6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog: It's All Frankruptcy, All The Time

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Friday, July 01, 2011

It's All Frankruptcy, All The Time

When I started this blog in 2004 — seven years ago! — my main aim was to see Frank and Jamie to the door, and hopefully to restore sane ownership to the team I grew up cheering for. Even though events of the last year or so have pushed toward new ownership, there hasn't been a single break that would signal the end of the McCourt era. Instead, we suffer through many small ones, watching the franchise be cut, not in two, but with a thousand small nicks, as a man at a bloodletting.

It seems to me that two openings are possible at the end of all this: either we are stuck with Frank or we are not. In the latter case, the all but uniform desire of Dodgers fans, we are left with an unknown owner or owners, though hopefully better capitalized and more intelligent and resourceful. But in the former case, we get slow dissipation by overleverage. Too, such an outcome must necessarily come at the cost of the near-total evisceration of the Commissioner's office; what penalty could he then bring against a truly rogue owner?

I cheer, as always, for the second option, for new owners no matter their quirks, hoping against hope that the team isn't delivered into a different sort of hell.

On to the day's bullet points (I was sick yesterday):

The Dodgers may not have bounced Manny's paycheck with the new debtor-in-possession financing, but they did bounce the paychecks of other employees. New, presumably non-rubber checks have since been issued; the blame is cast on the Chapter 11 filing, which caused the payroll funds to be locked up, but this seems a little petty. That goes double because some of the people whose payroll checks bounced were security personnel. Bryan Stow calling?
My new favorite t-shirt and portmanteau: Frankrupt.
Frank apparently wants to put Selig under oath, which has some interesting ramifications. While I do wonder whether Selig isn't being arbitrary about ousting Frank — remember, we know nothing about how the other 29 teams operate — if it means MLB has to ultimately be put on a sounder footing, then I'm all for it.
In a letter dated June 3 and obtained by The Times, McCourt attorney Robert Sacks wrote to an MLB attorney: "We have reason to believe that the 'monitor' and members of his staff have an interest in seeing MLB attempt to take control of the Dodgers from Mr. McCourt."
Sacks asked for immediate written confirmation that "(i) no one from MLB has spoken to the 'monitor' or any member of his staff about the possibility of any continuing role with the Dodgers; (ii) no one from MLB has spoken to the 'monitor' or any member of his staff about acquiring any interest in the Dodgers or any other MLB club; and (iii) neither the 'monitor' nor any member of his staff is receiving or will receive any compensation or benefits that is dependent in any way upon the outcome of the Commissioner's 'investigation' or their activities with respect to the Dodgers."
Ten hearing dates were set in the Dodgers bankruptcy case; the next is July 20, with the league expected to request the revocation of McCourt's franchise before then.
Steve Dilbeck asks, "Why is Steve Garvey still employed by the Dodgers?", and I would answer, "Because he needs the money."
Some lessons from the McCourts at the Wall Street Journal. (I assume all of you are already smart enough not to pay a guy surnamed Shpunt $100,000+ for V-energy.)
MSTI has a nice accumulation of McCourt sins, but this only goes so far. I plan on assisting him in this list if I can find the time to dig some.