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Dodgers fans can start their home run trot
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By Bill Plaschke
December 8, 2010
Do you have a favorite home-run call? Pull it out. Dust it off. Shout it into the crisp December air. Shout it until it starts to sound like spring.
Something is leaving the yard, and it's something big.
Something is sailing away, and we should pour out of our dugouts to dance.
Something long awaited by Dodger baseball fans could be might be and is.
The McCourts are outta here!!
Scott Gordon went deep Tuesday, the Superior Court judge tossing out the agreement that claimed Frank McCourt was sole owner of the Dodgers, effectively ending McCourt's reign as the club's scheming caretaker.
For now, the team is owned by both Frank and ex-wife Jamie, neither of whom wants to be in business together considering they just officially divorced after 31 years of marriage. Pending the remote chance of a successful appeal, or even more distant chance that somebody will pony up the money to allow one party to buy out the other one, the Dodgers are expected to go on sale.
It won't happen tomorrow, it might not happen until after the appeal process is completed, but within the next couple of years, it's going to happen. The McCourts will have no choice but to sell, and Dodgers fans will have no choice but to celebrate.
Gone will be the regime that returned the Dodgers to the National League Championship Series but bled the organization of its class and dignity in the process, allowing the team and its environment to fall into disrepair while spending baseball money on mansions and makeup.
Gone will be the folks who gussied up Dodger Stadium's most expensive sections while allowing graffiti in the upper-level bathrooms and thugs in the pavilion. Gone will be the folks who continually raised the cost of parking while lengthening the wait for a hot dog.
The McCourts were smart enough to hire one of the greatest managers in baseball history. But they lost him, Joe Torre leaving this winter in veiled disgust.
The McCourts were handed some of the greatest, most loyal fans in baseball. But they lost many of them, last year's stadium filled with empty seats that creative attendance records could not disguise.
The McCourts were even blessed with the quiet wisdom of a former owner who never says anything bad about anybody. Yet somehow, some way, they even lost Peter O'Malley, who this fall told The Times' Bill Shaikin that "it would be best for the franchise and the city if there was new ownership."
Well, O'Malley is going to get his wish, as is the rest of a Dodgers community that deserves better.
The McCourts thought it was cute to have the stadium rules read on the video board by Snoop Dogg, the rapper known for his drug use. Then they wondered why their building was being increasingly filled with troublemakers.
The McCourts thought it was cool to treat drug-suspended Manny Ramirez like a king, even keeping his Mannywood throne warm while he traveled the minor leagues in style. Then they wondered why he never really worked hard for them again.
Worse than all that, the McCourts played their fans for fools. They thought everyone would agree that reaching the NLCS was enough. They thought everyone should be grateful for every playoff victory, as if Sandy Koufax never threw that curveball, as if Kirk Gibson never hit that slider.
They never spent the money that would have allowed them to earn the three more victories that would have put them in the World Series. They never bought the Cliff Lees. They continually bought the Vicente Padillas.
Even with all their spending this winter, are they buying the sort of impact player that could led them to a championship? They signed two 31-year-olds coming off career seasons. Juan Uribe will never be better than he was last October, and Jon Garland has a career 4.32 earned-run average while pitching his team into the postseason once in 11 seasons.
The McCourts lived the lifestyle of the New York Yankees while building the team as if it were the Kansas City Royals, thinking everyone would forget about those musty championships and be thrilled with a couple of fresh October playoff games.
They thought wrong. While some of us were suckered for a while, everyone finally caught on. And while nobody would ever cheer for the horrors of a divorce, there are plenty of people who now understand that only through a splitting of the ownership could come the selling of the team.
Even when they were together, the McCourts barely had enough money to run the joint. Now that they are apart, neither has a chance, and is there really anybody in town who would want to prop them up?
Major League Baseball wants them out. Peter O'Malley wants them out. The family of five paying the increased ticket prices in the pavilion wants them out. And now, apparently, they will be out, slowly but surely, Frank probably running out of money before he runs out of appeals, Jamie just hoping to take her cut and run.
Potential buyers are lining up. Fans are on their feet. An era is flying away. The McCourts are going, going... gone.
• MLB News Archive Index:
2010, 2009
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