When cheering for the home team means -- gulp -- rooting for Jamie McCourt

Are you a Jamie McCourt fan? You remember, the face of the Dodgers?

There is a huge reason at this moment to be clearly lining up behind her.

Tough duty, I know. She’s at least equally responsible for that ridiculously obscene lifestyle she and ex-husband Frank McCourt led while owning the team and pulling over $108 million away the team to pay for it, of which they managed to pay zero federal and state income tax.

But as The Times’ Bill Shaikin reports, Jamie is expected to ask a Los Angeles Superior Court judge Thursday to order the immediate sale of the Dodgers.

Give me a J! Give me an A! Give me an M! Give me an I! Give me an E!

What’s that spell?

Godsend.

This sounds too good to be true, but play it out. Then cross fingers, say puh-leeze with sugar on top and promise to be a good boy. Or at least sell your soul to the sporting devil.

What most Dodgers fans want is for the McCourts to sell the team. And have it done as quickly and neatly as possible.

This appears the best way. The judge rules they have to be sold, and even if the Dodgers can’t make payroll at the end of the month and Major League Baseball has to step in and seize control, it can step back and let the court control the sale. MLB still has final approval of the new owner.

This way Frank doesn’t sue MLB and keep things muddled up indefinitely. All while attendance, and revenue, continues to deteriorate.

Team gets sold, new owner is in place, and the McCourts are left a bad memory, if richer for it.

Jamie’s contention is that actions by Frank have diminished the value of the Dodgers. And I don’t think there’s any question that’s true.

So hopefully Jamie has a helluva case. And hopefully she wins the day.

-- Steve Dilbeck

Photo: Jamie McCourt. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Tony]

It seems Jamie is doing this to stick it to Frank more than anything else. Regardless, will the Judge actually order the team to be sold? Will Frank appeal this decision? I hope we are seeing the end of the McCourt era, but I'm afraid it'll be messy however it ends.

[HI Dodger Fan]

no matter who controls the dodgers, nothing can surpass the idiocy of batting juan castro for kershaw just now. we still have one run and our ace is out of the game. juan castro? juan castro? really, how pathetic is that?

[Dodger Tony]

This seems like collusion on the part of both Jamie and MLB to further put Frank into a corner. It's one thing for him to take action against MLB, but who would he sue if Judge Gordon ordered the team sold? Would he sue the state of California? It also takes MLB out of uncomfortable position of having to break with its own tradition of forcing a sale. If this is going to happen Thursday, that seems to leave Frank with only the option of Bankruptcy, at this point. Whatever the scenario, it appears that this is Selig's way out.

[willb3]

After 30 years of marriage, this how it ends ? Mansions next door to each other, in two cities, cheating with the driver, and now trying to force the sale of the team.. This lady is gangster ! Sounds like Frank upset the wrong lady

[craig]

Murphy's law tells me these two are going to reconcile for the sake of their kids just to make it drag out a little longer, and put us through a little more punishment.

[FormerLifelongDodgerFan]

When cheering for the home team means -- gulp -- rooting for Jamie McCourt - NEVER

[VekikS]

Its already a complete mess. This at least gets the ball rolling into the right direction, sooner. Who cares what Castro or any other player does at this point. The boycott is on until the team is sold. I can't even look at them. The Mc Courts are revolting, Soboroff too. Good riddance.
Keep up the boycott!

[Paul]

As a practicing Family Law Attorney, I can tell you that the court can and very well may order the Dodgers sold. If it does so, filing for Bankruptcy will not change that.

The major issues here are this: are the Dodgers community property (if not, then there is no reason to order the asset sold) and, if they are community property, is continued retention of the property by Frank damaging the asset. Frank has an affirmative duty to Jamie to maintain (or if possible, increase) the value of the community assets in his control. Missing payroll and forcing MLB to seize control of the team clearly doesn't maintain the Dodgers' value.

My belief is that the major hurdle to an order to sell the Dodgers will be Frank's continued insistence that he used separate property funds to purchase the property. I have a strong feeling that the court will have a hearing on this issue before ordering a sale.

[LA Pete]

To Jamie and frank... POOF !!!! Please Begone !

[mark]

I watched theDodgers for the first time this year on television. It is sad that the ushers move the fams to the front rows to make it appear as if there are more fans then there really are at the stadium. It is very sad. I started following the Dodgers in 1962. The Club has built up good will in the community over the last 50 plus years. The McCourts have not only sucked all of the assets out of the ballclub, they cheated major league baseball out of revenue sharing by shady legal manuvers, they also have destroyed the Dodger brand.They are not Southern Californians, they do not care if the next owner takes over the equivalant of an expansion team. McCourt also invested the least amount of money into draft picks and player development.The few stars the Dodgers have will most likely leave as soon as they are able. The McCourts will go back to Boston and it will take a few decades to fix this mess.

[michael8888]

This has all been a big misunderstanding, as Frank pointed out the other week on the radio. He explained that since he hadn't spoken out to defend himself (his boys having asked that of him), misconceptions and inaccuracies had been allowed to develop about the true state of his finances, the team, his past expenditures and behavior, etc. I'm sure that once Jamie is apprised of the actual facts she will drop this frivolous attempt to draw attention to herself. There is, as Frank never tires of pointing out, nothing at all wrong with the Dodger franchise, and the only reason he is disliked by so many (well, virtually everybody) is that people don't know the true story. The best thing for everybody – and what I fervently hope for – is that Jamie and Frankie can see to it that she returns to her executive position in the front office. She has a keen baseball mind honed by decades of experience, and I truly believe that her expertise is what the Dodgers are lacking at the moment.

[bleednblue]

LET THE BIDDING BEGAN! Lets hope this is the end of the embarrassment of what has become of our Historic Franchise!

[Darren]

The McCourts are absolute jokes of human beings, let alone Dodger owners. Frank is desperate to keep the realestate but he needs to take the tons of dough he has made off destroying our team and be gone! And also, the team is not beyond saving at all. Decades??? Our system is actually not bad at all. Extend our core players and add some OK relievers and some bats (Fielder, Reyes, M. Young or ALBERT!, etc.) and we are set to make another run at the W.S. like we did a couple years ago, which had nothing to do with McCourt by the way.
Jamie, if you help the mccourts get out of town sooner than later, then thank you! You are better than your scumbag ex

[Darren]

Sarcasm michael8888? Please don't be McInsane...

[skyharbor]

"I was a Queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my husband; a mother, and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone remains: take it, but do not make me suffer long."

Marie Antoinette McCourt

[Kip]

Sell the team, fire Ned Colleti (rehire Kim Ng), trade everybody but Kershaw, Kemp, Barajas, Carroll, and Eithier. Get rid of Loney first, then start from scratch. Replace Mattingly with Wallach. Drop the price of parking, then put a fumigation tent over Dodger Stadium to get rid of the smell of the McCourts, and most of this Dodger team. Finally, give Brian Stow and family the deed to the McCourt's biggest Malibu property.

Then we'll end the boycott.

[PleaseSellASAP]

I can't wait for this sale to be completed so I can go back to lovely Dodger Stadium and support my team.

[Hec]

Don't you just love how Jamie is acting like she had nothing to do with this mess? Just by looking at her you can see the arrogance, greed, and smug attitude pouring out of her fake smile. Just hearing the name "McCourt" makes me feel sick to my stomach knowing that they have made our proud franchise the laughing stock of the league.

Please Mr. Judge......... Make these losers sell the team to someone like Mark Cuban so that we don't have to witness more of this drama!

[AngelaT]

Two copy-editing notes:

1. "She’s at least equally responsible for that ridiculously obscene lifestyle SHE and ex-husband Frank McCourt led ... "

2. "Jamie’s contention is that actions by Frank HAVE diminished the value ... "

[jbfesq]

Know them both well. Got Jamie her first job as a lawyer. Sad to see the whole situation go to hell in a handbasket.
JBF

[Blueeyedgal]

I guess the mansions, Vladimir Schpunt, failure to pay the IRS, the bizarre gerrymandering of the Dodgers into separate entities paying rent to each other, the huge allowances to the McCourts' sons, and the payment of the Dodger Dream foundation to a friend of the McCourts didn't happen on Jamie's watch, then?

I'm not thrilled she wants to mortgage the team to Fox, either. It's not like Fox has done well by this organization in the past.

Still, it's a step forward. I'll take it, but I'm not going to cheer for her.

(And with Frank McCourt whining that it was "unamerican" to take "his" property, he was conveniently glossing over the fact that he'd already done exactly that to Jamie McCourt, pushing her out completely while ... as far as the courts are concerned ... she's the owner as much as she is. Whereas MLB hasn't actually taken the team from him, yet. I want them both gone, but the irony remains.)

[Native Angeleno]

Whatever gets the team out of McCourt's greasy grasp the soonest, i'm for that.

Tho this is just a maneuver on the part of Jamie, Steve, to set into legal stone her claim for the highest return on her 50%, and does NOT necessarily further the quickest solution. As the family lawyer said, her move will result in oodles of time-consuming hearings finished WAY after MLB seizes the team to sell it pending the eternity it is taking for that damn divorce judge to split the baby. The End for Frank will come once his empty cupboard hits the next 10 dominoes, and MLB seizes the team to keep its bills paid. That's a fait accompli, whether anyone outside legal circles understands it or not. But Jamie actually hurts MLB's quick sale of the team, despite the unbelievable comments from people thinking she's in collusion with MLB to "hurt" Frank. The sheer idiocy of such thoughts amazes. She would French kiss Frank in public if it meant a bigger take for her 50%. "Hurting Frank" is the stuff of emotion-based sensationalistic tabloids, and the minds who read them. She's saying, with this suit, show me the money, and little else. Lawyers won't even deal with vindictiveness: It hurts THEIR take, and as we know, or should, that's the only thing they're interested in, not "justice", which is to them a cartoonish concept from an earlier day.

I'm concerned what will happen now to the sale after her smart insertion of her interests, invoked after months of pure silence, her discipline amazing inasmuch as Frank has successfully gotten many booger-eaters to see her as Lady MacBeth leading the guy who, after he threw her out, continued to drain the lake, people, yoo-hoo! Without her assertion of her fiduciary rights to her money, MLB could have sold the team out from under Frank quicker than the foot-dragging court system of Death will allow, which this archaic injustice system consists of.

The GOOD news behind this move by Jamie is that, hopefully, MLB WILL meet with her to expedite a sale, which because they do not like to administer a team longer than they have to---again, it's all about the money---they may cut a deal with her, ask her to call off the legal dogs, START the sale process by themselves, and LET the team end up going to the highest bidder, an owner THEY MAY NOT BE ABLE TO CONTROL, who may very well make the Dodgers the "Yankees of the West", with a multi-billion-dollar kitty, courtesy Time-Warner and the Dodgers Channel, from which New Owner will buy free agents, smartly, one hopes. It should be more than interesting to observers that Frank has NOT filed suit against MLB for taking over his office, possibly because Selig told him privately last week they will get him a larger return for the team quicker so long as he continues to keep his legal powder dry and his piehole sealed. His silence since he left the MLB meetings regarding the evil of the MLB, stealing his team, etc, SHOULD write volumes to any close observer. Hence, the only McCourt MLB may have to deal with, to see a new owner installed as soon as possible, is his ex. Who with this suit should put to rest the nonsense she is interested in ANYTHING more than getting her 50% out of his control and into hers before he can destroy any more of it. In that way, she and MLB have the same resultant interests at heart, with, due to her filing this suit, a better New Owner for LA. Frank is slowly being squashed to death like a bug in that vise. To which i can't resist adding Rest In Pieces, Frank.

[Tom Thompson]

If this isn't the pot calling the kettle black. Jaime was the one supposedly running the team until the end of the 2009 season.

[Steve Dilbeck]

AngelaT: thanks, noted, corrected.

[BlueinAZ]

Don't think of it as rooting for Jamie McCourt. Think of it as rooting for Judge Scott Gordon. That should be more palatable, and eminently easier and more practical.

[vtadave]

I'd root for Satan if it meant getting this team into the hands of new ownership. Go Jamie!