BASEBALL'S BLUE SALE

By Steve Wulf

There were tears in Los Angeles and cackles in a certain New York City borough on Jan. 6. Forty years after his father removed the family business to L.A. from Brooklyn, Peter O'Malley announced that he was selling the firm--namely, the Dodgers. By transplanting the beloved Bums to California in 1958, the unsentimental Walter O'Malley had ushered the era of Big Business into baseball; last week Peter claimed that the current game's corporate-scale economics were forcing him to sell. Something about the sins of the father leaped to the minds of people whose hearts are still in Brooklyn.

In all fairness, Peter O'Malley, 59, is a step up in class from his late father. Since taking over the team in 1970, Peter has run one of the most respected and stable organizations in baseball. First baseman Eric Karros, who recently signed a four-year, $20 million contract to stay Dodger Blue, said, "You talk to players who have been in Los Angeles and gone elsewhere, and they tell you there's no comparison in the way the organizations are run and the way they are treated." The Dodgers had just two managers from 1954 until 1996--Walter Alston and Tommy Lasorda. Off the field, O'Malley treats his staff to ice cream at 2 p.m. on every day the club is in first place. The best ticket in Dodger Stadium is $12, which is a cheap seat in most parks.

Fred Claire, the Dodgers' general manager, knew something was up when O'Malley called on Jan. 4 requesting that they meet the next day, Sunday, at 10:30 a.m. "When I hung up the phone," Claire said, "I thought to myself, 'He's going to sell.' It's not unusual to meet on Sunday, but what was unusual was that in 30 years, I really couldn't think of a time when Peter didn't say what we needed to talk about."

Family ownership of a team, O'Malley felt, had become an anachronism. Successful as they are, with a perennial contender on the field and an annual attendance figure that hovers at 3 million, the Dodgers claimed to be losing money. "Professional sports is as high risk as the oil business," said O'Malley, who with sister Terry Seidler owns almost 100% of the team. "You need a broader base than an individual family to carry you through the storms. Groups or corporations are probably the way of the future." O'Malley also felt alienated by the politics of baseball; he thinks the commissioner should be an outsider and not Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig, who has presided over the game during disastrous labor relations.

And like members of other wealthy families, O'Malley may have felt the tug of the next generation, which often needs to put checking accounts ahead of box scores. Says Bob Graziano, the Dodgers' vice president of finance: "Peter and Terry combined have 13 children. A baseball team is not very liquid for those people." Left the team as part of an estate, the O'Malley beneficiaries would pay an estate tax of 55% on all assets after the first $5 million, as opposed to a capital gains tax of about 28% on profits from selling the team.

The Dodgers, together with Dodger Stadium and Dodgertown in Florida, are worth at least $300 million, and perhaps as much as $500 million. Even at those prices, there will be no shortage of buyers for one of the most glamorous franchises in sports. Names that have already surfaced include former commissioner Peter Ueberroth, actor Kevin Costner, Warner Bros. chairman and co-ceo Robert Daly, News Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch and O.J. Simpson attorney Robert Shapiro--the last a prospect that inspired Jay Leno to quip, "None of the Dodgers' gloves will fit."

Meanwhile, back in New York City, Murdoch's New York Post exhorted bring 'em back on its front page, while politicians fell all over themselves in an effort to curry the long-forgotten Brooklyn Dodger vote. As they say in Bay Ridge, "Fuggeddabowdit." Brooklyn's identity was virtually destroyed by the Dodgers' Manifest Destiny. The New York Mets would never allow another team to move into their territory. (The Mets might want to think about moving to Brooklyn, however.)

Besides, O'Malley won't sell to anyone who would move the Dodgers. "Commitment to community, to Los Angeles and to Southern California is the No. 1 priority," he said last week. "The franchise has meant so much to so many people in this community for so long."

His words were not lost on Stan Isaacs, a sportswriter who covered the "Brooks" for Newsday. "I applaud O'Malley's loyalty to his community," says Isaacs. "It's too bad his dad didn't have the same loyalty. Now it is too late. I don't care so much where the Dodgers go now. I do know where Walter O'Malley should have gone."

--With reporting by David E. Thigpen/New York

With reporting by David E. Thigpen/New York