What is to become of the Los Angeles Dodgers franchise? Baseball’s commissioner Bud Selig (pictured in the middle) has decided to use his power and take control of the franchise from current owner Frank McCourt (pictured left).  Frank has been in the middle of a nasty and public divorce with his wife Jamie (pictured right) the last two years which has left the Dodgers as nothing more than pawn in their marital squabble.

Now with that announcement came some surprise from Bud’s move.  It doesn’t happen very often that baseball’s commissioner will take control of a franchise.  The last time it happened was with the Montreal Expos who were then moved to Washington D.C. and purchased by a new owner.  The surprise is that it’s the Dodgers of all teams that has to be saved by baseball.

To be an owner in baseball, it’s a very hard thing if you can imagine.  Mark Cuban is called by many to be the best owner in all of sports for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.  Just look at that franchises’ record before Cuban arrived and since.  He has made two attempts to purchase a major league baseball team, but was denied both times.  Those two teams were the Chicago Cubs and the Texas Rangers.

If baseball wants to deny a person like Mark Cuban to be apart of their club.  Then why did the McCourts get approved?  By all accounts they weren’t the ideal purchaser of the Dodgers back in 2004.  They made an attempt to purchase the Boston Red Sox in 2002, but folks in Boston knew their history and financial dealings and wanted no part of it.  Bud Selig saw it differently apparently as did the rest of baseball.  They were invited unanimously into the club.

Of course it wasn’t all bad.  The renovations to Dodger Stadium are nice.  To fix up a historic ballpark is commendable no matter who does it.  Keeping Vin Scully happy is always a good thing, although I’m not sure how happy he’s been the past two years.  Allowing general manager Ned Colletti to still make moves to improve the team through all the turmoil has to be acknowledged.

Unfortunately the bad far outweighs the good here.  The McCourts are being investigated by the IRS for tax evasion.  The kind where they used team-related funds for personal use and didn’t pay tax on it.  Hollywood definitely went to Jamie McCourt’s head with a monthly salary of $32,012 for clothing and jewelry of all things. The key word there is “monthly” in that fact from their divorce case.

The funniest thing was they hired some guy named Vladimir Shpunt during the 2004 season to, wait for it, transmit positive energy from Boston to the Dodgers.  Supposedly Vlad “discovered that his hands could generate much more energy than the average person’s.”  This according to the Los Angeles Times.  Now he might have helped in 2004 since the Dodgers did make the playoffs, but the following year they lost 91 games.  It goes to show you that you can’t always count on those who claim to be the next Rasputin.

Perhaps the worst part of their financial squandering is that another investigation showed that a member of the Dodgers front office received $400,000 a year from the Dodgers charity.  If you do the math that’s one-fourth of the entire Dodgers Dream Foundation entire budget.  I’m sure that money was put right back into the organization in someway.

Now I’m not going to put blame at the feet of the McCourts for what happened to Brian Stow on Opening Day.  There has been a problem with some stupid thugs at Dodger Stadium for a long time. I would attend more Dodgers games if for one I was a Dodgers fan and two if I felt safe.  Most of the time I didn’t.  And I wasn’t wearing a hat or shirt of the opposing team.  But you have to think that you would have someone hired as your head of security before Opening Day right?

I will admit that I was a Dodgers fan when I started watching baseball.  That was the iconic team in Southern California and in all of baseball.  Once the O’Malley family began to sell the Dodgers, it was never the same.  Great players were coming through their system, but then were traded off before they reached their prime e.g, Mike Piazza, Pedro Martinez, Paul Konerko.

I would point out the awful contracts the Dodgers have dished out, but that would be too easy.  The worst part for me is what the ownership of the Fox Entertainment Group was doing to former players. Mike Scioscia was easily penciled in by many to be the newest manager of the Dodgers after the 1999 season.  However ownership and perhaps the worst general manager in all of baseball at the time Kevin Malone wanted to go in another direction.  The result was no playoff appearances until 2004 and Scioscia was hired by the crosstown rival Angels and won a World Series in 2002.

There has been a serious problem at Chavez Ravine.  The fan base is one of the best in baseball and they apparently have had enough.  Attendance is projected to be at its lowest in a decade.  A lot can be attributed to the state of the economy, but the McCourt divorce and the insane ticket prices have something to do with that to.  There are some value seats at Dodger Stadium, but the view isn’t for everybody.

I don’t have a person in mind that can turn this around for the “Boys in Blue.”  What I do know is that the person has to have a sense of how to run a baseball team.  Let the baseball people do their job and you make sure they can do it.  They have to know what the priorities are which include security, a balanced budget and reasonable pricing.  Bud Selig made a mistake and is trying to right that mistake.  Dodger Stadium is a great place to watch baseball and it can be again.