Dodgers Need an Innovator, Not a Celebrity

With all of the names being thrown into the hat at Monday’s deadline for submitting bids to own the Dodgers, plenty of talk around Los Angeles is that the Dodgers need a face, a brand, and a familiar voice to calm Angelinos into thinking that the Dodgers are good hands. But let’s really think about that, the best team owners have always been successful businessmen who were unknown commodities without celebrity status at the time of their purchases. So the Dodgers need someone who will work with bright new ideas and strategies, far before someone whom the city wants to root for, as that comes naturally with all of the animosity towards Frank McCourt.

Magic Johnson is the King of Los Angeles. He couldn’t walk a block without being stopped, in literally any neighborhood. He trenscends sports and entertainment and frankly, he is Los Angeles as we know it. So it’s not a surprise that he’s the overwhelming favorite among fans and media alike, to take the reins at Chavez Ravine and provide the Dodgers with a familiar face. But what exactly do we as a city gain from that? The Dodgers over the last 25 years have been all about taking the easy route, both as a franchise and a fan base. There’s little creativity, little buzz, and plenty of failed attempts at nostalgia from the team’s marketing team in order to conjure up the emotions of the city and sell tickets to fans based on the players of the 80s. Doesn’t Magic Johnson fit right into that mold, and essentially prolong this stagnant era in the Dodgers history? The Dodgers need to present themselves as a forward thinking club, and not one that has to rely on Kirk Gibson’s homerun to sell tickets, because that doesn’t work.

And keep in mind, a lot of this pessimism on the Dodgers from the city predates Frank McCourt. He just brought all of those feelings from the back of the city’s mind, to the forefront. The FOX era was a waste of time for the Dodgers, and other than a string of Rookie of the Years, the final decade of the O’Malleys was nothing but a decrescendo. So why rely on a familiar voice, when the Dodgers really need an innovator at the helm?

Neither Jerry Buss, nor George Steinbrenner were celebrities when they took over the Lakers and Yankees respectively in the 1970s. Yet, they’re both considered to be the best owners of the late 20th Century. Arte Moreno wasn’t a celebrity, and yet he’s turned the Angels from a regional team, to the biggest powerhouse on the west coast, all while maintaining a low price point for fans to enjoy a ballgame. Stuart Sternberg went from Wall Street, to owning the Tampa Bay Rays, using innovative practices that involved running team based on a system that’s merged Wall Street trading strategies and sabremetrics. And of course, he’s taken the league’s least popular team into an era of prolonged on-field success.  Milwaukee’s Mark Attanasio turned the Brewers into a contending franchise, and the world didn’t know Mark Cuban until he took over he Dallas Mavericks. The list goes on and on, where innovators have taken over and thought outside the box and found ways to win.

So when celebrities like Magic Johnson, Steve Garvey and Joe Torre proclaim how they’ll walk through the concourses and talk to fans and get to the know them, it’s their version of promising health care or jobs, as a politican would. While maintaining a connection with fans in vastly important, doing so in an Arte Moreno or Tom Ricketts sort of way is far more successful, as there’s not a chance in the world that any Average Joe would be able to convince Steve Garvey of anything worthwhile.

If the Dodgers are going to pick themselves up off the ground, they need to find their John Henry or Arte Moreno, not a Jerry Reinsdorf or Michael Jordan. Then again, knowing Bud Selig and his buddies’ mindset, outside-of-the-box thinkers prove to be a distraction to baseball. You know, because George Steinbrenner wasn’t good for baseball. It’s not like the whole game benefits from the Yankees being good or anything.