One of the great baseball franchises of all time is in a real mess. The Los Angeles Dodgers were allowed to be purchased by Major League Baseball a few years back by Frank McCourt. That has turned out to be a major mistake. Not only did McCourt (and his wife) apparently use franchise funds for personal matters, but now that the pair are divorced the decisions over who gets what has put the team in peril.
Major League Baseball feels it has the right to take the franchise away and put it up for sale to the highest bidder. But what will they be bidding on? McCourt has divided the franchise into separate entities. That originally was done to help him move money around with some of it going into personal accounts. But it also is causing a problem with just what Major League Baseball can take over.
For instance, McCourt claims even if baseball takes the team he still owns the parking lots and maybe even the ballpark itself. Baseball will counter that when he bought the team he bought all of that too and thus it is part of the team, regardless what he may have done when he re-organized.
The fight will be messy and a terrible shame. The Dodgers were once one of the franchises everyone looked up to as one doing things the right way. That is no longer the case. They can't even pay the bills.
Lesson for baseball is to be sure you know who you are selling your teams to. It may be a "good old boy" fraternity, but not just anyone with money should be let in. What one owner does can seriously affect others and the whole sport, too.
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