Here is the body text of a letter Major League Baseball sent Frank McCourt (obtained by TMZ):
Attached is a letter we sent to our associates in Taiwan today. The Commissioner has asked me to urge you to resolve this matter as quickly as possible to avoid further problems of this type."This type," of course, being Jamie's lover-driver-bodyguard Jeff Fuller going on a foreign relations mission on faux-Dodgers business. And yeah, that's the whole body. Frank submitted that to Commissioner Gordon to support his request for an expedited schedule. Now, maybe it's just me, but that letter's got a nasty tone to it, doesn't it? Selig may say publicly that he's not worried about the Dodgers, but he's got a Vice President of a multi-billion dollar enterprise sending Come to Jesus letters to Frank. This one incident certainly isn't determinative of anything. But this is how it starts, isn't it? If little events like this accumulate and grow toward critical mass, you have to wonder if MLB might pull some of the behind-the-scenes chicanery for which it is well known.
Be advised, Frank. Selig is displeased.
The Times has notes on the attached letter referred to above here. Interestingly, MLB's letter says that Fuller was purporting to represent the Dodgers, which Jamie's spokesperson refutes.
EDIT: Technical difficulties with the link. Stand by.
DOUBLE EDIT: Those TMZ folk are a crafty lot. Their watermark obscures the text when I try to convert the PDF to an image. If it helps, the PDF didn't load for me the first time. I clicked the navigation box (highlighting the URL) and hit enter. Worked right away.
TRIPLE EDIT:
Either the program I used to convert that sucks, or that letter was printed in the late 18th century by some sort of future seeing guy.
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So where's the attached letter?
ReplyDeleteGosh darn it, it was working a moment ago. I didn't save it at the moment, either. Working on it.
ReplyDeleteActually, I saw the two-sentence letter from MLB to McCourt - which you quote in its entirety anyway, above - with the big TMZ watermark, at your link. But that letter refers to an "attached letter" which they had sent to their "associates" in Taiwan. (Sounds like the Mafia, or something.) That'
ReplyDeletes the letter I'd like to see, but the TMZ link didn't have it.
Ah. Yeah, I'd love to see that, too. More than this little note, really. But I'm not sure that's TMZ's focus.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it does, on the surface, appear to be a reprimand to Frank, don't you think that this letter actually helps his case a bit? (That is, unless they're gearing up to wash their hands of him.) Frank is not the one who sent the Fuller brush man - that was Jamie (maybe - or maybe Fuller just individually took advantage of an expenses-paid first class trip to Taiwan arranged a long time ago, hoping no one would notice).
ReplyDeleteNow Frank has evidence that a) MLB accepts that he is the one and only owner of the Dodgers since MLB did not write Jamie, they wrote him; and b) this is an infraction serious enough to draw down this reprimand from MLB, showing that Jamie and/or her minion are interfering with Dodgers business and MLB integrity. Niot good for Jamie, anyway.
Oh, I see. That is already Frank's spin on the story. http://www.tmz.com/2009/12/14/frank-mccourt-jamie-and-boyfriend-are-frauds/
ReplyDeleteOh, without a doubt. He certainly wouldn't have freely submitted the letter if it was harmful to his case. I just find it interesting that MLB is holding Frank accountable here.
ReplyDeleteAs well they should. Frank and the Dodgers should have sought an injunction a while ago, while Jamie was out in the press claiming she owned the Dodgers.
I just wonder how Jamie feels about what Fuller did.
I really don't see the Taiwan deal that Jeff Fuller set up as a big deal. Yes, appearance and PR sake it isn't good. However, Jeff skirted to edge of duplicity but didn't cross over.
ReplyDeleteWhat is important for Jamie is that Jeff doesn't do this again. Frank just put this in for his case, but it is just whining.
Jamie and Jeff should just concentrate on presenting how much money and work that Jamie put in to the McCourt's major asset from 1978/1979 when they bought their South Boston property. Besides how much money she managed in their real estate company and when they both ran the Dodgers. I think Jaime needs to work on the McCourts business past, which may help her with her argument against the Post Nup rather than pretending they are still part of the Dodgers...
Okojo, I get what you're saying, but flip it around. Say the Dodgers go bankrupt and the homes had appreciated threefold. Should Frank be able to say that because he lived in them and had control over what happened in them and made decisions relating to them that the post-nup keeping the homes in Jamie's name should be ignored?
ReplyDeleteI'm just asking for the sake of asking...it's an imperfect analogy.
berkowit, information about that other letter is at the Times site I added to the post above.
ReplyDeleteJosh,
ReplyDeleteI think Frank co-signing the mortgages was not the right move. He is on the hook for payments and the banks can go after the dodgers if the McCourts went into default. If they wanted to keep protection from their real estate buying away from the Dodgers and vice versa, then have the McCourts keep their investments separate.
I am more leaning to Frank's team side of the argument on the post nup, but Frank may have to give Jamie a cash equivalent of the value of dodgers, maybe not half but a big chunk in the final settlement. Jamie may have to sell some of the properties at a lost or not even near their asking price, like their Cape Cod property.
I also have a problem that Jamie owns the properties outright. She doesn't, Frank co sign the loans, he is owed a percentage of the properties' value.
They also need to stop the PR sniping. It may give them a good feeling, but Dodger fans are still pissed off that the Dodgers didn't offer arbitration to O-Dog and Wolf, and having this PR sniping just makes McCourt looks like a bitter miser.
Thanks, Josh. That report ends with this peculiarity from left field:
ReplyDelete'He added that questions about the MLB "prohibition on gambling" should be directed to MLB General Counsel Thomas Ostertag.
"No club official or former club official should be speaking on this topic," Archey wrote.'
Huh?