Just when it seemed possible that Major League Baseball would take over the Dodgers, ending their long National (League) nightmare … the official bogeyman of Los Angeles, Frank McCourt, declared bankruptcy today.
The Dodgers now may be saddled with this vile little creature for the foreseeable future.
Here is the early Los Angeles Times version of events. And here is the espn.com story.
In the bankruptcy filing, McCourt indicated that he owes Manny Ramirez $21 million (whatever) and Andruw Jones $11 million (he doesn’t deserve $11).
But he also owes serious money to current Dodgers players (Hiroki Kuroda $4.5 million, Rafael Furcal $3.37 million), and if I’m either one of those guys, do I just go take a seat on the bench until the Dodgers — Frank McCourt, that is — pay me?
It gets better/worse. In a gesture that is just, oh, so Frank McCourt, that reinforces his status as The Worst and Most Clueless Owner in L.A. sports history …Â he is stiffing Vic Scully.
McCourt owes Vinny $152,778, and if McCourt and his lawyer pals had sat around brainstorming for a month about what special touch in this latest proceeding they could add to tick off everyone who ever has been a Dodgers fan … telling Vinny he has to wait to get paid would be No. 1.
Here’s what Frank McCourt doesn’t get.
Los Angeles hates him. Los Angeles wants him gone.
He will never, ever be accepted by Dodgers fans. No matter what he does or how many writs he files with courts … he will never be accepted. Never. He can continue to struggle to try to keep this team, and everyone in SoCal will hope he fails.
Doesn’t a rational person, never mind a right-thinking one, recognize that level of animus and just cash out and get out of town? What is wrong with this guy? Does he live in a cave when he’s not in court?
I thought he passed the point of no return even before the start of the 2010 season when I began writing posts about how I would never support the Dodgers till the McCourts (and here I included Jamie) were gone.
Do a search on this blog for “McCourt Dodgers” and you will see a dozen items on the topic. I think I was ahead of the curve, but the city began catching up to me.
The tipping point was on Opening Day this year, when McCourt regretted that a big crowd and a Dodgers victory had been marred … by a Giants fan being beaten nearly to death by the kind of thuggish Dodgers fans that McCourt had allowed to infest Dodger Stadium.
Now, Los Angeles may agree on almost nothing aside from “earthquakes, bad” and “McCourt, evil” … but we have unanimity on those, at least.
So now Frank McCourt apparently will hang around longer, hoping for … what? He is more loathed today than he was yesterday, and we didn’t think it was possible. His disheartened, disorganized team is 10 games under .500, he hasn’t paid his players, he doesn’t care that he is killing the franchise …
Why he can’t just sell the team to anyone, split the money with Jamie and just go live somewhere on the tens (hundreds?) of millions he would walk away with … I don’t know.
I don’t get it. This guy wants to make this as bad as he possibly can. He wants to be the most hated man in Los Angeles. He wants to be known as the man who destroyed a great franchise.
A nightmare. And it does now seem endless.
1 response so far ↓
1 mike chylinski // Jun 30, 2011 at 5:16 PM
He clearly has something wrong with him. It’s hard for a rational person (or perhaps one not trained as a psychiatrist) to understand, but he must be so insulated, so narcissistic, so oblivious … I just don’t know. When he was on the radio, trying to redeem his reputation a couple of months ago, if you didn’t know the truth of the situation you could almost believe he had a point, and was just misunderstood. Of course it was all lies and omissions and the usual spin….but at some level he must be lying to himself too…? What on earth, though, does he think is left for him at this point if he somehow, in some horror scenario, manages to retain the team? Dare he even show his face in the stands? What a joke, and what a hideous, grasping, ugly human being.
Leave a Comment