The Dodgers today made their initial response to MLB's bid to strip the franchise from Owner Frank McCourt, pushing for more time for the court to fully hear the dispute. The club asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware to first hear a separate MLB motion to remove the Dodgers' current bankruptcy counsel amid claims of conflict of interest, and then hear no earlier than Dec. 12 MLB's motion to order the club sold. Beyond settling who will be representing the team, the additional time would allow the Dodgers to pursue discovery on a wide variety of MLB claims that McCourt has significantly mismanaged the franchise.
"The termination motion would, if granted, significantly affect the course of these Chapter 11 cases," the club's filing today reads in part. "It is unthinkable that such a motion should be briefed and argued by the [Dodgers'] counsel while laboring under allegations of conflict and the threat of disqualification."
A hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 12 to hear the attorney conflict of interest dispute, the league bid to order the club sold, as well as a Dodgers motion to establish a quick, two-stage process to sell the club's cable TV rights. That latter effort helped prompt the league's most recent salvo, with MLB saying it would approve no deal that involved McCourt staying as owner. But the Dodgers today also asked the court to hold an emergency hearing tomorrow, before the onset of the Jewish holidays, to establish a new schedule for this series of disputes.
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"The Commissioner asserts that 'Major League Baseball believes a sale of the Dodgers is necessary,'" the brief continues. The Dodgers "are entitled to discovery from MLB to probe whether this view is genuine or merely a pretext. Thus it is necessary to discover evidence showing why the Commissioner and MLB have concluded that a sale is 'necessary,' particularly in view of the paramount policy of the bankruptcy laws of the United States to promote reorganizations and not liquidations."
The Dodgers' filing was fairly devoid of invective against the league, though it called MLB's recent actions "heavy-handed." Beyond pushing for discovery on the MLB claims, the Dodgers also cited their winning record for the '11 season and MVP and Cy Young Award candidates CF Matt Kemp and P Clayton Kershaw, respectively, as signs of the club's competence. "It is not self-evident that LAD are acting anything but in the best interests of the Dodgers or of baseball more generally."
