Hey Dodgers fans, remember the good old days, back when Frank McCourt was a principled, passionate businessman who pulled himself up by the bootstraps and led L.A. to championship prosperity alongside his beautiful, fresh-faced wife Jamie? Are you able to recall how Baseball Camelot dissolved into a two-year long hodge podge of bankruptcy, behind-closed-doors usurping and “who owns which parking lot”-style tough guy back-and-forth? Well, 24 months and $20.6 million in legal bills later, the McCourts have reached a Dodgers-related divorce settlement, readying fans for a return to … well, one of those times.
From the LAT Sports page:
Frank and Jamie McCourt have reached a divorce settlement under which she would get about $130 million and relinquish any claim to a share of the Dodgers, multiple people familiar with the agreement told The Times.
The settlement would remove Jamie McCourt as an obstacle to Frank McCourt’s plan to retain ownership of the team by selling the Dodgers’ television rights in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The agreement also would appear to set up a winner-take-all court showdown for the Dodgers between Frank McCourt and Commissioner Bud Selig.
As straight-forward as that reads, even that gets followed by a “the people familiar with the agreement spoke on condition of anonymity because the settlement has not been finalized”. That’s really the defining statement of the costliest divorce in California history; if the Los Angeles Times posted a story saying “Frank McCourt says sky is blue” they’d have to follow it with “however, due to outstanding legal claims, the McCourts would like to announce that the atmosphere and light scattering contribute to the sky’s purported blueness, though the science could neither be confirmed or denied at this time”.
The other key is the “winner-take-all court showdown” line, which hopefully leads to Frank McCourt and Bud Selig battling each other with pugil sticks on raised platforms above a room filled waist-high with Manny Ramirez dread-wigs.
