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Frank and Jamie McCourt, the psychic and secrets of another realm

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Excuse me while I attempt to fan myself through this haze of incense while consulting my Ouija Board to figure out what in the hell to make of the McCourts now.

Listen, maybe you thought they were self-absorbed or insanely overindulgent or less than taxpaying citizens … but did you ever think they were just plain freakin` weird?

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I’m still trying to absorb Bill Shaikin’s incredible story on Dodgers owners Frank and Jamie McCourt secretly hiring a Russian faith healer/physicist to send some kind of cosmic positive vibes from New England to help the Dodgers win.

I can’t even believe I just wrote that.

If I tried to pitch this story in Hollywood, I’d get laughed out of town. Can’t you just hear it?

‘No, really, there’s this Rasputin dude who has these special healing powers. Think Tom Cruise with long stringy hair! Maybe he can dance like in `Tropic Thunder.’ And he’s back in his unknown Boston suburb, kinda meditating and channeling all this special energy to the Dodgers. No, honest! And the Dodgers owners are paying him over 6k to do it! Wait, it gets better, he claims it’s science!’’

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You will now be given a moment to scream. Or take a long shower.

Somewhere there is a guy named Vladimir Shpunt, 71, a Russian émigré who said he has three degrees in physics and once was a serious scientist before giving all that silliness up after discovering he had his own version of laying on of hands.

He worked for the Dodgers in super-secret for five years, up until 2008. And here you wondered why Manny Ramirez went south in 2009.

Now you have to give the McCourts credit for one thing: They said they’d do whatever it took to win.

Coming soon: McCourts consult with Chinese shaman who claims he talks to Obi-Wan Kenobi to help Dodgers feel power of the force.

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Shpunt said this sending of positive energy is tough work and his blood pressure could jump to maybe 200. This guy doesn’t need a crystal ball when he works, he needs paramedics.

His -- what? -- representative, Barry Cohen, said Shpunt doesn’t promise a team will necessarily win, just that his energy will provide a team with a 10% to 15% improvement.

And this guy is currently a free agent? Maybe the Padres hired him in the off-season. Nothing else can explain the Padres.

Just imagine how bad the Dodgers would have been in 2005 when they lost 91 games if there’d been no Shpunt.

This whole thing is so completely wacky, that with the McCourts already in a contentious divorce, you’ll be stunned to learn that Frank says hiring Shpunt was Jamie’s idea and Jaimie said it was Frank’s.

This is the greatest, strangest, most otherworldly divorce in the history of mankind. Or at least those parts of mankind we actually understand.

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Shpunt was apparently upset that The Times had discovered his identity, that in losing his anonymity he would be caricatured.

Really? A Russian scientist turned faith healer who closes his eyes and sends positive energy from 3,000 miles away so the Dodgers can play a little better? That requires exaggeration for comic effect?

Charlatans have been around since the invention of the first coin, but somehow you just don’t imagine the owners of a major league team getting duped.

Then again, right now you can’t possibly pretend to know what to expect from the McCourts. Except for maybe eerie music when they enter a room.

-- Steve Dilbeck

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