Phil Mickelson Joins Group Trying To Buy San Diego Padres
Do You Have A Green Jacket
Phil Mickelson has joined a group of investors who want to buy his hometown San Diego Padres.
Mickelson said he is involved with Kevin and Brian O’Malley, and their cousins Peter and Tom Seidler, as one of five groups trying to buy the team. John Moores said last month he is putting the team up for sale.
The four-time major champion declined three years ago to get involved in a bid to buy the Padres. Mickelson said this time he sees it as a good investment opportunity. He says his interest is primarily to help strengthen the relationship between the city and its baseball team.
The O’Malleys and Seidlers are grandchildren of former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley.
He said he is willing to put “a lot” of his own money in a potential deal to buy controlling interest.
“I’ve had the opportunity to invest in other sports franchises, and I’ve turned it down in the past,” Mickelson said. “This was a unique opportunity with families that had done this before and know how to do it right and want to get involved in the community.”
Mickelson is the second-leading money-winner in PGA Tour history with $66,279,655 in career earnings.
Los Angeles Dodgers Ownership At Stake In McCourts Split Part II
Off The Richter Scale
Los Angeles Dodgers owners Frank and Jamie McCourt divorce was anticpated to become rea; nasty and the begining is starting to reveal itself.
In court papers filed Monday, Jamie fired back at her estranged husband’s accusation of infidelity by alleging:
“Frank [and his lawyers]…make some hurtful and unnecessary personal comments about me,” she wrote. “I would prefer not to address such accusations or to discuss my belief as to Frank’s extramarital activities.”
Monday’s filing, submitted in advance of next week’s court hearing on temporary spousal support, comes five months after Frank said he fired Jamie as the Dodgers chief executive largely because of her alleged affair with her driver.
Jamie has argued for nearly $1 million per month plus $9 million in fees for attorneys and accountants handling the divorce case. Frank has argued that she can support herself and pay her bills pending trial without contribution from him.
Her lawyers further argue that Frank hopes to pin her in a financial position so precarious that she would “cave into his demands and relinquish any claim to the overwhelming bulk of the marital estate, including the Dodgers.”
Jamie hopes to persuade the court to invalidate a marital property agreement that provided her with sole ownership of the couple’s residential properties and provided him with sole ownership of the team.
Her lawyers reiterated that she is entitled to maintain her pre-separation lifestyle pending the outcome of the divorce proceedings, noting that the couple customarily stayed in five-star hotels, ordered bottles of wine costing $100 or more at restaurants and regularly used limousines and private jets. The McCourts also “had their hair done by a hair stylist, who came on an almost daily basis to whichever residence they were then staying.”
The most recent filings also shed some light on the final months of a marriage that lasted almost 30 years. Frank’s last filing included a copy of e-mails between Jamie and Jeff Fuller, the driver with whom she allegedly had an affair, in which Fuller wrote, “He heard us talking” and she replied, “Don’t think so.”
In an interview recently Frank said,
“It’s tough. I’m not going to lie to you,” he says. “It’s a very, very sad thing. Nobody wants to go through this privately, never mind publicly.”
“But in L.A., so much of it is about drama. L.A. is so much about personalities. It’s just how the city functions. This is a juicy story for people until it’s not juicy anymore. Then, they move on to somebody else’s story. Tiger Woods was fantastic for me”
This is a real life version of “The War of the Roses” and the divorce surley has Dodgers fans fearing that this could could ruin their franchise, for which McCourt paid $430 million in 2004. Definitely why manager Joe Torre has been unwilling to discuss contract extensions with the Dodgers.
Dodgers fans are wary, knowing their division foes were hit hard by the divorce of San Diego Padres owners John and Becky Moores last season in which they were forced to sell the club, and the Padres went into a garage sell with their players. They are projected to open the season with a major league-low $40 million payroll.
Los Angeles Dodgers Ownership At Stake In McCourts Split
Off The Richter Scale
There’s a shakeup going down in Los Angeles and it has nothing to do with an earthquake. You’re about to witness the beginnings of a complete implosion of one of baseball’s most storied franchises. The collapse unfolding is of the Los Angeles Dodgers and it comes down to a case of two powerful individuals whose marriage is heading for divorce court and it will be a nasty one.
Frank and Jamie McCourt made their separation public on the eve of the Dodgers beginning the National League Championship Series. There’s been tension been in the Dodgers front office long before and has been described by one front office employee as “walking on eggshells.”
The separation of the McCourts could lead to the sale of the Dodgers, as was the case of the forced sale of the San Diego Padres when then owner John Moores divorced his wife of 45 years, Becky. The two owned 90 percent of the Padres, but based upon community property laws in the state of California, Becky shared 50 percent of the assets with John.
A lawyer for Jamie McCourt announced that she had been fired from Dodgers on Thursday by estranged husband, Frank who in March had been promoted to CEO of the organization, making her the highest-ranking woman executive in Major League Baseball.
“Jamie is disappointed and saddened by her termination,” Wasser said. “As co-owner of the Dodgers, she will address this and all other issues in the courtroom. We are confident that if the ownership issue must be adjudicated, the Dodgers will be determined to be community property owned 50 percent by each of the McCourts.”
This will handcuff the Dodgers, as it did the Padres, and team personal know it such as Dr. Charles Steinberg, chief of marketing for the Dodgers, who is headed to the Red Sox.
How long before others decided to fly the coop? Will 90090 go up for sale? What is known is Dodgertown life will be that of uncertainty.
