ALL EXPENSES OVER $5K MUST BE APPROVED
BASEBALL: Ex-politician who was once president of the Texas Rangers appointed to 'monitor' ballclub.
Posted:�04/25/2011 12:36:58 PM PDT
Updated:�04/25/2011 07:17:27 PM PDT
Former Texas Rangers president J. Thomas Schieffer was hired by Commissioner Bud Selig on Monday, April 25, 2011, to run the Los Angeles Dodgers. Schieffer was U.S. ambassador to Japan from 2005 to 2009.
Major League Baseball sent up a powerful pinch-hitter for Dodgers owner Frank McCourt on Monday, putting former Texas Rangers president Tom Schieffer in charge of daily operations for the debt-riddled L.A. team.
Schieffer's appointment to "monitor" the Dodgers came five days after Commissioner Bud Selig announced the league was seizing control of the franchise and investigating McCourt's financial dealings.
The move puts the Dodgers under the watch of a 63-year-old Fort Worth native with an impressive resume in politics, where he served as a Texas legislator and
"Tom is a distinguished public servant who has represented the nation with excellence and has demonstrated extraordinary leadership throughout his career," Selig said in a statement.
"The many years that he spent managing the operations of a successful franchise will benefit the Dodgers and Major League Baseball as a whole."
Sports industry analysts called Schieffer a good fit for what figures to be a temporary job: Keeping the Dodgers running smoothly until Selig can force McCourt to sell them.
"He's an extremely competent caretaker, not somebody that's coming in to shake things up
too much or to put his own stamp on the team," said Marc Ganis, president of SportsCorp Ltd., a Chicago-based sports-business consultancy."At this point in his career, he wouldn't be in it to make his bones."
Schieffer's role has been described as "monitor," "overseer" or "trustee."
"The name `trustee' is a great term here," said Ganis, who expects McCourt to be forced out over the next 12 to 18 months. "He's to be a trustee, on behalf of Major League Baseball, to see the team doesn't dig any deeper holes for itself but operates in a manner that gives the Dodgers a chance (to win) this year."
The Dodgers have been told any expenditure of $5,000 or more will need MLB approval.
The Dodgers declined comment Monday on Schieffer's appointment.
Los Angeles-based sports-business consultant David Carter said he expected Schieffer to be "a calming influence."
The Dodgers can use that.
Seven years after Frank and Jamie McCourt bought the Dodgers from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. - with mostly borrowed money - the couple is battling over the club in a costly divorce fight, Frank McCourt needed a reported $30 million personal loan to meet payroll for April, and Dodger Stadium attendance is down sharply since the near-fatal beating of a fan on Opening Day highlighted safety questions.
Only on the field are things going reasonably well. Since Selig announced the takeover of the Dodgers on Wednesday, the team has won four of five games (going into Monday's game at Florida), improving its record to 12-11.
Schieffer's appointment was praised by County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, the loudest critic of Dodgers management among L.A. elected officials.
"With his experience and leadership as a public servant and former president of the Texas Rangers, Thomas Schieffer will be a transformative figure in restoring the traditional Dodger legacy of integrity and providing a family-friendly environment that will be a welcome development for Dodger fans across Los Angeles County," Antonovich said in a statement.
John Thomas "Tom" Schieffer - younger brother of CBS newsman Bob Schieffer - made his name in baseball in between stints in politics.
He served three terms as a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives in his 20s and 30s, and was Bush's ambassador to Japan and Australia in his 50s and 60s.
An oil and gas industry lawyer, Schieffer invested with Bush and Rusty Rose to buy the Rangers in 1989 and remained a club executive until a year after the franchise was sold to Tom Hicks in 1998.
Credited with working out the public-private partnership to build the new ballpark in Arlington that opened in 1994, Schieffer became the Rangers' president and then their general partner after Bush was elected governor in 1995.
Texas won its first three division titles while Schieffer was there.
Former Rangers general manager Tom Grieve told MLB.com Schieffer is "the perfect guy" for the temporary Dodgers role.
"If I was one one of the people with the Dodgers who were in that predicament, I would feel very good that Tom was the guy being named to lead that organization," Grieve told the website.
Analysts said baseball probably would want somebody more dynamic than Schieffer - and more closely tied to Los Angeles - to buy the Dodgers.
They noted Schieffer was not even among the widely discussed candidates for this appointment, a list that included baseball executives Stan Kasten, John McHale Jr. and Corey Busch.
But Ganis said Schieffer is the type of person the commissioner was expected to tap for this caretaker job: "An experienced baseball executive, that Bud Selig knows well, that is likely not in it for the long haul."
Monika Kramlik Portia de Rossi Lori Heuring Jessica White Arielle Kebbel
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