Are you emotional? McCourts tear apart would-be McCourt empire

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Oh, it’s crying time again, you’re gonna leave me.

Come on, you can muster up a tear or two for Frank McCourt. Can’t you?

The eight years of McCourt ownership haven’t been all bad, though the finish does currently seem to outweigh the beginning by just a tad.

And now comes this: The Times’ Bill Shaikin reporting that McCourt’s desperate move to take the Dodgers into bankruptcy could actually wipe out all his profit if he’s forced to sell the team.

That’s an impressive feat since he purchased the team for $421 million in 2004 and it’s now estimated to be worth two to three times that amount. That is creating a staggering amount of debt. A man with a future in the federal government.

Then, of course, still waiting is his divorce settlement with Jamie McCourt, who claims half ownership of the team. Let’s see, half of nothing is …

Somewhere in the back of his mind, this somehow all works out swell for him. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I can’t figure out the proper family room display for my Pulitzer and Nobel prizes.

I don’t know if this is going to go down as the most expensive divorce in history, but it has the inside track on the dumbest. Whatever you may think of their team stewardship, Frank and Jamie McCourt are two intelligent, well-educated people. Two people who should have recognized what was at stake in not settling their divorce, instead of digging in and bringing out the claws. Now as their legal bills reach astronomical heights, the obstinacy remains. They could have sat down two years ago, figured out a painful but reasonable settlement, walked away filthy rich and most all of the ugliness of their regime would not have come out in divorce proceedings. And Major League Baseball would not be looking to kick them out.

Instead, here they are, entrenched so deeply in a futile battle they can’t seem to see a way out, save for yet the next legal battle. It’s almost like adding bad debt on top of bad debt. The American way taken to new extreme.

No doubt, Frank McCourt feels the victim in all this. A victim of exactly what -– the media, the wife, the commissioner? –- it’s hard to say. His own misguided choices have led him to this point. A point where he could actually come out of all this just wealthy, as opposed to indecently wealthy.

A little difficult to get all teary-eyed over that.

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-- Steve Dilbeck

Twitter.com/stevedilbeck