The story goes that Walter O’Malley, then-owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, desperate to replace the aging Ebbets Field, reached out to representatives of the city of Los Angeles after the Dodgers won the 1955 World Series for the purpose of relocating the team. Los Angeles had been desperate to get a baseball franchise in California and the Los Angeles area in particular. With expansion to divisional play still years away, the best chance of landing a team on the west coast was to have an existing one relocate.

The problem with O’Malley’s original plan was that it would have created a scheduling and travel nightmare for the other teams in the National League. Even as cross-continental air travel was coming into style and affordability thanks to technological advancements made during World War II, having a single team in California and the closest opponent in St. Louis would have presented an significant burden on the rest of the National League. As such, baseball officials conveyed to O’Malley that they would not approve the move unless a second National League team made a commitment to a California relocation or until an additional expansion franchise could be placed there.

The popular legend has it that the next spring, O’Malley took a trip to California with New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham. In the early light of the Pacific morning, both men surveyed a patch of land in the southeast corner of San Francisco named Candlestick Point, which had a very scenic overlook of San Francisco Bay. O’Malley pushed Stoneham hard to abandon his plan of moving the Giants to Minneapolis and instead join him in relocating to the west coast, virtually guaranteeing baseball would approve both moves, if for no other reason than to keep the existing Dodgers-Giants rivalry in tact.

In the summer of 1957, both the Dodgers and the Giants announced their plans to relocate to California. Both owners were subsequently vilified by both the fans and the press, so much so that to this day some people still have not forgiven either team for abandoning New York.

What nobody knew (or realized) at the time, though, was that Candlestick Point was about as inhospitable to baseball as a place could be. The early morning calm betrayed cold, swirling and unpredictable winds and fog that came in from San Francisco Bay during the day and evening. Catching a fly ball was an unique adventure for nearly every ball hit in the air, and there were countless accounts of doubles landing in between three fielders less than 200 feet from home plate. In addition to the fielding nightmares, a plethora of balks were called on pitchers literally blown off the mound while delivering a pitch.

The point I am making with this story is three-fold. First, be very careful of your first impressions of people, places and things. Many times the first brief view does not convey all there is to see in a situation. Don’t be afraid to give something a second, or even a third, look before forming a permanent opinion. In other words: don’t look at things in the morning light - it often betrays what the rest of the day will bring.

Second, be careful which star you hitch your wagon to. O’Malley’s interests in having the Giants relocate to California was more for his benefit than it was in Stoneham’s. By convincing Stoneham to move to California, it served O’Malley’s primary purpose of getting a brand new stadium and a major metropolitan fan base all to himself. Take a moment to consider whether the people in your life offering guidance and assistance have your best interests at heart or theirs. Don’t be tempted or taken by the vampires in your life.

The final point, which is the most subtle of the three, I suppose, is that most things in life can be explained through baseball, given the chance.

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