Frank McCourt: When desperate times call for desperate measures, lots of them
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‘Irish’ Frank McCourt is swinging in so many directions, it’s a wonder he’s not dizzy. Then again …
To say McCourt is a desperate man is to say the Mississippi is running just a tad high.
Plead your case to the media? Lose the team but keep the stadium as their landlord? Fire off a nasty letter complaining that a newly appointed assistant to the Major League Baseball trustee has ties to the ex-wife (who claims half-ownership of the team)? File bankruptcy to ward off a complete takeover? Appeal to other owners how you’ve been wronged?
There’s no landing a punch if you can’t get your feet under you.
McCourt’s strategy is apparently the ol’ throw-enough-against-the-wall-and-see-if-something-sticks approach. Me, I just see it all slipping away.
MLB owners are having their quarterly meetings Wednesday and Thursday in New York, and The Times’ Bill Shaikin reports that McCourt will arrive trying to uncover eight owners willing to tell Commissioner Bud Selig to end his takeover of the Dodgers.
Wrote Shaikin: ‘If McCourt gets a vote from any owner besides himself, call it an upset.’
ESPN’s Buster Olney likewise doesn’t think much of McCourt’s chances of usurping Selig, a notorious consensus-builder.
This follows Shaikin’s earlier report that after purchasing the Dodgers and splitting them into three separate entities -- the team, the stadium and the parking lots -- there is the possibility McCourt could lose the team but become their landlord. Which would be like going through an ugly divorce and then paying your ex rent to live in your old place. Why does that almost sound familiar?
And then there is the incredible Dick Freeman brain cramp. Freeman, the former Padres president, apparently forgot to mention to Selig that he had been an advisor to Jamie McCourt during her divorce proceedings when appointed as an assistant to trustee/monitor Tom Schieffer.
Lest anyone forget the concept of declaring bankruptcy to retain control of the Dodgers before MLB completely strips him of the team, which the busy Shaikin also reported first.
Frank McCourt not only has a plan, he has dozens of them. All with one thing in common: desperation.
-- Steve Dilbeck