam against the Giants on the last day of the year. They were beaten 3-1 in the NLDS by the Cardinals. Choi did nothing, LA catchers, were 3-10 in the series, and Penny did not appear in the series.

After the season, DePodesta decided against re-signing free agent 3rd baseman Adrian Beltre, which was a huge blunder. Beltre signed with the Mariners for 5 years/$64 mil. Instead, he spent 5 years/$55 Million on JD Drew, Derek Lowe, 4 years/$36, Million and he also signed Jeff Kent. The Dodgers had their second worst season in LA at 71-91. Manager Jim Tracy was fired, and a month later, DePodesta was out the door too. Ned Colletti was hired as his replacement, and Grady Little was brought in to manage. Colletti signed free agents Rafael Furcal, Nomar Garciaparra, Bill Mueller, and Kenny Lofton. LA was the wild card that year and lost to the Mets in the NLDS, so Colletti signed Juan Pierre, Jason Schmidt, and Luis Gonzalez. The 2007 team barely finished above .500, 82-80, Little resigned, and Joe Torre came in as the new manager.

Colletti again signed free agents Andruw Jones, Hiroki Kuroda, and Chan Ho Park. Jones and Schmidt were complete busts, Schmidt getting six wins in his three seasons, and Jones, overweight and totally out of shape, had a dismal season. But a trade at the deadline brought Manny Ramirez and instant excitement to Dodger Stadium and sparked an area in Left Field known as Mannywood. They would make it to the NLCS before losing to the Phillies. In 2009 Ramirez was suspended for PED but they still managed to win the division. Once again, they made the NLCS only to lose to the Phils again.

Trouble was brewing behind the scenes as McCourt and his wife were having some serious domestic problems. The money drain forced Colletti to become very creative in his free agent signings and trades. He even traded for Greg Maddux twice. By 2009 with the marriage falling apart, McCourt got involved in a messy divorce. The judge sided with McCourt as to ownership of the team, and a settlement with his wife was contingent on the Dodgers closing a TV deal with Fox. When MLB disapproved of the deal, the settlement fell apart. By 2011, MLB was concerned enough with the finances of the Dodgers that they appointed Tom Schieffer to oversee the team. On June 27th of that year, the Dodgers filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection. Negotiations between McCourt and MLB were pretty contentious, and finally, McCourt agreed to sell the team. On March 27, 2012, he sold the Dodgers to the Guggenheim Partners for a record 2-billion-dollar price tag. McCourt still has several businesses and now resides back in Massachusetts with his second wife. When he left, Dodger fans rejoiced.

Since Guggenheim took over, the Dodgers have had the most successful period in their history. They have made it to the playoffs ten straight seasons; they had never done it more than twice before. They have 9 division titles, two rookies of the year, numerous memorable moments, and a World Series title; their first in 32 years in 2020. They have flourished, remodeled Dodger Stadium into a cathedral of baseball, rejuvenated a disgruntled fan base, and had more 100-win seasons in the last ten years than they had in all their time in Brooklyn and LA up to this point. They have a strong farm system that keeps producing MLB-level players. The attendance at this point is the highest in the league, and the only team averaging 40 thousand plus a game. In short, Guggenheim has kept their promise to the fans to make the Dodgers back into winners and to be competitive every single year. Here’s hoping it lasts a long, long time. In my mind, they have kept Magic Johnson’s promise to make sure the team is competitive every year. The only other close call for the division was in 2018 when they had to play a 163rd game to win the division from the Rockies. The smallest margin other than that was four games.