McCourt dodges a big bullet . . . for now

COMBINED NEWS SERVICES

LOS ANGELES -- Can you say, "Play Dodgeball''?

Owner Frank McCourt has met the Los Angeles Dodgers' May 31 payroll, holding off a potential takeover of the team by the commissioner's office, two people familiar with the situation told the Los Angeles Times Friday.

McCourt remains in search of funding to meet the team's June 15 payroll, according to one of the people, neither of whom was authorized to speak publicly. If McCourt were to fail to meet a payroll, the league would cover the expenses and would have the option to seize the Dodgers from him.

McCourt is trying to stay afloat until a June 22 court hearing, when he hopes for a ruling that his ex-wife, Jamie McCourt, has no standing to challenge a proposed television contract between the Dodgers and Fox. Even if Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon rules in Frank McCourt's favor, the deal could be vetoed by commissioner Bud Selig.

Rewind seven years and everything was blue skies for the McCourts.

When McCourt bought the Dodgers in 2004 with then-wife Jamie at his side, he promised to restore a treasured franchise that hadn't made the playoffs in seven years and hemorrhaged tens of millions of dollars under its previous owner.

Indeed, the team has gone to the postseason four out of the past seven years. Yet the team's financial woes have worsened so badly that Major League Baseball has appointed a monitor to oversee the Dodgers. That doesn't even factor in a lawsuit filed by the family of a Giants fan who was badly beaten on Opening Day in a Dodger Stadium parking lot.

"This is by far the darkest chapter in Dodger history these last couple of years," said William McNeil, who wrote "The Dodgers Encyclopedia" and "Miracle in Chavez Ravine." "It's the only period where the fans don't have a good sense of optimism about the team."

That's partly because fans recently learned of the McCourts' lavish spending, using the Dodgers-- as one family adviser infamously put it -- like their personal credit card.

McCourt, a sinewy and savvy real estate developer, bought the Dodgers for $430 million, using a 24-acre waterfront property in Boston as collateral and obtaining short-term loans. He was described at his divorce trial as being asset-rich and cash-poor.

In order to fund their indulgent lifestyle, the McCourts opted to borrow against Dodgers-related businesses to the tune of at least $108 million between 2004 and 2009, according to court documents.

To the McCourts' credit, the team's revenue nearly doubled from $156 million in 2004 to $290 million in 2009, according to court documents, which also showed the Dodgers lost nearly $200 million between 2000 and 2003 under the previous Fox ownership.

But McCourt can't dodge the serious issues, and one of his attorneys, Sorrell Trope, probably summed up the matter best when he noted at one court hearing that Jamie McCourt uses one of the houses exclusively for swimming while another is used to store furniture.

"These people have lived their lives with borrowed money," Trope said at a hearing in March 2010. "They have to stop spending. This isn't the federal government."