Dear Frank,
It pains me to write this.
Last year I wrote to you, pleading with you to give us back our Los Angeles Dodgers and show yourself out of town. On behalf of all Angelenos who bleed Dodger blue, I implored you to do what you knew in your money-loving, American Express Black Card, bankrupt heart was best, and make a few hundred million dollars for yourself and your ex-wife by selling our team.
And this week, you did it.*
So here’s the hard part.
(deep breath)
Thank you.
Give me a second while I hurl.
Thank you for selling our team and taking just the first step down the long road toward restoring the Dodgers to their former glory; for restoring them to a position of respect and dignity in the community you’ve called your luxury playground for only eight years, but the rest of us have called home since we were born.
Thank you for finally admitting that it was never about your love of the game, your respect for this storied franchise, or your desire to give fans something worthy of the overpriced tickets, hot dogs and beer we get mugged for at the stadium. It was always about money for you.
Thank you for knowing when enough is enough, and for making Bud Selig look like the wisest man in baseball. I didn’t know that was possible.
I have to hand it to you, though. On a business level, you did quite nicely for yourself. While most of us scoffed at the $1.5 billion asking price, you ended up with a reported sale of $2 billion. Not bad for a team you cooked books and borrowed only $430 million to buy.
Maybe $2 billion is enough to cover your so-called investment, your divorce settlement, and the debt you incurred driving the team into bankruptcy, as well as continuing to pay Manny Ramirez’s salary while he plays for the Oakland A’s, and still have a handsome chunk left over for yourself.
But to be frank, I don’t want to know what your profit will be. Money at this level over a game is the height of absurdity. It makes me angry to know that you profited from all this, and I am doing my best to put your tenure behind me and get back to rooting for my team.
I missed doing that last year. You may have noticed the empty seats in the stands. I have a feeling they’ll be full again this year.
