A BLUEprint For Sale

The most recent installment in the McCourt
ownership has his wondering where it all
went wrong.

After asking, begging and pleading for more than two years, Los Angeles Dodger fans are finally having their voice heard. Embattled owner Frank McCourt is ending his seven and half ownership with the club after reaching a settlement with Major League Baseball Wednesday, agreeing to put the team up for sale.

The settlement will end a six-month legal battle with baseball and it's commissioner, Bud Selig.

McCourt purchased the team in February of 2004 from the Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, for a sum of $421 million. It's been reported McCourt could now get anywhere from $800 million-$1.2 billion for the club, including the stadium, parking lot and media rights.

October of 2009 is when McCourt's castle came crashing down. It would be announced that McCourt and his wife of 30 years, Jaime McCourt, were putting their marriage to an end. She was fired as the club's CEO just days later and officially filed for divorce.

Fast-forward nearly two years, McCourt has seen a Giants fan get brutally beaten on his property Opening Night of 2011, put a dark cloud over the historic Los Angeles franchise and put the team in financial instability. In April, Selig and MLB stepped in and seized the day-to-day operations of the club, putting McCourt's ownership of the team further in doubt.

In June, Selig rejected a 17-year TV contract McCourt had arranged with Fox to keep the his team afloat. The deal was worth approximately 3 billion dollars. Weeks later, the New England native would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a final effort to salvage his ownership with the Dodgers.

Most recently, October saw McCourt's ex-wife relinquish her partial ownership in the team after reaching a $130 million settlement. Later that month MLB revealed McCourt had looted $190 million out of the team for personal endeavors.

It has been a long and treacherous journey for McCourt, a journey that has had an entire city rally against him. But it wasn't all bad.

Before McCourt's arrival, Los Angeles had made two postseason appearances in the last 15 years and yet to win a playoff game since Game 5 of the 1988 World Series. McCourt oversaw four playoff teams during his tenure, including three National League West division titles, and back-to-back NLCS appearances, in 2008 and '09, losing both times to the Philadelphia Phillies.

In his seven seasons at the helm, the Dodgers accumulated a .521 winning percentage and even though the Paul DePodesta experiment didn't work out, McCourt pried Ned Colletti away from the division rival San Francisco Giants, naming him the tenth general manager in franchise history on Nov. 17, 2005.

McCourt is also responsible for hiring soon-to-be Hall of Fame manager Joe Torre prior to the '08 season, bringing in slugger Manny Ramirez, who could be look at as a savior or goat by Dodger fans, depending on how you remember his stint in "Mannywood".

Not to mention investing over $150 million in stadium designs and improvements, helping make Dodger Stadium thrive in the modern era.

However one wants to look his stay in on the West Coast, the inevitable has finally happened. McCourt will be portrayed as a villain until the end and an owner that was never fully embraced by his fan base that is getting their wish.

Can Tiger Still Be No. 1?

Woods will return to form sooner rather
than later.

There is no question the last year and a half have been an up-and-down roller coaster for the world's former No. 1 golfer, Tiger Woods.

Woods was one of the most celebrated athletes in the world before his personal issues reached the surface in November of 2008. Since then, Woods has gone through a messy and very publicized divorce and has yet to win a PGA tour event. His last win coming at the '08 U.S. Open, defeating Rocco Mediate in an epic eighteen-hole playoff on a torn ACL.  

There is now the question will Woods ever regain his form and surpass the great Jack Nickalus for the most majors of all-time? Only time will tell, but don't count the former No. 1 out yet. Despite Woods now being 35, with his best golf probably behind him, he is only four away from tying Nickalus' 18 major championships.

It is almost inevitable that Woods will pass 'The Golden Bear's' mark one day and be widely considered the greatest golfer to ever pick up a golf club.

Woods has now gone 17 straight PGA tour events without a win, by far the longest stretch in his 16-year professional career, but does not seem it will last much longer. When, and it will happen again, Woods wins his first tournament since all the drama in his life occurred, the rest of the golf world better watch out. Woods is now lacking confidence, a problem he has not had at any point in his career.

When Woods use to step onto the course he had a certain aura about him, almost has if he was invincible and his opponents could feel this.

Along with his unbelievable talent and extraordinary work ethic, this is what has made Woods so great during his career. It seems as if that aura has disappeared recently and will need to recapture that if he wants to get back atop the mountain. Woods will never be the golfer we once remember, in part of father time will catch up to Woods eventually, it always does, but plenty of good golf is still in front of him.

This includes the passing of the torch from the Bear to the Tiger as the greatest ever.