Busch Gets Lesser Role With Dodgers

Corey Busch was hired by the Dodgers on Friday, but not in the role many baseball executives anticipated. The former San Francisco Giant executive vice president agreed to a one-year contract as a team consultant, ending speculation he would become the Dodgers’ next president or head of business operations.

“Corey played a vital role in helping our family purchase the Dodgers,” new Dodger owner Frank McCourt said in a statement. “We are very pleased that he will continue to assist us by making his many years of baseball experience and skills available to the organization.”

Busch, who heads a Mill Valley, Calif., consulting firm, will not have an office in Dodger Stadium, and he will not be directly involved in the general manager search. After serving as a point man in McCourt’s negotiations to buy the team, Busch was pegged by McCourt to head his transition team.

Since McCourt reached agreement to purchase the Dodgers last October, numerous industry executives said they expected Busch to be given a key post in McCourt’s front office.

“This isn’t a letdown,” Busch, 54, said. “There was a lot of speculation, but when I took this assignment with the McCourts, it wasn’t to get a job, it was to do a job. We did the job, we got the deal approved [by Major League Baseball]. I’ve got a healthy consultant practice, and given the way Frank and Jamie [McCourt, Frank’s wife] will be so involved in running the club, this is the best thing for me to do.”

Busch’s assignment would appear to boost Bob Graziano’s chances of remaining as Dodger president, a position he has held for six years, but Graziano said Friday’s announcement “has absolutely no bearing on my decision.”

Graziano, who has been in the organization for 18 years, is in the process of determining whether he wants to remain, and McCourt is in the process of determining whether he wants to retain Graziano. The process will continue “until the McCourts and I feel we have all our questions answered and both can make well-informed decisions,” Graziano said. “I feel good about the process.”