The McCourts Have Been Divorced (From Reality) For A Long Time
- Friday, June 11, 2010 8:28 AM
- Written By: Andrew Simon
On Oct. 2, 2004, I experienced one of the most thrilling moments I've been a part of in years of attending sporting events.
That was the afternoon, on the second-to-last day of the regular season, that Steve Finley hit a walkoff grand slam that lifted the Dodgers to a victory over the Giants and allowed them to clinch their first playoff berth in eight years.
Little did I know that the enormous homer that left Dodger Stadium rocking was the result of a mystical force known as "V Energy."
According to this terrific article by Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times, owners Frank and Jamie McCourt hired a Russian physicist named Vladimir Shpunt to sit at his home in the Boston area, watch Dodgers games on TV and send positive energy their way. Shpunt apparently held this position for five years, probably making at least six figures per year.
First of all, I would strongly encourage you to read the whole article, because it is truly bizarre. But here is a taste:
Shpunt lives in suburban Boston, in a community he insisted not be named. He sits uneasily for an interview, joined by his wife Sofya and Barry Cohen, an executive leadership consultant who worked with the McCourts and who introduced Shpunt to Jamie.
Shpunt is wary of publicity, disappointed in the loss of his anonymity, concerned about being caricatured. He speaks reluctantly, in halting English, about a commitment to the Dodgers that he said often required up to four hours a day.
"It's very big work. My blood pressure may be 200," Shpunt said, with a hint of a smile. "I like this team to win."
Shpunt could not transform a bad team into a good one, Cohen said, but his energy could increase the chance of winning by 10% to 15%.
"The team has some level of capacity," Cohen said. "What we're talking about is optimizing that capacity."
And here I thought the '04 Dodgers, for example, won because Adrian Beltre turned into Mike Schmidt in his contract year, Eric Gagne was in prime form and the team pulled some strong production out of sources like Finley, Jose Lima, Guillermo Mota and Jose Hernandez.
What I failed to account for was the old Russian guy 3,000 miles away sitting in a chair with his eyes closed, furiously generating good karma. Something like a less antagonistic version of this:
And as for Finley's magical moment?
"The miracle finish … was the result of V energy," Cohen wrote in an e-mail to Jamie. "Frank was privileged to actually feel the energy."
Oh, sure.
I mean, you could argue this isn't that big of a deal. The money, in the context of the operating expenses of a major-market MLB team wasn't that significant, and I suppose you could use all the help you can get.
On the other hand, do you really want your owners believing in and actually endorsing this crap? It's kind of like if your surgeon spends his free time casting spells and playing witch doctor -- it doesn't necessarily mean he's not a competent surgeon, but it can't make you feel very secure.
Shpunt hasn't worked for the Dodgers since the end of the '08 season, making one wonder how they managed to make it to the NLCS last year. Considering that the cash-strapped organization, in the throes of the McCourts' bitter divorce battle, isn't even bothering to draft signable players in an attempt to save money, it's good they're not still shelling out whatever they were paying him.
After all, here are some things the team could shell out for that would be more conducive to winning baseball games than continuing to harness the V Energy:
- Upgrading the roster, coaching staff, scouting department, front office or team facilities.
- Researching how all team personnel can grow their own glorious Casey Blake beards.
- Purchasing a live bison to serve as Matt Kemp's personal mascot.
- Setting up ONE freakin' kosher hot dog stand amid the sickening Dodger Dog-dominated concourses.
I could go on forever, because there are an INFINITE number of things that fit into this category.
Let's hope this is the last of this type of BS from the folks running the Dodgers. It might be OK for Manny Being Manny to have his head in the clouds every so often when he's "playing left field," but you want your decision-makers with theirs planted firmly in the earthly realm at all times.
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