Bringing Some Heavy Jitters to Dodger Stadium

Frank McCourt still has not acquired the hitter he promised would arrive before the start of spring training.

Maybe the new Dodger co-owner was misunderstood.

Maybe what he meant was that he and wife Jamie, the club’s vice chairman, would be providing the hits.

With new ownership comes new management, former owner Peter O’Malley pointed out the other day, but the entitlement under the McCourts has translated to mounting carnage.

Think Blue?

Think Red!

The blood is now flowing freely through a very nervous front office, and more is likely.

The McCourts, to this point, have claimed President Bob Graziano, executive vice president of business Kris Rone and General Manager Dan Evans, the organization’s top three executives.

Evans was fired. Graziano and Rone resigned over philosophical differences.

The fallout is that many at Dodger Stadium admit privately they have been left jumping at their shadow.

With three senior vice presidents -- Tom Lasorda, Derrick Hall and counsel Sam Fernandez -- and seven vice presidents still on the Dodger depth chart, it would not be a surprise if any chose to resign (well, OK, Lasorda would be a surprise) or was ousted in a process that has been handled with all the grace of a warden flipping the switch.

Clearly, someone seems to have left the News Corp. handbook on instant instability within reach of the new owners, and the rapidity of the turnover has not gone unnoticed in the industry’s executive offices.

“I’m concerned,” a high-ranking baseball official said. “I call it the ‘new-owner syndrome.’

“Twenty or 30 years ago a new owner generally gave the people he inherited a year or so to prove if they could do the job. Now, with the cost of franchises, a new owner wants his own people in place right away.

“It’s a shame in many cases. Bob and Kris were highly respected in the business.”

McCourt says he doesn’t doubt that.

Reached in Boston, he said he has two goals: To restore the stability and continuity that has been missing in one of baseball’s flagship franchises, and to elevate the Dodgers to the annual competitive level of the New York Yankees.

“Three years from now I want to make sure people look at the Dodgers in the same way they do the Yankees, as a team that will be there in October of every year,” he said.

“I think we can do that without a $200-million payroll and I think we can do it in three years. It’s an ambitious goal, but three years is a long time. We’ll have the opportunity over that time to make a lot of decisions to get to that level.

“As I’ve said before, we’re capable of winning this year, but we’ll be better next year and better yet the year after. I know you can’t win the World Series every year, but there’s no reason we can’t be a perennial contender.”

If that is the vision and agenda that O’Malley, in an interview that appeared in The Times on Saturday, said McCourt needed to provide fans, it’s clear that he will try to achieve it with his own people.

“This is the beginning of a new era,” McCourt said. “This is the new blue.

“I have a steadfast commitment to creating stability and continuity, and I don’t think that bringing in new people and creating stability in the process are mutually exclusive.

“I appreciate the great work that Bob and Kris did for the franchise, but it’s time to move forward with our people under our stewardship.

“I truly believe there’s been a sense of urgency missing in the organization and it’s time to hold people accountable.

“There’s going to be changes, it’s that simple, but that doesn’t mean we’re any less committed to creating stability.”

Of course, there are ways to go about it without also creating consternation in the organization as to the extent of the turnover, the manner in which it is being conducted and the style of the people in charge now.

The McCourts have not met with the remaining staff in an attempt to calm nerves.

Nor did they distinguish themselves when they continued to insist Graziano was still the club president when, in fact, he submitted his resignation Feb. 20.

Equally mishandled was a general manager search while Evans was still on the job and led by McCourt to believe he was a viable candidate to replace himself.

The attempt by McCourt to sell that contention strained both credulity and Evans’ gullibility.

As for Graziano and Rone, who is credited with increasing sponsorship sales 271% and raising net revenues 51% in five years with the club, neither will elaborate on their philosophical differences with the McCourts.

However, sources familiar with the situation said that both questioned the viability of a business plan based on a best-case scenario. If that best case doesn’t totally evolve -- and seldom do all of the pieces fall in place in baseball -- Graziano and Rone were concerned, the sources said, about McCourt’s long-term operating potential given the level of the debt servicing in his highly leveraged purchase of the club.

Neither McCourt nor his wife will discuss the specifics of their business plan, and only time will determine its viability.

An attempt to hire Boston Red Sox business executive Mike Dee to replace Graziano was foiled when the Red Sox elevated Dee to chief operating officer over the weekend.

Now, McCourt said, it hasn’t been decided whether he will hire a new president, take on the role himself for a time or consolidate the business operation under his wife’s duties.

“We’re still evaluating that internally,” he said, “but there’s no question Jamie will have a major role.”

There’s also no question that a degree of unrest exists on the baseball side as well.

New General Manager Paul DePodesta has said there would be no changes in the staff that he inherited through the 2004 season, but scouts in the field, nervous about DePodesta’s computer-based reputation with the Oakland Athletics, would like some reassurance of their own.

“Are we going to be replaced by a computer, or what?” a veteran club scout asked. “From what I know, none of us have heard a word.”

Amid the uncertainty gripping Dodger personnel at a time of sweeping change, the scout should be informed that no news is definitely good news.