In This Season of Giving, Let’s Remember McCourt

I called the Boston office of Frank McCourt, you know, the poor guy who is trying to buy the Dodgers, and his secretary said he’d call me back.

He never did, and it’s my fault -- knowing he doesn’t have money to buy the Dodgers, I should have told his secretary to have him call me collect.

The more we hear about this parking lot attendant from Boston, the more broke he sounds every day. Now we’re being told he’s using none of his money to buy the Dodgers, which is something you or I could afford.

If he’s that broke and he somehow gets the team, I’d imagine instead of promotional giveaways this season in Dodger Stadium, we’ll have the collection plate passed around to help the new guy make ends meet.

What I would like to know is why do we have to have some financial lightweight from Boston moving here to buy our community treasure? Talk about a bunch of lame millionaires and billionaires. How come none of our rich folk have stepped to the plate to buy the Dodgers? Fear of Page 2?

Fox is such a motivated seller, it has offered to loan money to the Boston parking lot attendant to buy the team. Fox has experience at things like this; the last time it was in such a hurry to get rid of something, it was Mike Piazza.

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JUST GOT a call from some joker named Duffy Jennings, who claims he does the talking for McCourt, and since I can’t check with McCourt, I have to take his word for it. I asked whether McCourt pays Duffy for the calls he makes to the media, and Duffy said, “No, I don’t charge him for any phone calls.” I guess even if you work for the guy, it’s just generally understood he’s short on money.

Duffy told me McCourt really wants to sit down and talk with me, and I don’t know of anyone in this world who really wants to sit down and talk with me, so I can’t believe anything Duffy has to say.

“He’s got a lot to say,” Duffy said, but “Major League Baseball won’t let him talk until the deal is approved.”

“What’s Major League Baseball going to do if he talks -- not approve him as owner?” I said. “Do you think George Steinbrenner would shut up?”

If he’s got the money to buy the team, McCourt could write his own Times’ column every day, and baseball owners would send a limo for him. He replaces the guy writing Page 2 every day, and no telling how many fans he makes here.

But his silence tells me he’s light on money, and if he thinks he’s going to get rich someday writing a column for Page 2, he had better ask for a raise.

“He does have his own money in the deal, but he can’t talk about the deal,” Jennings said, and how come Duffy can talk about the deal and tell us McCourt has his own money in the deal, but the Boston parking lot attendant can’t say anything?

Do we want an owner in town who kowtows to everything Bud Selig has to say? Especially an owner with no money.

The Times basically called out the Boston parking lot attendant Monday with the “McCourt Bid Raises Questions” story, which suggested the guy is a land shark who is looking to buy an L.A. treasure without an investment of his own.

And he sends me Duffy. Can’t wait until Steinbrenner calls him out. It probably will be Duffy’s job to get McCourt to come out from under the table.

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I WALKED into the office of Clipper Coach Mike Dunleavy before Monday’s game, apologized for interrupting his chat with Jack Haley, but asked whether he was ready for his pregame chat with the media. Haley took the cue and stood up to leave. “I’m non-media,” he said, and I don’t recall anyone in the room arguing with him.

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THE NFL wanted to clarify a note that ran here last week, which had HBO’s Bob Costas saying he had talked to NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, and the commish indicated he’d prefer an expansion team in L.A. because “the expansion fee would be substantial, and the owners would prefer to collect it.”

I wrote: “I bet [the owners] would. Most of them would drop to all fours in the gutter if they knew someone had dropped a dime.”

A NFL spokesman e-mailed to say, “I won’t bother responding to your last sentence.” Tough to argue with accepted fact.

“But the commissioner did not say he preferred an expansion team in L.A.,” the spokesman continued. He said that Tagliabue told Costas “an expansion team makes sense from a number of perspectives,” but the league is also working with officials from San Diego and Indianapolis to keep their teams from moving, and the important thing right now is for L.A. to build a stadium.

In other words, he double-talked Costas, and Costas tried to interpret what he said, and misfired. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to translate what Tagliabue has to say, so I empathize.

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WE ALL saw New Orleans receiver Joe Horn pull a cellphone out after scoring a touchdown and Cincinnati’s Chad Johnson flash a prepared sign, but how many receivers had props hidden in stadiums Sunday and couldn’t use them because they didn’t score? One more question: How did Horn know he’d score at the end of the field with the cellphone stashed at the base of the goal post? Makes you wonder whether there’s still another cellphone sitting at the base of the other goal post.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Bill Morse, Eisenhower Medical Center, Cardiac Intensive Care Division:

“Now that you’ve given every flippin’ USC fan in the world a heart attack [with your Pete Carroll column], can you get me a ticket to the Rose Bowl?”

Just one? Sure. How many?

(Just kidding.)

T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.