MLB: The Dodgers in Limbo

22 April 2011 |permalink | email article

One thing I admire about T.J. Simers, the tough guy Los Angeles Times columnist, is he’s fearless in calling them as he sees them. The MLB takeover of the Los Angeles Dodgers is a classic example:

Come on, it’s time to celebrate. The worst day in Dodgers’ history was Jan. 29, 2004, Major League Baseball owners unanimously approving the scheming McCourts’ plan to buy the Dodgers. What an outrage! As Commissioner Bud Selig put it at the time, “There’s no doubt in my mind that he will be a good owner of a very storied franchise.”

We say all say things we might regret – just ask (Steve) Soboroff, who wrote a letter of support for Frank McCourt months ago and then compounded his mis-judgment Tuesday by signing on with McCourt.  Nice timing.

Soboroff, as respected a businessman and a charitably minded citizens that L.A. has to offer, told the media a day before MLB took over, “Frank McCourt is financially fine.” For my two cents plain that McCourt needed a $30-million loan last week to make the first payroll of the season could suggest otherwise.

Five Thirty Five

Nate Silver’s Political Calculus in the New York Times often contains interesting tidbits for political junkies. He points out that in contrast to four years ago, when the relative amount of media coverage was fairly steady throughout the campaign, there have been dramatic shifts this year. Silver’s search includes all sources on NewsLibrary.com – a combination of about 4,000 newspapers, blog and television and radio stations.

His search concludes that Sara Palin’s potential candidacy, for instance, is only receiving about one-fifth as much attention as it did several months ago. In November 2010, Palin’s name retrieved 777 hits, according to this technique. That represented just over half of the 1,533 citations for all 23 candidates combined.

So far in April, however, Palin is losing altitude. She’s accounted for just 124 hits out of a total of 1,090 total, or roughly 11 percent. Instead, her place has been taken by Donald Trump who’s getting about 40 percent of the coverage. If she’s serious about running for president, Silver opines, Palin needs to take some concrete steps toward doing so.

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