Posted on 06/20/2011 2:20:43 PM PDT by illiac
For the record, I suspect that any other large business whose owners used it as their personal ATM machine would find those owners facing a small boatload of litigation and possible criminal charges. The Dodgers in the McCourt era wouldn't be the only sports team who managed to make a few postseason trips in spite of the house of cards of their ownership, and alas they probably won't be the last. Saying the McCourt ownership has thus been better than the former Fox ownership is something like saying you have a better chance of surviving a bite from a great white shark than an attack by a school of piranha.
All of which is enough to make you mourn the loss of A. Bartlett Giamatti (what a concept: a commissioner who really was a baseball fan, and---unlike Bowie Kuhn, who loved the game as deeply as Giamatti did but too often ignored the forest when he stopped to ponder a tree---seemed to have a firm grasp of the big picture in hand with the small details) and the mistakes of Fay Vincent (a good man in somewhat over his head and often enough blind to certain rules and maneuverings) even more.
Not to mention mourning the absence of Peter O'Malley, who was forced to sell the Dodgers because Los Angeles insisted that the NFL's only recourse to return to Los Angeles was the Coliseum and refused to allow him to think about building a more modern football facility on Chavez Ravine land the Dodgers already owned, a move that might have enabled the O'Malleys to keep the Dodgers.
(Now, that's what I call perverse poetic justice---it was Robert Moses's refusal to sanction a privately built and owned ballpark that ended up pushing the Dodgers out of Brooklyn in the first place . . .)
It's worth noting that even to this day, Milwaukee has only two big-league sports teams.
Well, you could certainly consider the Green Bay Packers as a Milwaukee home team. At one time, half the Packers home games were in Milwaukee County Stadium, same place where the Braves and later the Brewers played.
Please, let's not concoct any more excuses for Selig's subpar record as Brewers owner. (You never got into his history as caretaker owner of the Expos, I noticed.) The fact is that his poor history as as an owner at least somewhat undermines his credibility to intervene with a current owner, kind of like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.
The Kings filed for bankruptcy in 1995, and McNall ended up serving 5-6 years in prison for fraud charges.
They’re trying to follow the Hollywood model of dramatically cooked books. But they don’t hire enough accountants. I remember when the McNall thing blew up. Just plain crazy.
I like where you’re coming from, BluesDuke! Selig, as an owner/commissioner, was a conflict of interest from the get-go. (BTW, it took him years after he was named Commissar before he finally divested himself of his Brewers holding.) Of course, his credibility vis-a-vis the McCourt situation is undermined by his poor history as an owner of the Brewers and later, on a caretaker basis, of the Expos-Nationals.
An interesting similar story unfolded in the NFL back in the 1960s and 1970s, and the background of the story is not well-known even to serious football fans. It involved the New York Giants, and while it wasn't a marital situation the parallels were actually quite remarkable. The situation with the Giants involved co-owners Wellington Mara and his nephew Timothy. Wellington and his brother Jack each got a 50% stake in the team when their father re-organized the ownership structure back in the 1930s. Jack passed away in 1965, and his son Tim inherited his father's half of the team ownership. Wellington and Tim feuded constantly for the next 10-15 years, and since neither one of them had full control of the team the entire organization fell into the sh!tter. They couldn't even agree on simple decisions related to hiring coaches.Interesting recollection. It's sometimes forgotten now that Walter O'Malley got a hook into the Dodgers in the first place because of similar family feuding: The heirs of Charlie Ebbets and Steve McKeever couldn't agree on a damn thing other than hiring a team president---first Larry MacPhail, then Branch Rickey. When Rickey came in and bought a stake in the team, the remaining stake went to O'Malley, who was then a Brooklyn Trust Company trustee.
In time, O'Malley maneuvered his way into becoming enough of a Dodger holder that he was able to push Rickey, whom he disliked intensely enough, out---though not without one kicker: Rickey's stake included a clause that if he could find a buyer who'd meet his price for his stock, anyone else (including O'Malley) who wanted to buy it had to meet that price. Rickey wanted $1 million for the stock; O'Malley was offering far less. Developer William Zeckendorf rang in with an offer of $1 million---and it forced O'Malley (Zeckendorf may have made the offer as a favour to Rickey to help him bite O'Malley where it hurt) to meet that price.
In some ways, though, Rickey eventually got a little revenge---as the president of the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates (memory bank withdrawal: Bing Crosby was one of the team's owners at the time), he plucked a Dodger minor leaguer right out from under them in the Rule Five draft . . . a minor leaguer named Roberto Clemente, who became one of the foundations of the Pirates' next competitive era. (On the other hand, Rickey was so notoriously penurious with his players---and downright duplicitous with his one major star, Ralph Kiner---that Kiner to this day credits Rickey with planting the idea for what would become the players' union.)
He also helped squeeze the National League toward expansion that would return the league to New York: Rickey was one of the powers behind the proposal for the Continental League, a third major league, which compelled the 1958 antitrust hearings that spurred the two major leagues to their first expansion, all of which franchises were Continental League entries: New York, Houston, Los Angeles, and Minnesota. (The kicker: the Washington Senators decided to move to Minnesota, the territory becoming open when the New York Giants---who owned the rights, having their top farm team there---moved to California instead, so the American League expanded instead to Washington . . .
Do you think George Steinbrenner would have been a great commissioner? He was arguably the most successful owner in modern North American sports.
Selig, as an owner/commissioner, was a conflict of interest from the get-go. (BTW, it took him years after he was named Commissar before he finally divested himself of his Brewers holding.) Of course, his credibility vis-a-vis the McCourt situation is undermined by his poor history as an owner of the Brewers and later, on a caretaker basis, of the Expos-Nationals.I have the nasty feeling that the day will come when we learn Bud Selig's conflicts of interest as baseball commissioner will make small potatoes out of, among other things, the 1950s Yankees having the 1950s Kansas City Athletics in their back pockets, thanks to then-Yankee co-owner Del Webb's somewhat incestuous relationship with eventual A's owner Arnold Johnson (whom Webb manipulated into receiving the team after the Mack family was forced to sell, and who was undoubtedly beholden enough to do Webb's bidding, including but not limited to turning the A's into a virtual Yankee finishing school).
And what we come to learn may only begin with Selig's relationship with Carl Polhad, the late owner of the Minnesota Twins.
Do you think that Mark Cuban will ever own the Dodgers?
Really? Have you ever heard the old adage of the pot calling the kettle black? Selig's less than stellar record as an owner (both of the Brewers and later the Expos-Nationals) undermines his credibility when he tries to intervene in the autonomous activities of current owners, or at least has to be taken into consideration by those judging the merits of the dispute.
As for Steinbrenner, you can bet that Selig would never intervene with him, no matter what the heck he did. (Steinbrenner, BTW, was suspended for one year by a previous commissioner for conspiring with a mob figure.)
Do you think George Steinbrenner would have been a great commissioner? He was arguably the most successful owner in modern North American sports.Being that successful a sports owner doesn't mean he would have been a successful commissioner. I grant that we have little enough baseball precedent---Selig is the first owner ever to become commissioner.
But then I don't think baseball (or any sport) should have an owner as a commissioner. For that matter, I don't think a former player, former manager, or former umpire should become commissioner, either. They're too close to the game to be genuinely objective.
This isn't to say baseball has lacked for incompetent commissioners. Ford Frick, anyone? William (Spike) Eckert, anyone? Peter Ueberroth? Even St. Landis, who was no saint and has an unwarranted image as the big tough bird who "saved" the game?
Even Bowie Kuhn---I repeat: he loved the game as deeply as Bart Giamatti and Fay Vincent did---wasn't exactly a model of consistent competence. And he'd been close enough to the game before getting Eckert's job: he'd been the National League's lawyer (it was Kuhn who had to argue the case, to the city of Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin, when city and state moved legally to try to stop the Braves from leaving Milwaukee).
I know two endearing stories about Kuhn, and that's the way I prefer to remember him (he died in 2007):
1) To the day he died, Kuhn was such a fan growing up (he spent much of his boyhood working as a Griffith Stadium scoreboard operator) that he could reel off from memory the entire starting lineup of . . . the 1944 St. Louis Browns. (For the record, the 1944 Browns' Opening Day lineup was: Don Gutteridge, 2B; Hal Epps, CF; George McQuinn, 1B; Vern Stephens, SS [and you thought Alex Rodriguez pioneered cleanup-hitting shortstops!]; Gene Moore, RF; Milt Byrnes, LF; Mark Christman, 3B; Frank Mancuso, C; Jack Kramer, P. The Brownies opened by beating Dizzy Trout and the Detroit Tigers, 2-1, in Detroit.)
2) Kuhn put a stop to some planned subterfuge on the part of the Atlanta Braves to open 1974---the Braves were due to start the season with a set in Cincinnati before coming home for an eleven-game homestand. The Braves wanted nothing more than to see Hank Aaron tie and pass Babe Ruth on the all-time bomb list before the home folks. Almost every market in baseball went into an uproar against the idea, probably led by the New York and Los Angeles writers. (The Braves were to open the homestand against the Dodgers, whose former pitcher Jack Billingham was now with the Reds.) Almost every writer in Atlanta---led disgracefully enough by Furman Bisher of the Journal-Constitution---pushed back and told one and all to keep their damn mouths shut.
Enter Bowie Kuhn. He all but pronounced that for the Braves to hold Aaron out of the lineup in Cincinnati was equal to trying to throw the games to the Reds. Manager Eddie Mathews put Aaron into the starting lineup for the first game. The first time Aaron faced Billingham, with Ralph Garr (leadoff walk) and Mike Lum (single to left) aboard, he hit one over the left field fence to tie Ruth. The Braves went on to lose it, anyway, 7-6 in extra innings. Mathews kept Aaron out of the lineup for the second game, but Kuhn ordered Aaron's presence in the final game of the set. Aaron was turned away in three at-bats fairly and squarely. (Cincinnati's Clay Kirby struck him out twice and got him to ground out in the third at-bat.)
Then the Braves went home, and you know what happened in the bottom of the fourth, when Aaron (whose first plate appearance, in the second, ended in a walk) stepped in against former Yankee Al Downing with Darrell Evans (safe on an infield error) aboard and nobody out . . .
. . . Now here is Henry Aaron . . . this crowd is up all around. The pitch to him---bounced it up there, ball one. Henry Aaron in the second inning walked and scored. He's sitting on 714. Here's the pitch by Downing---swinging---there's a drive into left-center field! That ball is gonna be . . . outta here! It's gone! It's 715! There's a new home run champion of all time, and it's Henry Aaron! The fireworks are going! Henry Aaron's coming around third! His teammates are at home plate! And listen to this crowd!Kuhn had made a nice presentation to Aaron in Cincinnati when he tied Ruth. What wasn't generally known later, unless you read George Plimpton's One for the Record, was that Kuhn stayed away from Atlanta that game not because he wanted to diss Aaron but because he was only too well aware of the continuing drumbeat against his orders to play Aaron in Cincinnati and he had no wish to become any kind of distraction when Aaron finally passed Ruth.---Milo Hamilton, calling the Big Bomb 8 April 1974.
. . . Once again, a standing ovation for Henry Aaron . . . So the confrontation for the second time, Aaron walked in the second inning . . . He means the tying run at the plate now, so we'll see what Downing does . . . Al at the belt, delivers, and he's low, ball one . . . and that just adds to the pressure, the crowd booing . . . Downing has to ignore the sound effects, and stay a professional, and pitch his game. One ball and no strikes, Aaron waiting, the outfield deep and straightaway. Fastball---and a high drive into deep left center field, Buckner goes back, to the fence---it is gone! . . . (nearly three full minutes of crowd noise, fireworks) . . . What a marvelous moment for baseball, what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia, what a marvelous moment for the country and the world---a black man is getting a standing ovation in the deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron . . .
---Vin Scully, Dodgers broadcaster, making the call on the Dodgers' broadcast of the game.
I know of no better valedictory on it than this from Red Smith:
[Kuhn] explained to [Bill] Bartholomay what self-interest should have told the Braves’ owner, that it is imperative that every team present its strongest lineup every day in an honest effort to win, and that the customers must believe the strongest lineup is being used for that purpose.Those are two stories about Bowie Kuhn. They're still my two favourite such stories.When Bartholomay persisted in his determination to dragoon the living Aaron and the dead Ruth as shills to sell tickets in Atlanta, the commissioner laid down the law. With a man like Henry swinging for him, that’s all he had to do.
Thanks to Mrs. Herbert Aaron's muscular son, 2:40 p.m. April 4, 1974 will stand until further notice as Bowie Kuhn's finest hour.
—Red Smith, “Henry Aaron’s Finest Hour,” The New York Times; republished in The Red Smith Reader. (New York: Vintage Books, 1982.)
possibly
I wondered what your axe is that you're grinding. Apparently, Jamie being Jewish is part of your beef. I'm sure there's more on your hidden agenda...
Not yet, but it gets us a lot closer. Now, a judge needs to decide whether Fwank is sole owner or Jamie has 50 percent.
I think MLB is this close of saying screw it take over Dodgers
Think again. I'm Jewish myself. It's her excessive demands in the divorce case, despite the fact that she's more than capable of living an opulent lifestyle with less, that form the basis of my beef, and why I referred to her as a "JAP."
And she's also been putting the Democrat political attack machine into her case, as evidenced by who her chief lawyer is: None other than David Boies! (Remember him from Bush v. Gore in 2000?) I would think it's otherwise hard to explain how Boies could be her divorce lawyer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.