Future hall of fame MLB owner planted ivy at Penn on this week in Philly history
Future Los Angeles Dodgers executive Walter O’Malley delivered the salutatory address to his classmates during the University of Pennsylvania’s 170th commencement in June 1926.
It’s not just the Chicago Cubs who have a history with ivy.
On June 15, 1926, as the senior class president, future Los Angeles Dodgers executive Walter O’Malley delivered the salutatory address to his classmates during the University of Pennsylvania’s 170th commencement.
And as part of the tradition, he planted a sprig of ivy representing the 1,700 members of the class of 1926.
He was a native New Yorker (forgive him), but at Penn, he was a distinguished undergraduate, leading his class in several significant ways.
He was his junior and senior class president. And at the Weightman Hall ceremony he was awarded the “Spoon Man” honor, which is voted on by the senior class. The award, a wooden spoon, is a bigger deal than it sounds. It reflects the winner’s leadership and popularity.
After Penn, he earned a law degree from Columbia. He became associated with the Dodgers when they were still in Brooklyn in 1932. He took over as team president and majority owner in 1950, and he made the controversial decision to move the team to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s. He ran the club until 1979.
He served as a Penn alumni trustee and board member from 1966 until his death in 1979.
O’Malley would go on to become the first Penn alumnus to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. And he never even played a game.
He was inducted posthumously into the Hall of Fame in 2008. He is one of only 16 owners among the 354 inductees.
“Walter O’Malley was as great an executive talent as I have seen,” MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn said in 1979. “While baseball was his medium, his skills would have flourished in any walk of life.”
