The 1960s: a decade that would define California, for good and ill. A decade of smog, traffic and population growth. The greatest decade in Hollywood’s history. A decade in which the sports landscape was dominated by California teams – the Dodgers, the Giants, the Lakers, the USC Trojans, and the UCLA Bruins. 10 years of monumental change. There are few decades in history that look more different at the end than they did at the beginning than the 1960s. It all started with the promise of JFK, a call to “bear any burden,” to shoot for the stars. It would end with war raging in Vietnam, violence on the streets of Berkeley, drugs and “free love” in Golden Gate Park.
In November of 1960, John F. Kennedy defeated Vice President Richard M. Nixon to become President of the United States. The evidence was indisputable that the election had been stolen, via multiple votes in Cook County, Illinois (“vote early, vote often”) and “tombstone ballots” in Texas. The Republican standard bearer, Nixon, decided not to challenge the closest election in U.S. history.
Before the Senate and then the Vice Presidency, Nixon had been a Congressman representing a district that stretched from parts of Orange County into Los Angeles. The man who would sit astride the decade to come began it in defeat, returning to his hometown. He bought a home in Beverly Hills, taking a job with a corporate law firm in downtown L.A. At around this same time, Nixon was approached by an ownership group, led by the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Walter O’Malley. Would he like to be the next Commissioner of Baseball?
Nixon was an enormous baseball fan who reported when he got the call in 1955 that President Dwight Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack, meaning he was now a “heartbeat away from the Presidency,” Nixon was poring over the Sunday baseball statistics in the Washington Post.
Baseball wanted a Californian. The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants had made the move to the coast. The sensibilities and trends of a nation were looking to the West.
Nixon still had political ambitions. Aside from his legal work he was committed to writing Six Crises, and next up would be a run for Governor of California, which was supposed to set him up for another White House campaign in 1964 or 1968. He turned down the ownership group, which set up some interesting “if only” scenarios.
The Dodgers and Giants were not the only new California franchises. The Los Angeles Chargers and Oakland Raiders were members of the fledgling American Football League. The Minneapolis Lakers of the NBA were now the L.A. Lakers.
The immediate success of the Dodgers and Giants, which fueled the building of Dodger Stadium and Candlestick Park, created the impetus for expansion. In the National League, New York and Houston. In the American League, another team in L.A., as well as Minneapolis-St. Paul.
A millionaire Midwestern insurance salesman named Charlie O. Finley set his sights on the Los Angeles franchise. He had the money and certainly the ambition, but he lacked . . . imprimatur.
One man did not lack imprimatur, or gravitas, or star power; pick the cliché, but Gene Autry, “The Singing Cowboy,” was a household name, a Hollywood superstar, and an American icon.
As a businessman, everything Autry touched turned to gold. One of those enterprises was the Golden West Radio Network, which consisted of several stations in California. Freeway construction, a commuter culture, suburban growth, and sports programming meant that it was a new “golden age” for radio, and boom times for Golden West.
Autry’s ownership of Golden West meant two things: he was awarded the ownership of the Angels’ franchise, and he became a rival of Walter O’Malley. O’Malley was not pleased that his territory would have to be shared, especially since he was taking on the economic burdens of building Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers’ radio station was KMPC, part of Autry’s Golden West network. But O’Malley had a vacation home in the mountains, at Lake Arrowhead. When he went there for a visit, he was disturbed that the Dodger signal did not reach his resort. O’Malley broke from KMPC, switching to the high-wattage KFI.
