Walter O'Malley

Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin Group, has acquired a biography of Walter O'Malley—the man who in 1957 infamously moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles—written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael D'Antonio.

News of the deal comes just days after O'Malley was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. According to Riverhead publisher Geoffrey Kloske, who acquired the book in a preempt from agent David McCormick of McCormick & Williams, Mr. D'Antonio has interviewed scores of people, including O'Malley's son Peter, who owned the team through the late 1990s. Mr. Kloske said Mr. D'Antonio "has access to literally hundreds of never-before-used documents and a trove of letters, records and memorabilia totaling more than 35,0000 pieces."

The book, tentatively titled The O'Malley: The Man Who Broke Brooklyn's Heart, Won LA's Love, and Changed Baseball Forever will be published in early 2009.

Steve Kornacki considers what he considers to be the absurdity of Hillary Clinton using essays Barack Obama wrote in grade school against him.

Also from the Observer, Howard Megdal reports that Marty Markowitz is "flabbergasted" to see Walter O'Malley, the man who took the Dodgers out of Brooklyn, inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Fifty years after Walter O’Malley pulled the Dodgers out of Brooklyn, baseball honored him with election to the Hall of Fame.

Reaction to the Dec. 3 announcement is mixed, though it tends to become more positive as one moves west. After all, O’Malley built his reputation on moving the Dodgers; it is the primary accomplishment cited by the Hall in its press release on the new inductees, and the lead sentence of his Times obituary.

That record has led to O’Malley being reviled by all manner of Brooklyn fans and assorted baseball traditionalists. A famous story has a pair of New York journalists trading their lists of the three greatest villains of the twentieth century; both men included Hitler, Stalin and Walter O’Malley.

“I’m flabbergasted, is my response,” Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz said in a telephone interview following the announcement. “A couple of weeks ago, I read that they were even considering honoring Walter O’Malley. I told them if they insisted on doing this, it would break the hearts of Brooklynites all over again.” Markowitz suggested that the Hall make it up to Brooklyn with the enshrinement of former Dodger Gil Hodges.  read more »