Elysian Park--The robins are back, it’s supposed to rain here in Los Angeles today, and Denzel Washington has a crappy movie out…it must be spring! The Seattle Mariners officially welcomed pitchers and catchers yesterday, and the rest will be following this week…so thus the 2012 baseball season has begun! Yes, yes, it’s early and a ball won’t be thrown in anger for at least another 6 weeks, but I can’t wait to start talking about baseball again. Unfortunately here in Los Angeles, despite having a Cy Young winner and an MVP runner-up (to a cheater), the talk right now is who own the Dodgers (owns…owns...). Usually with these things I just make up a bunch of cartoony names–Richie Rich, Bruce Wayne, Uncle Scrooge, Daddy Warbucks–but reality is proving more comical, and nobody can beat the laughs Frank McCourt provided Dodger fans. Did I say laughs? I meant tears and rage. Here’s a brief list of some of the final candidates to make a official bids…sorry to be so Angelin0-centric today, but you Met fans may want to pay attention as some of these names may be popping up on your radar soon.
Steve Cohen & Arn Tellum: How about that, first name on here has already dropped $20 mil on the Mets. That’s just pocket change to this guy…but frankly I don’t want hedge fund managers and sports agents running either the country or my baseball team.
Jared Kushner: I don’t know if this guy thinks he hit a triple or not, but he really was born on third base. His family is super rich Jersey real estate folk, he’s the son-in-law of Donald Trump, he went to Harvard after his dad donated 2.5 million to the school, but he also was a player in the Boston real estate market…which makes him a little too much like McCourt, even if he actually does have money.
Stan Kroenke: Owns the Avalanche, the Nuggets, a professional Lacrosse team (who knew?), two soccer teams (one professional, Arsenal, the other is the Rapids of the MLS), and of course the Rams. His bid should be dismissed just to avoid any temptations to bring the Rams back to L.A.
Mark Heisley: The Chicago Billionaire bought the Vancouver Grizzlies in 2000 promising to make the team a success there…then promptly moved them to Memphis a year later. Memphis is known for its indigenous grizzly bear population, so the move made as much sense as, say, calling a desert city’s basketball team the Lakers, or a trolley-less town’s baseball team the Dodgers.
Joe Torre & Rick Caruso: One once turned an idealist young man named Happy Ward into the bitter and seething curmudgeon he is today. The other is the developer behind popular Los Angeles outdoor malls the Grove and the Americana, both of which feature dancing fountains, Apple stores, and condo units for everyone who has ever dared to dream of living upstairs from a Genius Bar and likes hearing the same water-synched Frank Sinatra songs blasting outside their window every hour. This might actually work out well, as Dodger Stadium could make for the next urban shopping destination, and since both the Americana and Grove also have running trolleys to cart some shoppers around, while the foolish pedestrians actually have to…take some kind of evasive maneuver to get out of their way.
Magic Johnson & Stan Kasten: Definitely the popular choice, for everybody wants a Magic Johnson on their side, while Bud Selig would love to see the familiar Kasten (former President of the Braves, then tapped to run the Nationals when they moved to Washington) in there after the McCourt horror. Johnson has actually owned the minor league Dayton Dragons, and once had a share in the Lakers, until he sold it to…
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong: The richest man in Los Angeles, which of course is saying something, and the winning bidder will probably have him on their side. His 7 billion was made not through nepotism, construction deals and shopping malls, but by developing cancer fighting nanobot technology. Okay, I sort of made that last part up…sort of. At any rate, who better to find and cut out the cancer of the Dodgers than this guy?
Grote2DMax: If I can make Rex O’Rourke the New York Giants’ owner, how about our man tomorrow running the Dodgers?
