Before Juan Pierre, before J.D. Drew, before Hee Seop Choi, before Jim Tracy, before Paul DePodesta, there was Frank McCourt. The Dodger owner was the original hot-button issue on Dodger Thoughts after reader comments were instituted. From the beginnings of his serious interest in purchasing the team, through the subsequent mass employee turnover below him, McCourt's actions inspired the kind of outcry that ultimately made me avoid writing about him as much as possible, just so I wouldn't have to worry about putting out the flames.

So when McCourt walked into the executive conference room at Dodger Stadium to join senior vice president of communications Camille Johnston and director of public relations Josh Rawitch in meeting the Dodger Thoughts Traveling Players on Saturday, what struck me most was the placidity of the occasion. Certainly, many of us had to be cowed by meeting Dodger authority in the flesh, and cognizant of the fact that we were guests in their home, but it certainly didn't seem as if too many people were still nursing heavy grudges or biting their tongues. Even Rob McMillin, whose motivation for creating his expert blog, 6-4-2, can be traced in part to grave concerns over McCourt, found himself rolling his eyes and biting his tongue, but not exactly spitting bile.

It's a measure of McCourt's success at this particular moment that in a contemporary sports world that seems to seek out controversy, no controversy currently dogs him. At a minimum, the crisis of the new Dodger Stadium parking system has reached a sort of equilibrium (more on that later). The revolving door of employees has stopped spinning. Financial losses under previous ownership have been curtailed. The team is in first place. Of course, there are still goals unattained, but there are no troops marching on Elysian Park.

McCourt has a good amount to be proud of, but how proud should he feel?

McCourt seems to have achieved an appropriate delegation of authority where he leaves personnel decisions to general manager Ned Colletti and other high-level executives, and focuses on the business of the Dodgers and Dodger Stadium as much as anything else. McCourt likes talking baseball, but he has placed his faith in his baseball people to make baseball decisions. He said Saturday that his proudest personnel decision was his hiring of Colletti. Every player transaction passes McCourt's desk for approval – but every transaction gets it.

Further, in contrast to my pronounced initial fears that McCourt was purchasing the Dodgers as an excuse to exploit the stadium property in a massive real-estate deal, he has shown a real commitment to the team and to the ballpark. That commitment to Dodger Stadium has a limit: McCourt himself said 25 years (dating from 2004, I presumed). In 2029, Dodger Stadium will be 67 years old; asking him to commit now to playing in the stadium beyond that would be unreasonable.

In the meantime, McCourt has backed the commitment he has made with actions – real investments in ballpark improvements in a multiphase plan encompassing seating, parking, concessions and amenities. And player payroll does not appear to have been an issue either. If Vladimir Guerrero had been a free agent last winter, the Dodgers would have been in the running to sign him, if not the favorites.

Over the past 3 1/2 years, McCourt has taught me patience. What initially looks grim might not turn out that way. Some screwups can be resolved. Others just don't seem to matter as much as people get used to them.

McCourt, for example, proclaimed the new seating at Dodger Stadium a success, glossing over the poor sightlines in the new field-level seats after they were put in. Still, it's true that after a re-do, few complain now.

He proclaimed the new parking system at Dodger Stadium a success. And it's true that for a non-sellout game, you get in and out of the stadium as fast as or faster than you did a year ago, though at a higher cost - and even McCourt conceded Saturday that at a sellout, there's still no avoiding traffic. Nevertheless, that's another crisis off the radar.

It's all something I will keep in mind as I contemplate the inevitable problems that will accompany the next phase of stadium improvements: food concessions and restrooms.

The Dodgers are literally digging into the Chavez Ravine hillside to make more room for their food operations, thus allowing, for example, every level to cook its own hot dogs, rather than rely on an elevator shuttle system. There's no reason to believe that the food setup won't look better and have all the potential for functioning better.

But after McCourt left us, when I asked Johnston whether anything would be done to spur the concessionaires to move faster, the answer was essentially that it was out of the Dodgers' hands. The food workers are not Dodger Stadium employees, and the Dodgers don't control them.

What that leaves you with is a 2008 automobile … that is being driven by my grandmother. Now, my grandmother was a fine driver in her day, but now, thankfully, she knows she doesn't belong behind the wheel. No set of facility improvements is going to make up for the fact that if people aren't doing their job in an expert manner, if they can't even fake enthusiasm for their work, if they aren't capable of acting with speed, there isn't going to be sufficient progress. We'll have to wait.

Similarly, the next Dodger radio contract might present something of a no-win situation – either stay with KFWB, which is limited in how much Dodger programming it can provide, or go to another station where the Dodgers might not be top priority either. We'll have to make do.

If it sounds as if I've surrendered to the McCourt charms, however, I wouldn't go that far.

If the overriding lesson I've learned during the McCourt ownership is that even though he breaks a lot of eggs, he ends up with a decent omelet – well, there are still all those broken eggs to consider. As McCourt talked about how he felt he had all the right people working under him, I couldn't help but think about former announcer Ross Porter and the many other valuable employees who were cast aside gracelessly. As McCourt praised the on-field product, I couldn't help but wonder about how the franchise today assesses its strengths and weakness.

Clearly, a full-scale fan outcry isn't lost on McCourt, whether in regards to stadium parking or another incident in which he delivered his biggest mea culpa Saturday: taking the names off the back of Dodger uniforms before the 2005 season. But questions remain about how well McCourt can see problems on the horizon and whether he is any better at preventing them from snowballing than he was in the fall of 2005, when the Tracy-DePodesta conflicts sullied the franchise on the field and off.

For example: Whether it's due to Colletti, assistant general manager/scouting Logan White or underrated vice president/assistant general manager Kim Ng, the Dodgers have a pennant contender. That doesn't mean that the team hasn't made mistakes in the personnel department. Every team makes mistakes, of course, and no one expects perfection. But what kind of system do the Dodgers have in place to evaluate their personnel decisions and determine which transactions went south because of bad luck and which because of faulty - but improvable - reasoning?

This is a question I wanted to ask at the session, but unfortunately, I held off. Even if I had asked it, however, I don't know how meaningful an answer I would have gotten, because McCourt is not the type to do a lot of public introspection when things are going well.

Wins and losses are what matter in the end for a baseball team, but wins and losses aren't the best indicator of whether a general manager is doing the best job possible. When McCourt tells me that he has complete faith in Colletti, does that imply he believes Colletti will know how to improve his performance from the B or whatever grade he merits? Or does it imply that he thinks Colletti deserves an A? This is all immediately pertinent with Tuesday's trading deadline testing Colletti's judgment anew.

I no longer worry that the Dodgers are a franchise in peril, and that's important. I believe that McCourt has the best intentions, and that's important too. The next steps for me are to see whether the Dodgers can achieve their goals with more efficiency, and how McCourt will react when the next Dodger crisis comes. Having McCourt meet with us was personally gratifying, but it shed little light on those remaining questions. We'll have to see what comes next.

And now, I guess, the flames have been fanned.