The betting line or so Pete Rose told me is that McCourt gets approved, announces he must reduce payroll in the spirit of baseball's new-found frugality, and then starts ruminating about a new stadium.

Imagine Selig's joy in seeing the Dodgers bumble and become part of baseball's middle class and then leverage the city on a new playpen. Selig won't be happy until the Dodgers are a bigger joke than his own team (the Brewers).

Speaking of which, is there a better model for sports fraud? Selig becomes acting commish while owning the team; passes the team to his daughter when he becomes full-time commish; has his heir hire an African-American in a prominent role, who eventually resigns because he was nothing but a figurehead; gets the citizenry to pay extensively on a new stadium; builds said stadium on the cheap to the degree that it's considered a pothole; reaps the usual bump in ticket revenue that comes from a new playpen; and then self-imposes a salary cap of $30 million to make the team more attractive to buyers.