Frank McCourt to Bud Selig: I can never thank you enough

I don’t know what the world record is for emerging from bankruptcy with the greatest amount of wealth, but you have to think our good buddy Frank McCourt is a serious contender.

Bankruptcy is designed to make sure creditors are paid, and you have to wonder at this point if there was ever any danger of that not happening. But McCourt chose bankruptcy, the courts accepted and it has led to a historic auction, the likes of which Sotheby’s has never imagined.

Hall of Fame baseball writer Ross Newhan finds it incomprehensible that after leaving the Dodgers the laughingstock of baseball and dragging them into bankruptcy, McCourt could not only get the record $1.5 billion he was looking for, but possibly $2 billion and still own the parking lots.

The Times’ Bill Shaikin reports that, aside from TV rights, team revenue and the parking lots, whether the sale price is ultimately closer to $1.5 or $2 billion could largely depend on how much renovation Dodger Stadium is deemed to need.

McCourt now claims it doesn’t need significant renovation, which sort of goes against his grand 2008 plan for a transformation that was estimated then to cost $500 million. And, oh yeah, was supposed to be completed before the start of the 2012 season.

In a stunning development, McCourt found financing a tad difficult to come by.

Yet despite everything, despite the embarrassment of bankruptcy, an ugly public divorce that exposed his and wife Jamie's horrendous greed and perhaps the worst year in team history, McCourt is about to exit richer than anyone –- no doubt including him -- ever dreamed.

The McCourts purchased the Dodgers for $430 million in 2004 without spending a dime of their own money, using equity in a Boston parking lot. Now even after paying Jamie a settlement of $131 million once the team sells, paying off $573 million in debt and possibly more than $200 million in sales taxes, McCourt could walk away with around $1 billion?

Wonder if Jamie would like to rework that settlement.

No one has any real clue which of the 11 surviving bidders will get the team, though if it does become more of a vanity purchase than a practical one, the deep pockets of Steve Cohen and Magic Johnson’s group are impressive. Newhan said the Joe Torre-Rick Caruso group has picked up the backing of a member of the David Thomson family, the wealthiest in Canada. Groups could yet merge, and still floating out there are local billionaires Ron Burkle and Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.

No one knows this better than Frank McCourt. His feud with Commissioner Bud Selig is looking like the best thing that ever happened to him.

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Newhan also had this interesting mention in his blog post:

“… sources also revealed that none of the investors are particularly happy with the Dodgers' eight year, $160 million, back loaded signing of Matt Kemp, and the two year, $19 million contract to Clayton Kershaw.”

Jon Weisman at Dodgers Thoughts found this particularly unsettling, arguing the Dodgers were simply giving competitive salaries to their two best players.

Which is true, of course, but if you’re about to be the new owner, no doubt you would like to be the one negotiating the salaries. It is your future debt, and neither contract had to be done now.

Kemp’s salary, compared to subsequent deals signed by Albert Pujols ($240 million) and Prince Fielder ($214 million), could prove a relative bargain if he continues to produce anywhere near his 2011 level.

Of course, the difference is Pujols and Fielder have performed at the highest level for several years. Kemp reached true elite status only last year, and the Dodgers are counting on the 2011 version and not the 2010 one.

Kershaw’s deal is another matter. Two is an unusual number of years to give a player in the first year of arbitration. The Dodgers guaranteed him $6 million this season, meaning he gets $13 million next year. For that, they essentially got nothing in return, save for avoiding a year of arbitration.

So the Dodgers have taken an expensive gamble that Kershaw doesn’t blow out his elbow. Normally if a team does make that kind of commitment, the contract is extended to at least buy out a year or two of free agency.

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Photo: Commissioner Bud Selig with Dodgers owner Frank McCourt during a ceremony in 2006. Credit: Ric Francis / Associated Press

Potential Dodgers owners already reaching out to Derrick Hall

Could Derrick Hall, the Dodgers’ former vice president of communications and the Arizona Diamondbacks' current president and chief executive officer, return as the Dodgers’ next team president?

Yahoo Sports’ Steven Henson said several groups in the running to purchase the team from Frank McCourt have already approached Hall about becoming the Dodgers’ lead executive should they prove to have the winning bid.

Henson wrote a terrific piece about Hall, 43, and his recent battle with prostate cancer. Hall had surgery two months ago and received great news after a recent follow-up test.

Hall is one of the most likable, intelligent and dynamic individuals you could ever meet. He is a huge reason the Diamondbacks were selected as the best sports organization in the world to work for by the United Nations. You know, the kind of honors that used to go to the bankrupt Dodgers.

Hall was the first to figure out what Frank and Jamie McCourt were about and tender his resignation. He is such a bright star in baseball circles that many see him as a leading contender to replace Commissioner Bud Selig when he retires. Should that ever actually happen.

Dodgers Web musings: Last 100 days of Frank McCourt

Come on, join the countdown! Every Dodgers fans should be in on it. A reason to get all giddy.

Some count the days to when catchers and pitchers report, some to opening day. But as Mike Petriello points out at Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness, there is something bigger for Dodgers fans to compute as the 2012 season looms.

It’s now down to the final 100 days of Frank McCourt, bankrupt Dodgers owner.

Now doesn’t that make you smile?

Initial bids to join the team’s auction are due Monday. Major League Baseball will then whittle the list down to an approved group. McCourt has until April 1 to select the winning bid. And then on April 30, he is to hand over the keys and ride into the Beverly Hills sunset, hopefully sans parking lots.

Also on the Web:

-- ESPN’s Lester Munson takes an in-depth look at the looming lawsuit between McCourt and the Bingham McCutchen law firm that botched up his postmarital agreement with ex-wife Jamie.

Munson wrote there is little doubt it is shaping up as one of the largest malpractice lawsuits in American history, and estimates that if the team auction goes badly, the award could be as high as $500 million.

That seems pretty outlandish, considering he’s only paying Jamie $131 million in their divorce settlement, and she was going to probably get that anyway. McCourt would have to prove the botched PMA forced him to sell the team. And it seems that only rings true in that his taking the team in to $573 million in debt might not have come to light without the divorce.

-- Clayton Kershaw visited the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. MLB has the video:

  

-- The Dodgers have added a pair of catchers, Matt Wallach and Griff Erickson, to their list of nonroster spring invitees. Matt is the son of third base coach Tim Wallach.

-- ESPN/LA’s Jon Weisman has a list (updated) of players he argues were team MVPs during their days as a Dodger and on a competing club.

-- Forbes’ Mike Ozanian examines the unusual concessions McCourt was able to get MLB to agree upon in order for him to agree to sell the team.

-- The Times’ Jim Pelz on Dodger Stadium again hosting supercross Saturday night.

-- Thanks to Paul Oberjuerge for uncovering this post from The Baseball Diaspora on the 2011 Bobblehead All-Americans. Andre Ethier, in throwback baby-blue jersey, makes the team.

-- Steve Dilbeck

Judge to Frank and Jamie McCourt: 'Good luck to you'

Frank and Jamie McCourt filed for divorce on Oct. 27, 2009, six days after the Dodgers made their most recent playoff appearance.

The high-profile saga cost the family its ownership of the Dodgers and cost the parties more than $20 million in legal bills, believed to be the most expensive divorce in California history. The proceedings reached an anticlimactic end on Thursday, when Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon approved a divorce settlement that requires Frank McCourt to pay his ex-wife $131 million.

The McCourts agreed on settlement terms in October, but the attorneys required another three months to agree on the language of the 23-page document that finalized those terms. On Thursday morning, as Frank McCourt sat on the bench outside Gordon's courtroom and Jamie McCourt sat on another bench down the hall, attorneys shuttled from one McCourt to the other to review the document.

Gordon then held a three-minute hearing in which both of the McCourts testified they had read the agreement, consulted with their attorneys about it, freely consented to it and wished to sign it. Gordon then ratified the agreement.

"Thank you, folks," Gordon said. "Good luck to you."

Joe Torre adds to the best show the Dodgers have going

Is this the best game in town or what?

In a winter when the bankrupt Dodgers’ new acquisitions have been about as exciting as watching water freeze, the organization has nonetheless managed to add stirring intrigue and anticipation to its off-season.

The next three months -- or so we like to hope -- are shaping up as some of the best drama in town.

To the list of former baseball players, agents, owners, batboys, team presidents and general managers who want to buy the Dodgers, we can now add former managers! Not to mention current bloggers.

Toss in your random billionaire hedge-fund kings, developers, former talk show hosts, bankers, supermarket moguls, superstar NBA players and NBA owners, and I am left with only one observation:

Where the hell were all these people in 2004 when cash-strapped Bostonians Frank and Jamie McCourt purchased the team for $421 million?

The latest official foray into the new ownership bid comes from no less than former Dodgers manager Joe Torre. He officially resigned from his job as a Major League Baseball executive, a post he held for less than a year, to align himself with Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso.

You might think something suspicious was afoot for Torre to leave his new MLB job with Commissioner Bud Selig to join the long queue wanting in on the Dodgers, except Selig isn’t going to pick the new owner.

Under its bankruptcy agreement with Frank McCourt, MLB has agreed to approve 10 bidders. Then McCourt gets to choose the next Dodgers owner. Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports said insiders expect at least 30 bids for the team.

Thirty? And all MLB could come up with last time was an out-of-town owner who purchased the team on heaps of credit?

Bids are due Jan. 23, and even if Torre had an understanding that his group would make the cut, that still leaves him as just one of 10 in an auction in which McCourt selects the winner. An auction in which, I’m thinking, the winner is going to be the highest bidder.

It’s a curious move by Torre, unless MLB told him he could have his old job back should his bid fail. And there is no indication of that. By the April 1 deadline for McCourt to pick the new owner, Torre could be professionally adrift.

Of course with McCourt, deadlines are typically a moving target. Like the world would be stunned if he should somehow get an extension. You know, stretching out the intrigue and all.

Bids aren't officially due for almost three weeks, so who knows what new applicants might show up? Maybe Ton Jones and Allen Haff of Spike’s "Auction Hunters" will drop by the Dodgers' storage unit. Oh, the off-season suspense.

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Dodgers web musings: Who needs another out-of-town owner?

Not the Dodgers, at least that’s how a great many feel.

No less than Hall of Fame baseball writer Ross Newhan, who’s now retired from The Times but writing his own blog, thinks this is a road the Dodgers have been down enough.

Since Peter O’Malley sold the Dodgers, they have been owned by Australian Rupert Murdoch and Boston’s Frank and Jamie McCourt. The results were turmoil and bankruptcy.

Although I don’t think having an out-of-town owner should be an absolute deal breaker, it certainly is preferable to have an owner who is from Los Angeles, and also with a baseball background.

That immediately points to Dennis Gilbert, Fred Claire and O’Malley.

Asks Newhan: Why go to Connecticut or anywhere else when there are potential and quality owners in the neighborhood?

McCourt has said a community tie will be important when he selects a next owner, but more important than the highest bid?

Also on the web:

-- To those who don’t understand how the judge ruling McCourt can’t sell his media rights along with the team can impact the price (my hand's up), Forbes’ Mike Ozanian writes it could cost him $300 million because it would eliminate bidders with less upfront cash.

-- Dodgers.com’s Ken Gurnick has 10 questions for the team as it enters 2012.

-- Hedge fund king, a would-be Dodgers owner, Steven Cohen and McCourt have at least one thing in common. Cohen knows all about contentious divorces.

-- Times columnist Bill Plaschke gives his 2011 MVP to the fans who boycotted McCourt and drove him to sell.

-- Mike Petriello of Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness thinks the Dodgers’ lack of investment in foreign players under McCourt has begun to show.

-- An analysis by the Associated Press on the final MLB payrolls for 2011 shows the Dodgers coming in 12th among its 30 teams.

-- Those looking for optimism for 2012, Sports Illustrated’s Cliff Corcoran thinks the Dodgers can win the National League West.

-- ESPN’s Buster Olney’s rankings of the Top Ten outfields in baseball (Insider status required) has the Dodgers’ trio at No.7.

-- Where are they now (still): Jon Heyman of CBS Sports said Andruw Jones has re-signed with the Yankees for one year at $2 million.

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-- Steve Dilbeck

Photo: Former Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley, left, greets new Dodgers owner Frank McCourt during an event honoring O'Malley's father Walter in 2008. Credit: Jon SooHoo / Los Angeles Dodgers

Dodgers Web musings: Fear and Frank McCourt; Bryan Stow speaks

Hey, that was telling. That told you just how much we’ve come to loath and distrust Frank McCourt. How in the deep recesses of our little hearts we feared McCourt was actually nefarious and devious enough to still be scheming to keep the Dodgers.

Despite an agreement with baseball to sell and having to come up with $130 million to pay a settlement with ex-wife Jamie at the end of April, and that he would risk all his remaining millions if he attempted to renege on his deal with Major League Baseball.

Yet the trepidation was difficult to fight. And the Cubans, mafia or CIA weren’t even involved.

Hall of Fame baseball writer Ross Newhan first broached on his blog what everyone was afraid to say aloud on Dec. 2, asking: "Does McCourt really intend to sell?’’

Instant shivers.

When McCourt failed to produce his book on the team’s financial situation weeks after his agreement with MLB and then won the right to put the team’s media rights up for sale now, suspicions were fanned.

On Wednesday Fred Roggin on KNBC picked up on the paranoia with a segment in which he asked: "Maybe McCourt’s end game is not to sell at all." And he ended it with this comment on the agreement with MLB: "It’s not signed in blood, let’s put it that way, so anything can happen."

 Mike Petriello at MikeSciosciasTragicIllness reluctantly followed up on the conspiracy theory, asking: "What if Frank McCourt was running a long con in order to attempt to keep the team?" And the mistrust grew until Friday The Times’ Bill Shaikin finally addressed it, rationally explaining why it would be foolhardy.

Although, just to keep everyone a tad nervous, I must mention he ends his report with: "Impossible? No, but the chances of Prince Fielder playing first base for the Dodgers next year appear better than the chances of such a strategy succeeding.’’

Prince, of course, is still available.

Also on the Web:

-- That’s the Christmas spirit: Don Mattingly agrees to don dress and wig for a performance of "The Nutcracker."

-- Thanks to Roberto Baly of Vin Scully Is My Homebody for this video of Bryan Stow speaking on video for the first time on the Bay Area's NBC affiliate.

 

 -- The Register’s Howard Cole on Matt Kemp’s visit Thursday to the City of Hope, where he surprised Cole’s best friend, laid up after having been donated bone marrow.

-- In a video, Dodgers.com beat writer Ken Gurnick offers his team’s offseason analysis.

 

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Frank McCourt's latest trick: Making a hero out of Fox!

And now for my favorite holiday quote of the year -- from all places, those good people at Fox.

It comes as Frank McCourt –- in a stunning turn of events! -– has managed to complicate the Dodgers' bankruptcy proceedings and his agreement with Major League Baseball to sell the team.

In violation of his current contract with Fox, McCourt still wants to sell the new TV rights prior to his collecting bids to auction off the team. To which Fox responded in a filing this week:

"Mr. McCourt is not necessary to this process. He should get out of the way and let everyone return to the business of baseball."

Can you high-five a TV network?

If life for the Dodgers could only be so simple: McCourt agrees to sell, stays quietly on the sidelines as bids come in, picks a winner, the new owner takes over, McCourt fades away. Trouble is, simple and the Dodgers haven't crossed paths since Frank and Jamie McCourt purchased the team.

For all the kudos deserved by MLB for standing up to McCourt and finally forcing him to sell, the result did not come without Commissioner Bud Selig having to pony up more than he would have preferred. Anyway, at least you like to think so.

The agreement to sell came with two significant concessions from MLB: that it would no longer contest McCourt's efforts to sell the team’s TV rights and that it would allow him to keep the parking lots surrounding Dodger Stadium if he agreed to a long-term lease with the new owner.

Some nightmares just never end, they just fall deeper down a Salvador Dali rabbit hole.

All this leaves Dodgers fans who just want McCourt as far away from Dodger Stadium as the Earth allows, almost having to pull -– if not actually having sympathy -– for Fox.

That would be Fox, the original evil in this scenario (unless you blame Peter O'Malley for selling to Fox) who made a mess of the franchise, sold it to cash-poor McCourt and then continued to prop him up with loans when he was gurgling in debt.

And now Fox is the voice of reason?

It's so byzantine it's difficult to accept -– O'Malley sells to Fox, Fox sells to McCourt and remains his ally after he brings on the wrath of MLB, Fox finally aligns with MLB in bankruptcy court, O'Malley wants to buy team back. Didn't Shakespeare write about this?

You can understand if Fox feels as though it's been jilted by everyone on its dance card. First McCourt and now MLB, which it still has to deal with on a significant national and regional basis.

Fox wants the bankruptcy court to order that the parking lots be sold along with the team and stadium, something to which you would think any rational human being or corporate entity would agree.

Who would want to buy the team and Dodger Stadium from McCourt and then have to pay him rent to use the parking lots? That would have McCourt leaving the say way he came in -– owning a parking lot. You can buy the team from McCourt and he can still be your landlord?

Unfortunately, there is actually bad precedent for all this. When the bankrupt Texas Rangers were sold, outgoing owner Tom Hicks kept the parking lots -- which quickly brought on a lawsuit between Hicks and Nolan Ryan's new ownership group.

In the end, it's like most things involving McCourt: about the money. Either he gets a nice steady income from keeping the parking lots or he includes them in the franchise's auction and nets a higher profit. Ditto with being allowed to market the next TV-rights package.

But McCourt is the one who created this financial disarray and took the Dodgers into bankruptcy. And I believe the court's main responsibility is to make sure the creditors are taken care of and the company is left in the best shape possible to move forward. Lining McCourt's pockets with the best return hardly sounds like a priority.

As Fox, that unexpected bastion of reason said, McCourt needs to get out of the way and let everyone return to the business of baseball.

-- Steve Dilbeck

Sandy Koufax mini-statue? His bobblehead leads 2012 promos

Frank McCourt may be on his way out –- he is, isn’t he? –- but his marketing department remains in full swing.

The Dodgers have announced their promotional schedule for 2012, and it’s jammed with enough fleeces, specialty caps and replica jerseys to keep your local 98-cent store rolling all season.

The granddaddy of baseball giveaways, of course, is the bobblehead, which naturally, the Dodgers have noticed. Noticed to the tune of a record 10 bobblehead games this season.

Only this year, as a link to the team’s 50^th anniversary season at Dodger Stadium in their 51^st year at Dodger Stadium, instead of Don Mattingly and Andre Ethier bobbleheads, they are going with what they’re calling the Dodger Stadium Greats Bobblehead series.

And the only one they’re announcing up front is Sandy Koufax's.

They’re going to "unveil" the rest leading up to the season opener. And, yes, the 10 bobblehead days will be available with their own ticket mini-plan. How did McCourt drive this team into bankruptcy again?

Cashing in on Koufax is what you might call smart business. This comes on the heels of Koufax winning The Times’ poll as the greatest sports figure in Los Angeles history earlier this month. Couldn’t you just see the light bulbs going off in the Dodgers’ marketing department?

Who the rest will be -– or should be -– makes for some fun speculation. The anonymous Steve Sax of the Sons of Steve Garvey blog is already stumped:

"So let me count here: Frank McCourt, Jamie McCourt, Drew McCourt, Steven Soboroff, Howard Sunkin, ... hmm, I've still got five more 'greats' to select.’’

Fireworks Fridays also return (all 13 of them) and a couple of $1 Dodger Dog days, and on it goes. Click here for the full promotional list.

Of course, wrapping it all around Koufax is pretty smart marketing. As The Times’ Bill Shaikin tweeted, and the Register's Howard Cole and numerous others have championed, what would be really great is a statue of Koufax in front of Dodger Stadium.

For now, you can reserve a Koufax bobblehead. Now available in that 10-game mini-plan.

-- Steve Dilbeck

Photo: Sandy Koufax, left, shared a laugh with Don Drysdale in 1965. Credit: Associated Press.

Peter O'Malley returns, will oversee former Dodgertown complex

Peter O’Malley is already back with the Dodgers. Sort of. At least in one curious way.

Minor League Baseball announced Thursday it was going into a new partnership with O’Malley, his sister Terry Seidler and former Dodgers pitchers Hideo Nomo and Chan Ho Park to operate the old Dodgertown complex in Vero Beach, Fla.

Renamed the Vero Beach Sport Village after Frank and Jamie McCourt moved the team’s spring training camp to Arizona in 2009 and refused to allow it to still be called Dodgertown, the complex has struggled financially under MiLB.

O’Malley and Seidler, of course, are the former longtime owners of the Dodgers who sold the team to Fox, who in turn sold it to the McCourts.

Now that Frank McCourt has agreed in bankruptcy court to sell the storied franchise, O’Malley has unexpectedly announced he wants to buy the team back. Guess he’s pretty serious.