McCourt settlement two years too late

Two years ago the settlement of Frank and Jamie McCourt's divorce would have seemed sane and sober.

A private resolution to spare a beloved public franchise from harm. Two people who shared nearly 30 years of marriage would walk away broken and poorer, but the team they claimed to love would have been kept out of the malicious crossfire.

Today, the settlement is insulting.

After all this, they settle? With a deal that could have been reached years ago? In a manner that sets the stage for another fight between Frank McCourt and baseball commissioner Bud Selig?

It is nauseating on so many levels: the damage done to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the time our legal system has wasted on the matter, the embarrassment felt by a city that loves its team but largely couldn't watch this season if it meant supporting this charade any longer.

But mostly, this is just foolish.









In an ironic twist for as silly as this fight has been, you can't help but wonder whether it all will work out for the best.

This has been a painful process, but when it's finally over, the scars will heal. The Dodgers are better off knowing what lay beneath. Baseball is better off with a reason to excise the McCourts from the game.

Frank and Jamie McCourt never should have been allowed to own and operate a baseball team. They had neither the wealth nor the values to deserve such an opportunity. They ran the Dodgers as a business venture, not a ball club.

Now, because they let their pride and personal failings cloud their business judgment, Jamie is no longer in the Dodgers' picture, and Frank probably won't be for much longer, either.
