Fantasy baseball.

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The new year has folks thinking big. Over at True Blue LA, Phil Gurnee expresses a vision for a Los Angeles Dodgers hall of fame, of sorts:

Ultimately Frank McCourt will build a Vin Scully Lords of the Ravine tunnel connecting the right and left field pavilion's and we will have everything they need but the busts to make it happen.  This will be built with the windfall from the 2010-2012 string of world championships acquired on the pitching combination of Kershaw/Billingsley as they make their case to become part of the Walter O'Malley Suite once they have pitched 300 games.

First and foremost, of course, I love the optimism. You should definitely head that way and give the concept a look. The first class of inductees will be a little light on more recent players due to its very strict minimums (3000 games for hitters and the above-mentioned 300 for pitchers). After the first class, though, those standards will be lifted, allowing for the more, well, mercurial types. Cool idea all around. 

Whimsical thinking seems to be the week's theme. Writing for Bleacher Report, Garrett Markley writes an open letter to the Hollywood Dodger fans. An excerpt:

Hollywood Elite, I offer you a simple proposal: Buy the Dodgers from Frank McCourt. I guarantee if 100 of you A-listers chip in $10 million each, Frank will sign the Dodgers over faster than he can say "No" to Randy Wolf's arbitration.

If only it was so simple. As I'm sure you'd guess (if you didn't already know), Frank couldn't sell the team right now if he wanted to. Not unless the proceeds of the sale would be held in escrow or something until the post-nup issue is resolved. And even that wouldn't happen; Jamie, if she wanted to, would be very justified in arguing that she doesn't want the money, she wants the baseball team. It's not like those are available off the rack at Macy's. 

Of course, even if she wins on the post-nup, the odds of her holding an ownership interest in the Dodgers for longer than it would take to sell the club are minimal at best. Either she and Frank would have to cooperate (unlikely) or she would have to be a minority partner in a group assembled to purchase the club from the couple's community property. Out of spite alone, at this point, I doubt Frank would allow that to happen. Even if he was ready to get out of the game--which doesn't seem to be the case--I can't imagine he'd sign off on any scenario resulting in Jamie's ownership.

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Things will probably be quiet from now through the weekend unless something happens tomorrow morning. I'm heading off on an ice fishing trip tomorrow afternoon. I have to give these Minnesotans credit; they don't hide from the winter, they attack it. I'll be back in Los Angeles next week, though, and look forward to shorts, flip-flops, and sunglasses. I'm officially a tourist in my home town.

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