Script Seems Perfect for Daly

As a studio chief for nearly 20 years, Bob Daly could spot a good pitch.

Hopefully, he still can, albeit a pitch of a different kind, now that he’s head of the Dodgers, managing partner of the Fox Entertainment Group team and a 5% owner of the club with potential to increase it to 10%.

If nothing else, Daly puts a face on the club, something it has sorely lacked since Fox bought it from Peter O’Malley and his sister in March of last year.

More important, the personable Hollywood executive brings to the troubled organization a paternalistic management style that is increasingly rare as financial pressures move sports teams out of the hands of individual owners and deep into media conglomerates and their subsidiaries.

Daly, 62, wasn’t exaggerating when he mentioned at a news conference Thursday morning at Staples Center how he knew the names of everyone at the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank when he ran the place. After Daly disclosed in July that he was leaving the studio, the longtime shoe-shine guy at the studio insisted on having his picture taken with the mogul. Daly readily complied.

Daly also wasn’t kidding when he said at the news conference that he returns every telephone call, something that endeared him over the years to stars, agents, executives and employees. Everyone from Kevin Brown’s agent to the supplier of the buns for Dodger Dogs can expect to get a call back from Daly.

Being punctual is important to him too. It’s something he has always credited legendary CBS founder William S. Paley, Daly’s mentor when he was a young executive at CBS before going to work at Warner, for instilling in him.

Daly also brings to the table the ability to deal with highly paid people with big egos, something that describes a lot of big-time athletes as much as it does producers, stars and directors. And keep in mind that anyone who had to face the box-office grosses for “The Postman” is used to dealing with bad news.

If there was a knock on Daly, it was that in later years, he and longtime studio co-chief Terry Semel might have fallen out of step with Hollywood. They were notorious for lavishing perks on talent, such as trips on the Warner Bros. jet for stars, and new Range Rovers for the stars, director, producer and writer of “Lethal Weapon 3.” Cost pressures, and the failure of some big star projects prompted many to question whether they were out of touch with the youth market.

For their part, they never apologized for treating stars like royalty, insisting that it was a relatively small investment in building important relationships.

It’s entirely possible that Daly might have grown tired of being a studio executive. When the Dodgers were put up for sale in 1997, and before Fox eventually bought the team, Daly tried to get a group together to buy it. Even then, he planned to take a minority stake for the time being, becoming managing partner when his studio contract expired two years later.

But even if he had tired of Hollywood, enthusiasm shouldn’t be a problem here. Personally, professionally and financially, he’s ready. After becoming divorced from his longtime wife, Nancy, who is now married to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, he’s happily remarried to Oscar-winning songwriter Carole Bayer Sager, known for such songs as “That’s What Friends Are For” and “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do).” The couple earlier this year bought a 17.4-acre ranch in Malibu for $6 million.

Worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Daly will probably put $15 million-$31 million into the deal.

More important, the Brooklyn native’s true lifelong love affair has been with the Dodgers, starting back in the days when Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese played in Ebbets Field. Daly has been to more Dodger spring training camps than most of the team’s players and coaches. He carries a pocket electronic device that allows him to monitor scores of Dodger games.

At a luncheon a few years ago, Daly mingled with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Time Warner Chief Gerald Levin and scores of other major players in entertainment. Daly kept breaking off the socializing to check the Dodger score, at one point trying to figure out which player might have hit a home run. At screenings, Daly has been known to have a radio plugged into his ear so he could listen to friend Vin Scully call the games.

At 62, Bob Daly finally has the job he has wanted all his life.