MLB last night withdrew its effort to disqualify the Dodgers' current bankruptcy counsel. The league had made motion that the club's two firms on the matter -- Dewey & LeBoeuf and Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor -- should be dismissed on conflict-of-interest grounds with regard to Dodgers Owner Frank McCourt. But Judge Kevin Gross of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware said during a hearing last week he "didn't think very highly of the disqualification motion, to be blunt." The court-appointed mediator in the case, former U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Farnan, also suggested MLB drop the motion, the league said in its filing. The Dodgers had argued MLB's disqualification bid was a "blatant tactical maneuver" aimed at injuring the club's reorganization efforts. The league did reserve the right to re-file the disqualification motion at a later date, if desired (Eric Fisher, SportsBusiness Journal).
CONTINUE AS OWNER? In L.A., T.J. Simers writes of the ongoing divorce proceedings between McCourt and his ex-wife Jamie, “People get divorced all the time, but this has become a fiasco while so immersed in his legal briefs.” It is hard to give Frank McCourt “the benefit of the doubt as Dodgers owner when he has allowed the Dodgers experience to go to seed.” Simers asks, “Does Frank really believe when all this is over, he can continue to own the Dodgers? ... He has to know he must come across differently if he's ever to work again as Dodgers owner. So why hasn't he?” Simers: “Everyone around here seems to understand Frank is finished except Frank, who fights to remain. But forget all the legal mumbo jumbo; if McCourt is really serious about being the owner of the Dodgers, then why isn't he acting like one?” Regardless of people’s opinion of MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, if it “comes down to the best interests of baseball it's hard to side with Frank the way he has turned his back on the Dodgers' decline” (L.A. TIMES, 10/11).
