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.

Ex-Dodgers exec Steve Soboroff lists home for $13.6 million

Steve Soboroff is still going.

Soboroff was the Dodgers’ disastrous vice chairman of whatever for about two months before resigning and slipping quietly into the night. Not that anything about Soboroff was quiet his first few weeks on the job.

Only now he’s on the move again. Soboroff has listed his Pacific Palisades home for $13.6 million.

The home has seven bedrooms and 8,893 square feet. Maybe Frank McCourt should have moved into one instead of paying $30,000 a month for his poor one-bedroom suite in a Beverly Hills luxury hotel.

Included in the French country-style mansion is the required pool, a basketball court with both Lakers and Clippers logos, a spa, a view of the Pacific, and a vineyard. It sits atop a Santa Monica peak.

Soboroff continues to be active on the Los Angeles scene. He is a senior advisor for the arrival and exhibit of the space shuttle Endeavour to the California Science Center. And he continues to purchase typewriters of the famous.

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-- Steve Dilbeck

Photo: Former Dodgers vice chairman Steve Soboroff, right, listens as Dodgers owner Frank McCourt speaks during a news conference in April. Credit: Mary Altaffer / Associated Press

Finding reasons to appreciate the Dodgers 2011 season

They’re having fan appreciation day for the Dodgers on Sunday, which is curious for a couple of reasons. They still have three more games to play here and, of course, what exactly is there to appreciate in the worst season in organizational history?

That’s why we’re here to help:

• No traffic problems getting to the game.
  
  
• Matt Kemp played like the Matt Kemp everyone always thought was there, and not like the one who was here last season.
  
  
• Vin Scully remained perfect, even when he wasn't. And he’s coming back.
  
  
• Don Mattingly earned his stripes.
  
  
• Steve Soboroff came and then went.
  
  
• The suspense that is Eugenio Velez.
  
  
• Buy a nose-bleed seat, walk down to the better seat of your choice.
  
  
• Clayton Kershaw arrived as an ace.
  
  
• Tim Federowicz shaved his mustache.
  
  
• Young arms boded well for future.
  
  
• No one uncovered another Vladimir Shpunt, as if that’s possible.
  
  
• Josh Rawitch is leaving (kidding).
  
  
• Kenley Jansen was sick.
  
  
• Tickets available on-line for $1.85.
  
  
• Frank McCourt disappeared from his look-at-me seat.
  
  
• McCourt sold one of his mansions. Hurry, only seven left!
  
  
• Teammates nicknamed heavily tatted Justin Sellers "Cell Block."
  
  
• Dodger Dogs. Real, grilled Dodger Dogs.
  
  
• No traffic problems leaving the game.

-- Steve Dilbeck

Photo: Dodgers center fielder Matt Kemp gets set in the batter's box. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

The brief and stormy career of Steve Soboroff, would-be Dodgers executive

As great disasters go, it doesn’t exactly rate with the Chicago fire or gulf oil spill or Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl. Heck, for Frank McCourt it won’t even crack his personal top 10.

Still, the brief tenure of Steve Soboroff as the Dodgers vice chairman of whatever, was an unmitigated fiasco for all concerned -- the Dodgers, McCourt and, mostly, Soboroff.

Soboroff tendered his resignation to McCourt Friday, and whether he was actually gently pushed or not I can’t tell you, but it's safe to say it was quickly accepted. Of course, they do have all that experience.

That Soboroff would take his position with the sinking ship that is the Dodgers on April 19 was yet another display of the McCourt’s unfocused desperation, and no doubt the size of Soboroff’s ego.

Soboroff’s timing was remarkable. The day after he was hired, Major League Baseball took control of the Dodgers.

And no doubt as he suggested in his letter, that impeded his ability to do the job he was hired to do, whatever that was (head of security, fan experience, expanding conservation efforts, fixing Juan Uribe’s swing).

Of course, then Soboroff started talking, which became the real problem. Suddenly he was an instant expert on the Dodgers, McCourt, baseball financing, TV rights deals, the commissioner, string theory and whether men really give a flying leap about what kind of shoes women wear.

He said: "Frank McCourt is financially fine."

He called MLB’s takeover of the Dodgers "irresponsible" and said: "We need more people like Frank McCourt."

Later he added: "I think Frank McCourt is a different person now."

He chided MLB monitor Tom Schieffer for going into the Dodgers clubhouse his first day on the job to tell the team his work would not affect them, criticized the hours Schieffer kept, and then in the clincher, ripped Schieffer and MLB when he asked for additional stadium security the day after Osama bin Laden was killed and couldn’t locate him.

Since another team official had reached Schieffer with the request and he approved it within minutes, McCourt had to apologize to MLB.

And remember, Soboroff managed to pull all this off his first 2 1/2 weeks on the job.

Since then, he had become pretty invisible, McCourt finally determining his latest misconceived act of desperation was going to look a lot like the others, if more public.

Soboroff was seldom around the stadium, did little apparent work and went from franchise blowhard to just another of McCourt’s multitude of former executives. Sorry, hardly an exclusive club.

Safe to say, the Dodgers have no plans to fill his position, whatever it was.

His Dodgers experience had to be a real shocker to Soboroff, who has served the Los Angeles community his entire life and was generally well-respected. You can almost manage a tinge of sympathy for him.

But that he attached himself to the current pariah of Los Angeles is nobody’s fault but his own. His self-esteem may have gotten the better of his ambitions.

And like others before, the McCourt debacle got the better of him.

-- Steve Dilbeck

Photo: Steve Soboroff. Credit: Katie Falkenberg / For The Times

Steve Soboroff steps down as Dodgers vice chairman

Steve Soboroff, who publicly clashed with the baseball commissioner’s office in his brief tenure as the Dodgers’ vice chairman, has resigned.

In a letter addressed to Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, Soboroff wrote:

I accepted the position as Vice Chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers because I love Los Angeles and I love the Dodgers. I felt I could use my previous experience during the past 30+ years with civic and public policy projects like Staples Center, the city’s Recreation and Parks system, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles, etc., etc. to help the Dodger organization and to help Los Angeles.

On the day my appointment was announced, last April, I received hundreds of messages of support from people throughout Los Angeles. It was a great start!

Unfortunately, the very next day, an unanticipated action by the Commissioner of Major League Baseball resulted (understandably) in elevating the resolution of ‘control and ownership’ issues to top priority, which remains to this day. As a consequence, it is not possible for me to effectively work on the very initiatives and contributions that you had hired me to implement.

My family and I have reflected on this turn of events and have determined that the present environment is not conductive to getting the results I was brought on to achieve for the Dodger organization or for Los Angeles

As a result, I am tendering my resignation as Vice Chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers, effective immediately.

I remain a lifelong Dodger fan and will now embark on a different path to continue my longstanding efforts to make good things happen in Los Angeles.

-- Bill Shaikin

Photo: Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, left, is joined by Steve Soboroff during a media session following a meeting with MLB executives in New York in April. Credit: Mary Altaffer / Associated Press

Surprise, surprise: Steve Soboroff trying the low-key approach?

The Dodgers return Friday night to open a brief six-game homestand, which seems a perfect time to mention who was all but invisible during the last homestand:

"Bulldog" Steve Soboroff.

Seems Frank McCourt actually did put a leash on his wild hair vice chairman of something or another.

During the Last seven games at Dodger Stadium, Soboroff was nowhere to be seen, which naturally had me wondering if he had been fired after McCourt had to apologize to Major League Baseball after Soboroff’s latest verbal attack.

But, no, I was assured he was still in the fold, if just less publicly prominent. Seems McCourt finally understood that if you’re trying to get the commissioner of baseball to approve a TV deal to save your ownership, it probably isn’t the best idea to have your latest lackey trying to take a bite out of us butt every other day.

Frank McCourt and the disaster that is Steve Soboroff

Frank McCourt needs to put a leash on Steve Soboroff, or a muzzle. Or give him a pink slip, something at which McCourt has proved very adept.

The more Soboroff talks, the happier you should be he was never elected mayor. He is out of control, mind-boggling, managing to make an incredibly horrid situation worse. Must be a genuine skill.

Soboroff, the Dodgers' new vice chairman of embarrassing comments, was on the job an entire two seconds when he was claiming to know more about baseball financing that Commissioner Bud Selig, who of course, also used to own a team.

He called Major League Baseball's move to take control of the Dodgers "irresponsible," like he would know. He has zero credibility on anything to do with the Dodgers. Understand? Zero.

Osama bin Laden, Frank McCourt and the Dodgers

The Dodgers' ownership drama took a bizarre turn Thursday when owner Frank McCourt apologized after his vice chairman claimed the team could not get prompt authorization to increase security in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death.

Dodgers Vice Chairman Steve Soboroff told several media outlets Thursday that Tom Schieffer, the trustee appointed by Commissioner Bud Selig to run the team, did not respond promptly to a request for upgraded stadium security. The allegation outraged Major League Baseball officials, for whom Schieffer produced an email in which he granted authorization two minutes after the request from Dodgers general counsel Sam Fernandez.

In addition to issuing a statement, McCourt apologized in a telephone call to Rob Manfred, the MLB executive vice president and Selig's point man on the Dodgers.

Soboroff did not return messages from The Times. He spoke Thursday with KPCC, Yahoo Sports and the New York Times.

In his statement, McCourt said Soboroff had made "several comments regarding Mr. Tom Schieffer that were factually incorrect. One comment, in particular, that was not correct was Mr. Soboroff's characterization of Mr. Schieffer's response to the need for heightened security at the stadium following the President's announcement regarding the death of Osama bin Laden.

"Not only did Mr. Schieffer respond immediately to our request for permission to increase security at the stadium, he volunteered to assist the organization in any way that he could. I apologize to Mr. Schieffer for the inaccurate statements that were made about him."

-- Bill Shaikin

Photo: (from left) Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and Steve Soboroff, vice chairman of the team. Credit: Mary Altaffer / AP

Is it too early to be concerned about Hong-Chih Kuo?

Hmm, when do you start to worry?

Hong-Chih Kuo has appeared in five games this season. As sample sizes go, it’s barely a blip.

So, really, no one should get carried away with the hand-wringing. Still, it's May and there is no sign Kuo is close to resembling the lights-out reliever he was last season.

He just came off the disabled list Sunday, so it's easy to write off his performance -- one-third of an inning, four runs on two hits, a walk and a hit batter.

His control was off, his velocity down, his results unrecognizable as coming from the guy who last season fashioned a 1.20 earned-run average and walked 18 batters in 60 innings.

Now he has an unsightly 15.00 ERA and has walked five in three innings.

"I'm not perfect," Kuo said.

Perusing the Web to get a feel for the Dodgers' new Wizard of Oz

So the Wizard of Oz has been identified, and it turns out it’s a former President George W. Bush crony and past president of the Texas Rangers.

What does it mean?

I would so love to tell you exactly what to make of Commissioner Bud Selig’s appointment of Tom Schieffer as the Dodgers grand overseer -- or Wizard of Oz, as Frank McCourt’s new front man, Steve Soboroff called him.

Alas, I’ve never met him and claim no personal insight. I have pored over just about every word written about him on the Web since he took the position Monday, and can tell you he mostly earned very strong reviews.

The Times' Bill Shaikin and Scott Gold report that although Schieffer’s official title is actually the almost humorous "monitor" -- making you picture the high school administrator patrolling the halls in search of truant troublemakers -- he will act as the team’s de facto president.

What’s important to keep in mind is Schieffer is not taking up permanent residence in Chavez Ravine. He’s an executive temp. Here to examine the club financing, give direction and add stability. Remember, there has been no true club president since McCourt pushed Dennis Mannion out last October.

The Times’ Bill Plaschke said Schieffer’s charge is not about meddling with the team on the field: "He is not here to restrain Ned Colletti, he is here to handcuff Frank McCourt.’’