Underdog Bids for Dodgers

One of the headline issues in baseball the last couple years has been the turmoil of the Los Angeles Dodgers and their ownership. First was the McCourt divorce and now it is the sale of the team after bankruptcy. Until recently I had no interest in who bought the team but now I have found an underdog to root for. While it may be odd to call a billionaire an underdog, that is what Joshua Macciello has become.

The story of the underdog is a popular theme in sports movies from Caddyshack to Tin Cup. People have been rooting for the little guy overcoming the odds from the small town Hoosiers to the walk on paying his dues in Rudy. Baseball even let the Cleveland Indians be the heroes in Major League six years before they started fielding winning teams.

Macciello is just six years removed from facing eviction with his family. He has faced the down times like so many of us. Then his fortune reversed for the positive when he struck gold literally when it was discovered gold and platinum mines his business had purchased have been appraised with billions of dollars worth of the precious minerals. He is using those mines as collateral to back his bid to buy the Dodgers.

Macciello is still more comfortable in a t-shirt and jeans which is an image the MLB elite balks at. They have already been successful keeping Mark Cuban out of their gated community and would like to do the same with Macciello. He may not fit in with their country club standards. One thing in his favor with the bid is that Frank McCourt has agreed to select a winner by April 1st and since the winning bid will be used to pay off the bankruptcy a high bid from Macciello could out weigh the other factors. Money talks and a bid over a billion dollars would be no joke.

Macciello has vowed to use his deep pockets to return the team to glory. They would operate like the West Coast Yankees bringing in the best team money can buy. While maybe not the best thing for baseball as a whole it would be entertaining to see what teams they can put together while competing in the sand box with the big boys. I hope that Macciello gets a fair chance to do that.