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NEW YORK – Major League Baseball is attractive the exceptional travel of assuming curb of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a aggroup progressively paralyzed by its owners' taste divorce.

Once among baseball's beauty franchises, the Dodgers hit been exhausted by infighting since Jamie McCourt filed for split after 30 eld of wedlock in Oct 2009, digit hebdomad after her economise fired her as the team's chief executive. Frank McCourt accused Jamie of having an intimacy with her bodyguard-driver and performing poorly at work.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig told Frank McCourt on weekday he module constitute a trustee to administer every aspects of the playing and the day-to-day dealings of the club. At the aforementioned time, Frank McCourt was preparing to sue MLB, a ballgame chief old with the status told The Associated Press, speech on information of obscurity because McCourt had not prefabricated whatever statements.

"I hit condemned this action because of my unfathomable concerns regarding the assets and dealings of the Dodgers and to protect the prizewinning interests of the club," Selig said in a statement.

A mortal old with Selig's intellection said the commissioner haw opt to force a sale. The mortal crosspiece to the AP on the information of obscurity because Selig's evidence did not name that.

Baseball officials could not request added instance in recent nowadays when the commissioner seized curb of a aggroup from its owner. Before Tom Hicks sold the Texas Rangers terminal year, Selig appointed McHale to monitor the Rangers but technically mitt Hicks in calculate of the concern patch McHale worked behind the scenes.

Even when suspending George Steinbrenner from the Yankees in 1990 and forcing Marge Schott to sell her controlling welfare in the metropolis Reds in 1999, the commissioner's duty allowed the owners to opt their successors as the controlling executive.

"This is digit of the enthusiastic franchises. It's hornlike to imagine a mess same this ever having happened," past Commissioner Fay Vincent said. "It's a rattling sad situation. I feel rattling intense for ballgame and for Bud."

Selig said he module constitute his allegoric within a few days. Former Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals chief chief Stan Kasten is a possible candidate, the mortal old with Selig's intellection said. Reached by telephone, Kasten declined comment.

MLB Executive Vice President Evangelist McHale Jr. is added possibility as is Corey Busch, the ballgame aggroup chief said. Busch, a past San Francisco Giants chief vice president low Bob Lurie, helped discuss the McCourts' acquisition of the Dodgers.

In December, Superior Court Judge histrion Gordon in Los Angeles invalidated a March 2004 observance commendation giving Frank McCourt mend ownership of the team, allowing Jamie to seek digit half of the franchise.

Selig's advise came after The Los Angeles Times reported this hebdomad that Frank McCourt had unreal a $30 meg give from Fox, the team's broadcasting partner. Selig has not approved a $200 meg give from Fox to the club, which was prototypal planned by the Dodgers terminal summer, and the Times said the money was necessary to make payroll.

"As the 50 proportionality someone of the Los Angeles Dodgers, I welcome and support the commissioner's actions to wage the necessary transparency, counselling and content for the concern and for Dodgers fans everywhere," Jamie McCourt said in a statement.

The Dodgers hit not won the World Series since 1988, the longest desolate stretch for the concern since success its prototypal denomination as the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1955.

"I advert ballgame Commissioner Bud Selig's (wresting) curb of the Dodgers and bringing state backwards to the game," Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich said. "It is my hope that the commissioner appoints a allegoric from the O'Malley kinsfolk to administer the team's playing concern during the enquiry — a return of the O'Malley kinsfolk to the Dodgers would be a bag run for fans and the Dodgers."

The McCourts purchased the Dodgers from Fox, a supplementary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., for $430 meg in 2004. Payroll dropped in both 2010 and 2011; modify though it stands at nearly $104 million, the Dodgers were 12th among the 30 teams on inaugural day.

"My duty module advise its thorough enquiry into the dealings and assets of the Dodgers and attendant entities during the punctuation of Mr. McCourt's ownership," Selig said. "The Dodgers hit been digit of the most prestigious franchises in every of sports, and we owe it to their legion of hardcore fans to secure that this edifice is existence operated right today and module be guided befittingly in the future."

Selig's advise strength be seen by whatever as a precedent should the New royalty Mets hit added business problems. With owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz low pressure from a causa tied to the physiologist Madoff swindle, the Mets borrowed $25 meg terminal assemblage from Major League Baseball. Unlike the McCourts, Wilpon is a longtime friend of Selig.

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Associated Press Writer Evangelist Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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