For 50 years before they moved to Camelback Ranch in Arizona in 2008, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Spring Training home was the Historic Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Fla.
For many of those years, there was one constant running that facility and that was Craig Callan, who was hired in 1978. And although the Dodgers have moved to holding Spring Training in Arizona, Dodgertown remains an open, active facility to this day.
On the 40th anniversary of his hiring, Callan has announced that he is officially retiring from the place that the Dodgers called home for so many years, via Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:
“I have loved representing the Dodgers in Vero Beach and Indian River County,” said Callan. “Working for the O’Malley family gave me the opportunity to interact with other community leaders and serve on numerous boards while overseeing my various responsibilities at Dodgertown. Retiring gives me the opportunity to spend quality time with my family and friends, but I will miss my Dodgertown family and support given to me from Peter O’Malley and his sister, Terry O’Malley Seidler, numerous Dodger executives and Pat O’Conner, president and CEO of Minor League Baseball. Any success that I have achieved is a direct result of them.”
In addition to running Dodgertown until the Dodgers left for Arizona, Callan was also involved in the planning, designing and building of Camelback Ranch, the Spring Training facility that the Dodgers currently share with the Chicago White Sox.
Callan then returned to Vero Beach to help re-open and run Dodgertown for the Minor League teams that currently play there.
Callan is not a famous player or coach like Clayton Kershaw or Dave Roberts, but the work he has done for the Dodgers organization should not go unnoticed as he heads into a much-earned retirement period.
