Major League Baseball has taken control of the Los Angeles Dodgers in an effort to keep the storied franchise from becoming an especially terrible episode of “Yes, Dear.” The team has been “increasingly paralyzed” by the bitter divorce of its owners, Frank and Jamie McCourt, and after like two years of ham-fisted bickering and accusations of malfeasance and bodyguard-driver laying, somebody finally stepped in and said “you are milliionaires, stop acting like dumb babies.”

In news that should surprise nobody, the Dodgers themselves have no idea what is happening.

General manager Ned Colletti: “I consider it a sad day for baseball and a sad day for the Dodgers.”

Acclaimed wordsmith Don Mattingly: “It’s hard to imagine it would happen somewhere like the Dodgers, but there’s crazy stuff going on everywhere.”

Frank McCourt: “Major League Baseball sets strict financial guidelines, which all 30 teams must follow … The Dodgers are in compliance with these guidelines. On this basis, it is hard to understand the commissioner’s action today.”

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Major League Baseball, perhaps saddened by the loss of their marquee teams from this year’s World Series (which starts on Wednesday night, for some reason), might be open to expanding their postseason format, according to the new head of the players’ union. Baseball, which expanded its playoff tournament to 8 teams in 1994, still admits fewer teams into its postseason than any other major professional sport. Including NASCAR.

“Certainly some of the players have said either we should shorten the regular season because the regular season’s too long, or we should shorten the regular season to accommodate expanded postseason,” [MLB Union head Michael] Weiner said, adding that would have “revenue implications for the industry.”

“That is one of the ideas that they are kicking around. But having said that, we understand that a proposal to reduce the length of the regular season will be viewed one way by the owners as opposed to a proposal to expand or modify the structure of the postseason.” –Y! Sports.

Just admit everyone. How else are the Pirates gonna have another chance to win a playoff series? This will just be the first step toward a 11-month regular season. Hey, it’s gonna happen. Just wake me up when they get to the metal bats; I can’t wait for every sport to have its own concussion issue.

According to many people in the sports media and mostly Boston Red Sox fans, David “Big Papi” Ortiz is “back!” after having won last night’s 2010 MLB Home Run Derby. Ortiz hit 32 total home runs, but it was his impressive 11 in the final round against Hanley Ramirez’s dinky 5 that made Boston’s slugger the event’s champion. This, of course, is great news for the Red Sox offense, because Home Run Derby champions notoriously smack the tits off the ball in the second half of the season because opposing pitchers keep throwing batting practice pitches against them.

Dismissive wanking aside, there’s a metaphor wrapped inside of an analogy with Ortiz’s clobbering of Ramirez, and that is the American League’s complete dominance of the National League. The Senior Circuit has lost 12 of the last 13 All-Star Games to the AL, with that unlucky number 13 being the infamous Bud Selig tie game that has since led to the All-Star Game counting for home field advantage in the World Series. Don’t worry, Selig’s getting a statue in Milwaukee for his efforts.

Watch Big Papi talk about socking some dingers after the jump.

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Major League Baseball decided not to expand the use of instant replay for 2010, despite consideration stemming from a cluster of blown calls by umpires in the playoffs and late regular season in 2009. General managers didn’t even vote on it, in large part due to commissioner Bud Selig’s adamant opposition to it.

Any change for 2010 likely would be likely have to be instigated by commissioner Bud Selig, who repeatedly has said he’s against widening the use of video review. While there was discussion, Solomon said “it was all confined to the current instant replay system that we have.”

“I think commissioner Selig is going to look at the entire umpiring structure and he’s going to seek ways to enhance the entire structure,” Solomon said. –Y! Sports.

Baseball with instant replay is like my grandparents with email: you’ll have to push them into it kicking and screaming. Hang on, here comes an email from Grandpa right now…”Call me when you get this.” Way to join the information age, you old coot.

Bud Selig says he isn’t to blame for the steriods issue in baseball. No, seriously.

“I don’t want to hear the commissioner turned a blind eye to this or he didn’t care about it,” Selig said. “That annoys the you-know-what out of me. You bet I’m sensitive to the criticism. The reason I’m so frustrated is, if you look at our whole body of work, I think we’ve come farther than anyone ever dreamed possible.”

Selig pointed to the reduction in the number of positive steroid tests among major- and minor-league players during the past three years, as well as the institution of amphetamine testing as evidence that baseball’s 2005 drug policy is working.

There’s no evidence to refute that, since A-Rod and Bonds still belong to the body count of pre-2005 testing, if we could use that word. Did he know about players taking performance enhancers? Probably. Was this knowledge privileged to his office alone, and unavailable to team management, player representation, and insider media? I doubt it.

It’s also worth noting that Selig only took the commissioner’s job in 1992 after he help kick out Fay Vincent and the owners couldn’t find anyone else to replace him. So, in summary, yes, Bud Selig does suck sweaty dripping donkey scrote.

[FanNation]

MLB commissioner Bud Selig made a paltry $15.6 million in the fiscal year ending in 2006, so you’ll be relieved to know that he made even more — $18.35 million — in FY 07.

Selig’s earning power has surpassed that of other league commissioners for at least several years, and his 2007 compensation is more than most MLB players, too. Only the New York Yankees’ quartet of Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Roger Clemens and Jason Giambi earned more than Selig in 2007…

The return will likely be the final one available to the public anyway, as the Office of the Commissioner has since gone through a change in filing status to become a for-profit limited liability corporation.

That’s probably for the best.  Like most things, I’m going to be happier if I stay ignorant about how much Selig makes.  Knowledge mostly just makes me angry or sad.

Like today, for example.  I can look outside and be all, “Hooray, snow!” … or I can think about the widespread death of honeybees that threatens to destroy the food chain, teenage prostitution in Africa spreading the AIDS pandemic, and the trillions of dollars of debt that gives China massive leverage on the U.S. economy.  Wheeee, look! I made a snow angel!!

[The Sporting Blog]