Bud Selig’s
term as commissioner ends after the 2012 season and he continues to say that he will retire. He knows that not many people believe him, including his wife,
Sue.
“It’s something I’ve thought a lot about, and we’ll continue to talk about it,” said Selig, 77. “I know it’s a year from Dec. 31, and there are some people on both sides of the room, starting with my wife, (who) are somewhat skeptical.”
Selig is one step closer to being able to walk away, however. He crossed off one of the biggest items on his to-do list when he negotiated a settlement with
Frank McCourt
to sell the Dodgers, a move Selig believes will put one of his “crown jewel” franchises on solid footing again.
Peter O’Malley,
whose sale of the team to
Rupert Murdoch
in 1998 began the downward spiral that left the Dodgers broke and in many ways in shambles, could be part of a new ownership group. Ditto
Mark Cuban,
former Dodgers legends
Steve Garvey
and
Orel Hershiser,
and longtime baseball good guy
Dennis Gilbert,
who once was
Jose Canseco’s
agent and more recently has been an assistant to White Sox Chairman
Jerry Reinsdorf.
Selig is confident the team will be in new hands by spring training. That means the new ownership group will have a chance to address the decay of Dodger Stadium and begin an attempt to reclaim a Los Angeles fan base that has gravitated toward Angel Stadium in recent years.
Selig is being hailed for his work in getting the team through the ugliness of the McCourt divorce. Some blame him for approving McCourt’s purchase in the first place, but how was he supposed to know how badly McCourt would lose his bearings once he had gained control of the team and seen it advance to the NLCS in 2007 and ’08, his third and fourth years of ownership?
Bill Dwyre, the longtime sports editor and now columnist for the Los Angeles Times, in a column Thursday praised Selig as “the toast of the town” for his work in finessing — and at times strong-arming — his way through the maze McCourt’s insolvency and bull-headedness created.
Dwyre recounted how Selig almost had to interrupt a Tuesday evening speaking appearance to put the finishing details on the agreement with McCourt.
“He was sitting in a banquet room at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, there to make the keynote address at a function sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America, Los Angeles Council,” Dwyre wrote. “It was called the Good Character Gala, and Selig’s topic was ‘Character, Leadership and Values.’ … Could it have been more fitting?”
Dwyre speculated Selig forced the settlement by threatening to invoke his “best interest of baseball” powers to force a sale, even though that could have had Major League Baseball in the courts for years.
MLB decided to risk litigation, according to Tribune sources, because it didn’t believe McCourt had enough remaining resources to pay for a protracted legal challenge.
“There comes a time in your life as commissioner, when you have to do things, even when there is no great percentage in the certain result,” Selig told Dwyre. “I did what had to be done. It was a gamble I had to take. The Dodgers are a legendary franchise.”
With the Dodgers no longer an ongoing crisis, Selig can move on to the next items on his list:
* Deciding whether to approve
Jim Crane
as owner of the Astros, or helping
Drayton McLane
put together a new ownership group if he thinks there is too big of a chance Crane will become the new McCourt, given his controversial history.
* Helping the Mets regain their financial footing after
Bernie Madoff
ripped through
Fred Wilpon’s
holdings.
* Finding ways to get the Athletics and Rays the new stadiums they need to survive.
There’s plenty there to keep him busy through 2012, and probably for years to come.
Ready and willing:
On the third day after
Tony La Russa
announced his retirement, Chicago talk-radio host
Marc Silverman
asked him how he was doing.
“Out of work, so getting a little nervous,” said La Russa, who had just finished celebrating the Cardinals’ World Series upset.
He didn’t exactly sound like a man enjoying his newfound freedom. La Russa has talked for years about wanting to stay involved in baseball after he stopped managing, but not in a general manager’s role. Yet during the interview on WMVP-AM 1000’s “Waddle and Silvy Show,” he sounded like a guy who wouldn’t mind being a decision-maker, if not a GM.
“Retired means you make some ceremonial visits here and there, and you have some kind of title that doesn’t mean anything, (a job) where you just show up once and a while,” La Russa said. “I like responsibility. I like to wake up in the morning with something to do. I (hope) there’s some fit there where hopefully you get an opportunity, then you prove you really are willing to work and you have something to contribute, so you get more of an opportunity. I’m not looking for any favors, just a chance.”
Reinsdorf said he would “love to” hire La Russa in some capacity. But La Russa apparently doesn’t see a fit working alongside GM
Ken Williams
and assistant GM
Rick Hahn.
“They’re really set up,” La Russa said. “That’s the problem. … You don’t want to go someplace where they have it already figured out. They have it figured.”
Really? A team that has spent $660 million to win one playoff game over the last six years has it figured out? A team that has invested heavily in
Adam Dunn, Alex Rios
and
Jake Peavy
while letting its farm system become the worst in baseball, according to Baseball America?
Still reeling:
The Orioles are taking it on the chin because so few highly regarded executives want to be squeezed between owner
Peter Angelos
and powerful manager
Buck Showalter.
They thought they had their man in
Tony LaCava
but the Blue Jays assistant GM turned down a chance to become general manager, apparently because Angelos didn’t want to make some changes he suggested.
Angelos and Showalter continue trying to wrap up an embarrassing process that so far has seen
Andrew Friedman, Jerry DiPoto, Allard Baird, Rick Hahn
and
DeJon Watson,
among others, decline to be interviewed or pull their names out of consideration. Late Saturday there were reports that the Orioles were close to offering the job to former Expos and Red Sox GM
Dan Duquette,
who hasn’t worked a major league team since the Red Sox fired him after the 2002 season, clearing the decks for
Theo Epstein.
Duquette would seem a curious choice over the other finalists — Phillies assistant
Scott Proefrock,
Yankees scouting director
Damon Oppenheimer
and former
Andy MacPhail
assistant
John Stockstill.
Oppenheimer would have been a better choice but in the end Angelos may have gone with the guy who wanted (or needed) it the most. The Orioles made strides in improving their farm system under MacPhail but competing against the Yankees, Red Sox, Rays and Blue Jays contributes greatly toward making this an unattractive proposition.
The last word:
“There will be naysayers, but they have been there my whole career.” — soon-to-be 49-year-old
Jamie Moyer,
who is attempting a comeback after elbow surgery.
Twitter @ChiTribRogers
