The Cleansing of the Los Angeles Dodgers has begun
A civic gem above a City of Angels.
The return of integrity to the Dodgers Brand took a big step forward this afternoon when Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig rejected Frank McCourt's Fox TV Bailout/Contract Proposal. Selig took umbrage at the fact that $175 Million of upfront money would be use to pay off the ex and the lawyers.
Meanwhile in an downtown parole hearing, the "person of interest" in the Bryan Stow Beating Case Giovanni Ramirez, was found to have violated conditions of parole and remitted into the California Prison System.
Now is the time for Selig to end the "Reign of the McCourts" and find a strong owner who will rid the Dodgers of the likes of Sunkin, Freebie Villar, Sugerman, Steve "Mini-Riordan I" Soboroff and restore Chavez Ravine to its family-themed refuge from the realities of LA politics.
Link here to read MLB Commissioner Bud Selig's Statement.
McCourt going the litigation route?
"Frank McCourt Must Go": The facts behind how the McCourts looted the Dodgers to fund their lifestyles.
Your thoughts..............
Scott Johnson in CD 14 .
Now is the time for Selig to end the "Reign of the McCourts" and find a strong owner who will rid the Dodgers of the likes of Sunkin, Freebie Villar, Sugerman, Steve "Mini-Riordan I" Soboroff and restore Chavez Ravine to its family-themed refuge from the realities of LA politics.
Link here to read MLB Commissioner Bud Selig's Statement.
McCourt going the litigation route?
"Frank McCourt Must Go": The facts behind how the McCourts looted the Dodgers to fund their lifestyles.
Your thoughts..............
Scott Johnson in CD 14 .
Labels: Frank McCourt, los angeles dodgers
Posted by Red Spot in CD 14 @ 6/20/2011 02:52:00 PM
14 Comments:
It cannot be the usual breed of venture capitalists nor even the usual billionaires like Broad, etc.
We need to bring the O'Malleys back and do so with the promise Richard Riordan will stay far away from them.
Why don't we have the City of Vernon buy the Dogers? Afterall, Farmer John runs that city.
Civic gem, you say?
The one which hasn't APPEARED in a World Series, let alone WON one in 23 years, despite a stretch of having FIVE straight rookies of the year in the 1990s, and no Cy Young or Home Run Kings, since then, either?
Civic gem? A 50+ year old stadium, where it is SCORCHING hot on the 1st base side in the summer?
The $20 parking? Civic gem? Is that the "brand?"
I grew up with a belief that if you owned something you could do whatever you wanted with.
Here I am as an adult and I learn that has never been true in America, the supposed land of the free.
I couldn't water my lawn without a fine on certain days.
I can't build a house of my dreams on my property without the consent of my neighbors and the approval of my neighborhood thugs- NCs.
I can't get rid of the grass in front of my house on the other side of the sidewalk and put in rocks or pavement to save on money because the city requires something soft.
I can't smoke anywhere in public.
I have to pay a percentage of my business income right off the top just for being in la.
And now, I learn that an owner of a baseball team can't use the money he gets from a TV contract to do what he wants... I'm sure if McCourt used revenue sharing dollars to build a mansion, like the Pirates or Royals owner, it would be ok.
McCourt is not personally liked. But no one has yet to make an argument on why he has not been a good owner.
4 playoff appearances including 3 division titles in 7 years.
That's 4 more appearances than in the preceding 7 years of McCourt's ownership.
He was right on players he let walk, notably Beltre, Gagne and Lo Duca.
Right on his reluctance to sign Manny but did it to appease the lunatic fan base.
He gave big money to Jason Schmidt and Andruw Jones. He got Torre. Big money to furcal. he took a chance on Nomar and it paid off.
He was a guy that improved the team and made a winner yet was harassed mainly because he was not from LA and he spent HIS money (repeat- HIS MONEY) how saw fit.
And just the like the Lakers... he needed a winner, he needs a winner, to stay financially afloat.
It must be the sign of the times that it has become like this.
I may be the only one, but I don't like what MLB has done. I don't like what it means, and I don't like the reaction of Dodger fans.
It makes me not like baseball. It makes me feel disgusted about how drastically the country I believed so much in as a child has changed.
Trojan:
If you grew up be taught that you can do anything you want with stuff you own in this country, you need to go back to school. It has never been that way.
McCourt knew the rules before he bought the team. He knew how professional sports leagues work. His crime was draining money from the franchise for his personal use to the point that it created serious financial problems for the franchise.
Michael:
It would be nice to get family ownership back to the Dodgers, like the O'Malleys, but they had to sell to Fox when they realized that family operations can't compete with corporate-backed teams. So after Fox gave it up, we got the McCourts, a family operation.
Let the citizens of LA buy the team!
There aren't enough citizens in L.A. any more. Only residents.
Even if it were possible to get a law enacted by Congress to allow the public to buy the team, how would that ensure that they would be better run and more competitive?
5:20... he drained the funds of HIS team.
I'm sure the owners of the Royals and the Pirates want to know when Selig will step in and take over their teams. Those two franchises have been notorious for taking the funds they receive from revenue sharing and putting to use for themselves.
How about the Marlins?!
You're just saying that no owner of any business can use the money they receive for their own use.
Even when the Dodgers have been among the top 5 teams when it comes down to payroll?
What is a McDonald's franchisor suppose to do? Is that person not allowed to take the profit and do as they please even when his employees rank among the top 5 of all McDonald's franchises?
Your point, and the point of all of the anti-McCourt fans is lost on me.
The face are NOT on your side.
Trojan:
This all begins with an understanding of how professional sports leagues work. The owners are not allowed to do whatever they want, and they know that when they buy the team. The commissioners and other owners have lots of power. The leagues are largely socialistic societies where the common good is paramount.
And business people who own franchises, such as McDonald's, are not free to do whatever they want. I just talked to an owner of the local ARCO who wanted to accept credit cards from customers and eat the charge from the credit card company. ARCO told them they couldn't.
2:33pm apples to oranges.
We are not talking about McCourt charging less or except dinars instead of dollars.
We are talking about an owner being able to take proceeds and using it for his personal benefit.
Did you ask the Arco owner if Arco set a max on how much profit he could take from gasoline sales and for his other business ventures?
Common good is paramount? I gave you examples of other teams in MLB taking revenue sharing dollars and not doing anything for the benefit of their respective teams or MLB.
A reason why the Red Sox, Yankees, Cubs, and Dodgers have always been against revenue sharing.
And the argument against McCourt's ownership is still weak.
He turned and kept the Dodgers (until the divorce) competitive. Player payroll over $100M almost every year. While still maintaining one of the best farm system.
What more could he have done as an owner?
When the McCourts come under attack from someone as polite and classy as Peter O'Malley, you know there's a problem.
As was mentioned earlier, the McCourts problem was not using team income for their personal indulgences, but doing it while the team was going into serious financial problems thereby becoming a drag on the entire league.
The McCourts put themselves ahead of the fans and the team. Making payroll is a struggle.
The farm system is one of the least supported in all of baseball. It used to be a Dodger strong point. They allowed other teams to establish a greater presence in the Dominican Republic for example.
You and I haven't seen the Dodgers' books, but the commissioner has and he's alarmed.
9:13... up until the divorce the dodgers had no financial difficulties (See Padres for a similar comparison).
While taking millions of money from HIS team, McCourt fielded competitive teams with a team payroll in the top 5.
His divorce was the drag.
It seems selig wants run McCourt out. But given McCourt's litigious history, there's no doubt he would sue and drag this out until he wins. Selig and MLB and YOU, are going to make the Dodgers one of the worst teams in baseball for the next 3-4 years.
But I'm still waiting, for someone to tell me what MORE McCourt could have done to make the team better.
I still recall 2004 when he shipped out tainted players and got hell from fans... yet he was right, and no one said a word.
And his reluctance to sign Manny never brought him praise after manny was outed as a fraud.
Lets be honest... the guy has been hated because he's an east coast guy with a New England accent that liked to live a good life and wasn't very media friendly.
TJ f'n Simers accomplished 1 thing in his BS career, and that is to tarnish people's impression of Frank McCourt.
First of all it isn't McCourt's team, it's the McCourts team.
What the McCourts could have done differently was to have never bought the team in the first place and done so by leveraging themselves so deeply.
But once they bought it and began creating financial problems by using badly-needed team funds for their personal wants, which wasn't fully known until the discovery phase of the divorce, they should have sold the team.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home