“Shoot O’Malley twice” (Brooklyn Dodger joke)
Brooklyn Dodger fans never forgave owner Walter O’Malley for moving the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958. A joke was told:
Q: If you were in a room with Hitler, Stalin and O’Malley and you had a gun with only two bullets, who would you shoot?
A: Shoot O’Malley twice. (To make sure he’s dead.)
In 2009, the same gun-with-two-bullets-and-three-potential-victims joke was told, but this time the three people were Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden. A CBS golf analyst ended the “joke” with “Shoot Pelosi twice.” He apologized for the joke.
Wikipedia: Walter O’Malley
Walter Francis O’Malley (October 9, 1903 – August 9, 1979) was an American sports executive who owned the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers team in Major League Baseball from 1950 to 1979. He served as Brooklyn Dodgers chief legal counsel when Jackie Robinson broke the racial color barrier in 1947. In 1958, as owner of the Dodgers, he brought major league baseball to the West Coast, moving the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and coordinating the move of the New York Giants to San Francisco at a time when there were no teams west of Missouri. For this, he was long vilified by Brooklyn Dodgers fans. However, neutral parties describe him as a visionary for the same business action, and many authorities cite him as one of the most influential sportsmen of the 20th century. His detractors who say that he was not a visionary, but instead a man who was in the right place at the right time, still regard him as the most powerful and influential owner in baseball after moving the team. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame for his contributions to and influence on the game of baseball.
O’Malley’s Irish father, Edwin Joseph O’Malley, was politically connected. Walter, a University of Pennsylvania Salutatorian, went on to obtain a Juris Doctorate, and he used the combination of his family connections, his personal contacts, and both his educational and vocational skills to rise to prominence. First, he became an entrepreneur involved in public works contracting, and then he became an executive with the Dodgers. He progressed from being a team lawyer to being both the Dodgers’ owner and president, and he eventually made the business decision to relocate the Dodgers franchise. Although he moved the franchise, O’Malley is known as a businessman whose major philosophy was stability through loyalty to and from his employees.
O’Malley ceded the team presidency to his son, Peter, in 1970 but retained the titles of owner and chairman of the Dodgers until his death in 1979. During the 1975 season, the Dodgers’ inability to negotiate a contract with Andy Messersmith led to the Seitz decision, which limited the baseball reserve clause and paved the way for modern free agency. He bequeathed the team to his children Peter O’Malley and Therese O’Malley Seidler upon his death in 1979.
St. Petersburg (FL) Times
Yanks face Mets—and memories
By BRUCE LOWITT
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 21, 2000
(...)
Q: If you were in a room with Hitler, Stalin and O’Malley and you had a gun with only two bullets, who would you shoot?
A: O’Malley, twice.
New York magazine
Exorcising the Dodgers
50 years ago, the Dodgers left Ebbets Field for Los Angeles. Isn’t it time their ghosts left, too?
By Sam Anderson
Published Sep 17, 2007
(...)
(Old Brooklynites still joke that, if you were to find yourself in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and O’Malley, armed with only two bullets, you’d have to shoot O’Malley twice.)
The Brooklyn Paper
December 8, 2007 / Bay Ridge–Bensonhurst / Perspective / Yellow Hooker
Evil O’Malley is in the Hall
By Matthew Lysiak
They’re putting the biggest bum of ’em all in the Hall. On Monday, Major League Baseball’s Veterans Committee elected Walter O’Malley, whose name will live on in villainy forever thanks to his decision to move the Dodgers to Los Angeles, to the Hall of Fame.
It’s safe to say that very few votes came from this borough.
(...)
And one man took it all away from you. No wonder people still tell the old joke, “If Stalin, Hitler and O’Malley are in a room and you only have two bullets, who do you kill? Answer: You shoot O’Malley twice, just to make sure he’s dead!”
Los Angeles (CA) Times
BOOK REVIEW
‘Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O’Malley, Baseball’s Most Controversial Owner, and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles’ by Michael D’Antonio
Debunking myths and looking back on Dodger history and Walter O’Malley.
By David Davis
March 21, 2009
(...)
Who can forget this one: “If Stalin, Hitler and O’Malley are in a room and you have two bullets, who do you shoot?” The answer: “O’Malley, twice.”
wowOwow
David Feherty Takes Shot at Nancy Pelosi | 05/11/2009
CBS Golf Analyst Dave Feherty Apologizes for Nancy Pelosi Shooting Comment
By The Staff at wowOwow.com
What do you do after saying that, if given the chance and two bullets, an American soldier would shoot House Speaker Nancy Pelosi twice instead of Osama bin Laden? If you’re golf analyst David Feherty, you apologize.
In a piece for D Magazine in Dallas about George Bush, in which Feherty was trying to relay American troops’ loyalty to their president, the CBS staffer wrote:
From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.”