Work This Problem Out in Private

A couple of L.A. politicians have proposed that we do like Green Bay Packer fans once did . . . pass the hat and buy the Dodgers from owner Peter O’Malley ourselves. Sure, why not? And let’s get Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, use the barn and put on a show!

Are these people trying to make Los Angeles a pro sports joke? First, they tell the NFL people how to run their business. They say love our Coliseum or lump it. Now, they tell major league baseball to change that silly little rule barring a public stock purchase of a team. Who knows? Next, they can ask the NHL people to move our hockey games outdoors.

Had these same politicians supported Peter O’Malley’s effort to diversify and go into football, rather than oppose him at every turn, O’Malley probably wouldn’t be selling his precious baseball team. By now, L.A. would have been guaranteed a 1999 NFL expansion franchise (as Cleveland is) and a 2000 Super Bowl game (as the NFL had already approved).

O’Malley would have had another business, rather than all his eggs in one basket. L.A. would have had a lovely new stadium, a team and a responsible owner to run it.

Instead, our Dodgers--the one team beloved from Santa Ana to Santa Barbara to Santa Monica to Santa Maria--will be owned by someone most of us have never met. As for football, we have no team, no active bidder for a team, no immediate hope for a team and a Coliseum as empty as a Chicago Bull rebounder’s head. The NFL will expand to Toronto, while we’ll still be sitting here in No Team’s Land, telling everybody how to run their businesses.

Cleveland’s politicians were cooperative.

L.A.’s politicians were defiant.

But now they think O’Malley might let them influence how he sells it, or to whom. They say, “Peter, you can even stay on and be CEO!” Yes, I’m sure Peter would be tickled pink, running a company for a million stockholders at $100 a pop. (And defying major league baseball in the process.)

All the man wanted was to build a stadium (on his own property) and hold eight or 10 NFL games there. Does the city get behind him? Do the politicians help? No. They say 80 or 90 baseball games are fine--we’ll even buy your team, Pete!--but eight football dates? Heaven forbid. No, they say . . . you have to play in our big, beautiful, you-seldom-get-beaten-into-a-coma Coliseum.

I have news. The only pro football coming to the Coliseum is soccer.

If these people really want to do something for Peter O’Malley to make sure the Dodgers stay right where they are, they will release him from his pledge to support the Coliseum, permit him to reopen discussions with the NFL, diversify his holdings and erect his dream arena in Chavez Ravine. Otherwise, leave the poor (rich) man alone, and let him conduct his sale as he sees fit.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, Inc., are not ours to own, any more than they were Brooklyn’s. They are a private company, not a public utility.

I have every confidence that the new buyer of the Dodgers will do one thing right off the bat, and that is reassure fans that the team will remain right where it is, in O’Malley’s alley.

But I also have every reason to believe that 10 years from now, or 25 at the outside, a situation will occur in which Dodger Stadium is declared out of date, perhaps even obsolete. This has happened to the Houston Astrodome, once called the “eighth wonder of the world,” and to RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., the Kingdome in Seattle and many other modern facilities.

A new basketball/hockey arena was just formally approved for downtown Los Angeles, to replace a “Fabulous” Forum that was remarkable in style and scope, as recently as the late 1960s.

L.A. politicians could have protected the future, by playing ball with Peter O’Malley when he proposed a second stadium on his land. He and his family would have been committed to this community for a half-century or more, making sure the upkeep of the baseball stadium--or rebuilding process, years from now--would keep pace with its adjacent football arena.

Instead, O’Malley wants out. He has had enough.

I believe it is entirely plausible that O’Malley will resurface in L.A. pro football, once these politicians come to their senses and realize that the NFL is serious about not bringing an expansion team to the Coliseum. Both sides are playing chicken, and our side had better blink. Otherwise, forget it. No football for L.A., and some total stranger owning our Dodgers.

Let O’Malley build his football stadium. He might change his mind and keep his baseball stadium. It ain’t over till it’s over.