For once, Bud Selig did the right thing.

The Major League Baseball commissioner took over operations of the Los Angeles Dodgers, effectively placing a cease and desist on former owner Frank McCourt’s tenure.

How it got to this point is one thing.  How MLB allowed this buffoon to assume ownership of the Dodgers is even more baffling.

I mean, McCourt clearly did not have the cash to buy the Dodgers in the first place.  He had to secure loans from outside entities so he could be approved by MLB.  McCourt thus became the first owner in recent memory to buy a major sports franchise on credit!

It only got worse from there.  He and his equally buffoon-ish wife sought out to be bigger than the Dodgers themselves.  They reportedly told employees that they (the McCourts) were going to be the brand – not one of the most iconic baseball teams in the world.  Speaking of employees, they fired a lot of folks who was associated with the team for decades.

The McCourts also ran a team in the nation’s #2 media market as if it were the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Everything was done on the cheap, from signing free agents to not beefing up the personnel department.  The personnel decisions were not made by the general manager, but by the McCourts themselves.

Simply put, it was all about the McCourts from day one.

A couple of things served as straws that broke the camel’s back.

1. The ugly divorce trial where Frank McCourt drew up faulty papers that wrote his ex-wife out of the ownership group.  And if that wasn’t enough of an embarrassment…
2. He had to secure a $20 million loan just so he could MAKE PAYROLL.

Are you kidding me?  Dude who is the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers has to borrow some money just to make payroll?

Hopefully Selig and the rest of MLB learned a valuable lesson: if some dude or woman interested in buying a franchise does not have the cash nor acumen to effectively run one, RUN.

Categories: MLB, sports story