Photos: Roz Wyman dies; council member helped bring the Dodgers to L.A.
Rosalind “Roz” Wyman won a seat on the Los Angeles City Council when she was just 22, back in 1953. And a few years later she helped bring the then-Brooklyn Dodgers to their current home at Chavez Ravine.
Rosalind Wyman, the youngest person ever elected to the Los Angeles City Council, at age 22 in 1953, was best known for keeping an unusual campaign promise — vowing to bring Major League Baseball to Los Angeles.
It took months of negotiations with the Dodgers’ mercurial owner, Walter O’Malley, before he finally agreed to uproot the team from Brooklyn and head to L.A., the opening chapter in what would become the westward migration of professional sports teams.
“Without Rosalind Wyman, the Dodgers wouldn’t be in Los Angeles, and the stadium would not have been built,” O’Malley’s son and former team owner Peter O’Malley once told The Times.
A California political insider and power broker for more than a half-century and only the second woman elected to the City Council, Wyman died late Wednesday at her home in Bel-Air , her family said in a statement. She was 92.
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President Walter O’Malley, in front of an airplane engine, of the new Los Angeles Dodgers grins at the spectators and newsmen on hand to greet him and other Dodger officials arriving Oct. 23, 1957, in Los Angeles to set up business. To his left are Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn and City Councilwoman Rosalind Wyman.
(Ed Widdis/Associated Press)
Walter O’Malley stands between country Supervisor Kenneth Hahn and City Councilwoman Rosalind Wyman on Oct. 23, 1957, as he stepped from a private plane marked “Los Angeles Dodgers” to a huge civic welcome at Los Angeles International Airport. Hundred of spectators were on hand, plus about 200 newsmen and two bands. O’Malley and a group of Dodgers officials were arriving to set up business in Los Angeles.
(Ed Widdis/Associated Press)
Rosalind Wyman checking home base at the Los Angeles Coliseum on March 5, 1958.
(Herald Examiner / Getty Images)
Rosalind Wyman checking the work and the general view at the L.A. Coliseum for the Dodgers on March 5, 1958.
(Hearld Examiner/Getty Images)
The Dodgers’ Walter O’Malley throws out a baseball from the steps of a plane upon arriving in L.A. in 1958 while Rosalind Wyman and others watch.
(USC/Corbis via Getty Images)
Rosalind Wyman wearing a baseball hat Oct. 7, 1957.
(USC/Corbis via Getty Images)
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Standout UCLA athlete Rafer Johnson receives a resolution from Councilwoman Rosalind Wyman with his parents watching and Los Angeles Mayor Norris Poulson, left, in August 1958.
(Heawrld Examiner / Getty Images)
Rosalind Wyman won a seat on the Los Angeles City Council when she was just 22 in 1953. A few years later she helped bring the then-Brooklyn Dodgers to their current home at Chavez Ravine. In May 2016, she holds photos of Sandy Koufax pitching in 1966.
(Kirk McKoy/Los Angeles Times)
In May 2016, Rosalind Wyman holds a print of herself and Dodger owner Peter O’Malley.
(Kirk McKoy/Los Angeles Times)
Former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda talks with Rosalind Wyman before the Dodgers game with the Atlanta Braves in Game 1 of the NLDS at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Oct. 4, 2018.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley, right, shakes hands with former Dodger Wally Moon, left, as former city council member Roz Wyman looks on during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Dodger Stadium before an opening day baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Los Angeles on April 10, 2012.
(Getty Images)
Billie Jean King, left, talks with Rosalind Wyman before a Dodgers in 2018.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
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Dodgers co-owner Stan Kasten greets former L.A. City Councilwoman Rosalind Wyman before the game in Dodger Stadium against the Giants on May 7, 2012.