Richard Bishop Walsh Jr. (October 30, 1925 – May 6, 2011) was an American sporting executive who, during a 50-plus year career, held high-level positions in
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
, professional
soccer (he was the first
commissioner of the
North American Soccer League), and in convention center management. He was born in
South Bend, Indiana
South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total of 103,453 residents and is the fourt ...
, spent his early years in
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, ...
, and moved to
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
with his family as a boy.
Early baseball career with the Dodgers
Walsh's first career was in
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...
. After attending
Los Angeles High School
Los Angeles High School is the oldest public high school in the Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are royal blue and white and the teams are called the Romans.
Los Angeles High School is a pub ...
, where he was an All-City
third baseman
A third baseman, abbreviated 3B, is the player in baseball or softball whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base — the third of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. In the scoring system us ...
in 1943, and military service during World War II, Walsh joined the
Brooklyn Dodgers organization in
1948 as a member of the front office staff of the
Fort Worth Cats
The Fort Worth Cats was a professional baseball team based in Fort Worth, Texas, in the United States. The Cats were a member of the South Division of the now disbanded United League Baseball, which was not affiliated with Major League Basebal ...
, Brooklyn's
farm club
In sports, a farm team, farm system, feeder team, feeder club, or nursery club is generally a team or club whose role is to provide experience and training for young players, with an agreement that any successful players can move on to a higher ...
in the
Double-A Texas League
The Texas League is a Minor League Baseball league which has operated in the South Central United States since 1902. It is classified as a Double-A league. Despite the league's name, only its five South Division teams are actually based in the ...
. He became the parent team's assistant minor league director, working under
Fresco Thompson, in
1951
Events
January
* January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950).
* January 9 – The Government of the United ...
.
When the Dodgers acquired the
Los Angeles franchise of the
Pacific Coast League in January 1957 — the precursor of the Brooklyn club's historic shift to the West Coast, which would follow at the close of the
1957 season — Walsh, as an Angeleno, became president of the minor league team and a liaison between the Dodgers and the city of Los Angeles. Then, after the Brooklyn club moved West in 1958, Walsh became assistant general manager of the Dodgers. He focused on the team's efforts to build a ballpark in
Chavez Ravine
Chavez Ravine is a shallow L-shaped canyon in Los Angeles, California. It sits in a large promontory of hills north of downtown Los Angeles, next to Major League Baseball's Dodger Stadium. Chavez Ravine was named for Julian Chavez, a Los Angele ...
, and when
Dodger Stadium
Dodger Stadium is a baseball stadium in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It is the home stadium of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers. Opened in 1962, it was constructed in less than three years at a cost of ...
opened as a state-of-the-art facility in
1962
Events January
* January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand.
* January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism.
* January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wor ...
, Walsh was named director of stadium operations.
Soccer commissioner, then Angel GM
After 18 years with the Dodgers, he was chosen to serve as commissioner of first the
United Soccer Association (USA) in
1966, then the
North American Soccer League (NASL), which resulted from the merger of the USA and the
National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) prior to the 1968 season. He served the NASL through its first full season, 1968, then returned to baseball.
In October
1968
The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide.
Events January–February
* January 5 – " Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.
* Janu ...
,
Fred Haney
Fred Girard Haney (April 25, 1896 – November 9, 1977) was an American third baseman, manager, coach and executive in Major League Baseball (MLB). As a manager, he won two pennants and a world championship with the Milwaukee Braves. He later se ...
, the 70-year-old
general manager
A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...
of the
California Angels, retired and Walsh was named his successor by Angel owner
Gene Autry. Walsh had to rebuild the team's front office, as in the months just prior to Haney's retirement, his two top aides,
Marvin Milkes and
Cedric Tallis
Cedric Nelson Tallis (July 29, 1914 – May 8, 1991) was an American executive in Major League Baseball who served as the first general manager of the expansion Kansas City Royals and later played an important role in the New York Yankees' dynasty ...
, left to take over the two
American League
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league ...
expansion teams set to debut in
1969
This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon.
Events January
* January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco.
* January 5
**Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...
, the
Seattle Pilots and
Kansas City Royals.
Walsh then faced another test after the 1969 season began, when the Angels lost 28 of their first 39 games. Walsh fired
Bill Rigney
William Joseph Rigney (January 29, 1918 – February 20, 2001) was an American infielder and manager in Major League Baseball. A 26-year big-league veteran, Rigney played for the New York Giants from to , then spent 18 seasons as the skipper o ...
, the only
manager
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.
Management includes the activities ...
in the club's Major League history to that point, and replaced him with
Lefty Phillips
Harold Ross "Lefty" Phillips (May 16, 1919 – June 12, 1972) was an American coach, manager, scout, and front office executive in Major League Baseball. As manager of the California Angels from May 27, 1969, through the season, Phillips was ...
, who had just joined the Angel front office after a long career as a
scout and
pitching coach with the Dodgers.
The Phillips hiring pulled the Angels out of their tailspin and they finished third that season in the
American League West Division
The American League West is one of Major League Baseball's six divisions. The division has five teams as of the 2013 season, but had four teams from 1994 to 2012, and had as many as seven teams before the 1994 realignment. Although its teams curr ...
. Then during the 1969–70 offseason, Walsh acquired the highly talented but controversial
outfielder
An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to c ...
Alex Johnson
Alexander Johnson (December 7, 1942 – February 28, 2015) was an American professional baseball outfielder, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB), from to , for the Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, California ...
in an inter-league trade with the
Cincinnati Reds. Johnson was a feared batter, but disciplinary problems had caused three
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...
teams to give up on him. In
1970
Events
January
* January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC.
* January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and ...
, Johnson put those problems behind him. He
batted .329 with 202
hits and captured the AL batting title, while the Angels won 86 games and finished a strong third in their division. During the 1970–71 offseason, Walsh traded for another heavy-hitting outfielder,
Tony Conigliaro
Anthony Richard Conigliaro (January 7, 1945 – February 24, 1990), nicknamed "Tony C" and "Conig", was a Major League Baseball outfielder and right-handed batter who played for the Boston Red Sox (1964–1967, 1969–1970, 1975) and California ...
of the
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...
, who had hit 36
home runs, fourth in the American League, during 1970.
The
1971 season began with the Angels considered probable AL West contenders. But Johnson and Phillips clashed over the outfielder's on-field behavior, resulting in multiple team suspensions. Johnson was handed a season-ending ban on June 26 (which he contested in court); his year ended after only 65 games and saw his average decline almost 70 points, with two home runs. Conigliaro played in only 74 games and was batting .222 with four home runs when he announced his retirement on July 11. The 26-year-old had battled vision problems since he was seriously
beaned in an August 18, 1967, game—ironically, against the Angels. The 1971 Angels fell below .500 in mid-May, then finished ten games and two notches below Tallis' three-year-old Royals. Walsh was fired on October 20, 1971 despite four years remaining on his seven‐year contract.
Harry Dalton
Harry Inglis Dalton (August 23, 1928 – October 23, 2005) was an American front-office executive in Major League Baseball. He served as general manager of three American League (AL) teams, the Baltimore Orioles (1966–71), California Angels (1 ...
succeeded him one week later on October 27.
After baseball
The firing ended Walsh's baseball career. In 1974, he became executive director of the
Los Angeles Convention Center
The Los Angeles Convention Center is a convention center in the southwest section of downtown Los Angeles. It hosts multiple annual conventions and has often been used as a filming location in TV shows and movies.
History
The convention center, ...
and held the post for nearly 24 years, a period during which Los Angeles hosted the
1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the sec ...
and began planning the construction of another state-of-the-art venue, the
Staples Center; the Convention Center oversaw two expansion projects during Walsh's tenure: one in 1981 with the addition of the North Hall, and another in 1991 that saw the opening of the South Hall, which opened in 1993. He earned a master's degree in public administration from
California State University, Fullerton
California State University, Fullerton (CSUF or Cal State Fullerton) is a public university in Fullerton, California. With a total enrollment of more than 41,000, it has the largest student body of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) ...
in 1976 and a law degree from
Western State University College of Law
Western State College of Law at Westcliff University is a private, for-profit law school in Irvine, California. It offers full and part-time programs and is approved by the American Bar Association. Western State pays a fee to receive servi ...
in 1984. After leaving the LACC in 1997, Walsh supervised the opening or operations of convention facilities in
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...
and
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
before becoming the executive director of the
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
Convention Center from 2002 to 2005.
Walsh died of natural causes on May 6, 2011, at the age of 85.
See also
*
Baseball America Executive Database.
*
San Bernardino
San Bernardino (; Spanish for "Saint Bernardino") is a city and county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, the city had a population of 222,101 in the 2020 cen ...
Business Press, Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, December 13, 2004.
References
External links
Los Angeles Times, Sept. 24, 2008MLB.com obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walsh, Dick
1925 births
2011 deaths
American soccer chairmen and investors
Brooklyn Dodgers executives
California Angels executives
Los Angeles Dodgers executives
Major League Baseball general managers
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
North American Soccer League (1968–1984) commissioners
20th-century American businesspeople