Cuban out of Running for Dodgers? Say it Ain’t So!

The LA Times’ Steve Dilbeck reported Wednesday that Mark Cuban is done trying to buy a baseball team. For a lot of Dodgers fans, this is like hearing the hot girl you’ve been chasing is engaged. While there are plenty of fish in the sea for Dodgers fans, one big fish has removed himself from the pond.

As a lifelong Dodgers fan, I’ve often wondered what life would be like with the combination of huge resources and baseball intelligence.

With the O’Malley’s, the Dodgers were able to compete with sound old-school ownership principles. When the paradigm of ownership in Major League Baseball began to shift, Fox was ready to take the reins.

As a team in the Los Angeles market should be able to, Fox spent big money. Unfortunately for Dodgers fans, that money was spent on players like Kevin Brown. Fox proved that you don’t only need to spend money to win, you have to spend it wisely.

When Frank McCourt bought the Dodgers, he was an unknown: a guy from the East coast who supposedly had a lot of money, who Angelinos hoped would make sound personnel decisions, and who might be able to do what was necessary to make the Dodgers good again.

Riding a farm system loaded with talent and using Paul DePodesta as a scapegoat for a financially hamstrung organization, the Dodgers were able to experience some success in the middle and late part of the past decade without ever spending the money that would seem appropriate for a team with their television and fan attendance base. Just look at the numbers. The Dodgers have been in the top three teams in attendance every year since 2003, when they were fourth.

In 2010, the smoke and mirrors dissolved. The promising young players underperformed, the aging players looked weak and vulnerable, and the ownership was too embroiled in a bitter divorce to give Dodgers fans any confidence in the team or organization at-large.

The Future

So when Dodgers fans hoped for a savior – an owner who would bring them out of the abyss – Mark Cuban was the poster child. He is everything Dodgers fans yearn for. He has plenty of money and cares about the product. Unlike McCourt, Cuban doesn’t fool himself when it comes to mass communication and media interaction. Cuban has no reason to be anyone other than who he is.

Cuban has tried twice to buy a baseball team with no success. His ownership of the Dodgers would have created a number of interesting dynamics in Los Angeles. Can you imagine the competition with the Lakers for the sporting attention of the City of Angels? What about the refreshing attitude of transparency and energy he would have brought.

The point is this: If Mark Cuban is out of the question to be the Dodgers’ next owner, is there anyone equipped to handle that position as effectively in Los Angeles? I sure hope so.

Trackbacks

1. - Fansmanship says:

   06/16/2011 at 10:23 pm

   […] Owning the Dodgers is Just a Dream… For Now 06/16/2011By owenmainMonths ago, Fansmanship wrote about the possibility of new Dodgers ownership and was dismayed at reports that Mark Cuban was out of the running. This writer, who also happens […]