Maybe I’m missing something, over here in Abu Dhabi. The Dodgers actually had a good season? They did things right? They were an organization to admire, to emulate?

I thought the team finished fourth in a five-team division, with a losing record, and was hamstrung by the bitter divorce of the team’s co-owners and didn’t address basic needs all year.

Yet, here is this weird thing that popped into my e-mail account today:

“Dodgers Named Topps Organization of the Year”

With the sub head that read … “Franchise takes home honor for unprecedented sixth time”

What?

Are the people at Topps not paying any attention? At all?

Or were the other 29 franchises somehow even worse? And, frankly, I don’t believe that for a moment.

This is just embarrasing for Topps, best-known as a maker of baseball cards.

Did they not notice the price-gouging by the organization? The revelations that grasping spendthrifts Frank and Jamie McCourt leveraged the club into huge personal gain, buying luxury homes all over Southern California? Using the money generated by fans to pay for their inexcusable self-indulgence?

Did it escape their notice that the team never had a real fifth starter, not from Opening Day until the season drew to a close?

Did they miss that manager Joe Torre was so fed up with an unwinnable situation that it drove him out of the game?

The only possible excuse for Topps making this award is … they are focusing on the minor-league level.

Now, I am not at all sure the Dodgers have some surge of new talent coming up through the ranks, but that’s a very subjective concept. Maybe somebody at Topps believes they do. Or maybe the Dodgers, as has been their history, assembled minor-league teams who won a lot of games without actually developing specific players who will help carry the big club some day.

Here is an excerpt from the Topps announcement:

“The organization of the year award date back to 1966 and highlights the Major League team that has shown outstanding performance, dept and talent throughout their major and minor-league teams. The award is presented annually based on the numbere of players in the organization that have received Topps awards during the season.

“Points are awarded in four minor-league categories including: All-Star players, Players of the Month, Trautman Award recipients, awarded to each league’s Minor League Player of the Year; and the J.G. Taylor Spink Award recipient, awarded to the overall minor-league Player of the Year. Points are also awarded for those players selected for Topps’ Major League Rookie All-Star team.

Anyway … did the Dodgers have some hot rookies on the roster last year I didn’t notice? Or did they have a couple of kids in the California League who did well?

Is the award just some dumb compilation of points for a guy who had a hot month, or who made an all-star team … and is nowhere near being ready? I suppose that’s an explanation, but not an excuse. The Dodgers as a big-league organization were a disaster in 2010, and if your formula allows a team as screwed up as this one to win your big award, then you need to take a look at the process.

Because up here at the big-league level, the Dodgers were a disaster. They deserve scorn, not praise.