Yesterday, I woke up 3 am to feed my baby daughter and made the mistake of logging online to check a high school football score on the LA Times webpage. In the margin, I saw the headline that broke my foot as my jaw fell on it: "Depodesta to be fired as Dodgers GM."

I literally could not go back to sleep, so irritated and disgusted by what I had read. This has to be your typical LA Times hyperactive hypothesizing, right?

Alas, the headline came to fruition on Saturday afternoon and for reasons still unknown to everyone, Depodesta was fired.

When I say unknown to everyone, I speak from a public sense, as there are obvious forces at work within the Dodger front office. Primarily, it appears old guard flag bearer Tommy Lasorda is fully entrenched in the ear of dee- in-the-headlights owner, Frank McCourt. Knowing Frank's desperation to get approval from the local media and "old school" Dodger fans, Lasorda convinced him that the boy wonder must go. Lasorda knew that Depodesta had zeroed in on Terry Collins as the next manager and hadn't given Hershiser a second thought. Tommy challenged McCourt to take "control" of his own organization back and to thrust himself into the process of selecting a new manager.

Frank and Tommy decided to go behind Depo's back and have dinner with Hershiser, who probably wasn't privy to any of the behind the scenes power struggles that were taking place. Also unbeknownst to him, he was being interviewed for the GM position in addition to the manager position. McCourt probably was even unaware that Hershiser was being interviewed for the GM job because Tommy was now positioning for his "son" (Tommy's words) Bobby Valentine, to take the reigns of the Dodger managerial job. If he could convince McCourt to bypass Depo, getting him to install Valentine would be a piece of cake.

With his foot in the door, Lasorda hammered McCourt on the fact that he was taking a beating from the local media and what better way to restore a positive sheen to his image (as if there was one in the first place) than to get rid of the young GM who polarized fans with unpopular, but by in large effective, personnel decisions. With no one else in his ear to provide a counterpoint, McCourt decided style and good press would be more important than seeing a long-term vision through. In restoring the "Dodger Tradition", McCourt decided to fire Depo and let him find out about it via a reporter before bringing him in to tell him face to face.

McCourt cited the fact that "high expectations" had not been met, which apparently stung more 3 weeks later than they did right after the season ended, as Depo was allowed to run the organizational meetings last week and take the managerial job search as deep as the final cut. When Tommy saw the organization was slipping further and further away from his vision and how he wanted it run, he stuck his nose in and forged a power play that resulted in Depo getting run.

Digression: Let me rewind to late June. As the Dodgers struggled, McCourt and Depodesta were getting hammered mercilessly by the local media and knee-jerk reactionaries who tried to pin the team's failures on McCourt's "cheapness" and Depodesta's "computer" while ignoring the ridiculous amount of injuries that the team had piled up. I guessed (correctly) McCourt's email address and wrote him the following email:

Mr. McCourt,
I wanted to thank you for the outstanding job you have done with the organization since taking it over. It is great to have the Dodgers as a family owned business again. I'm glad you are ignoring the skeptics and criticism and hopefully people will be able to start using their own minds instead of relying on 4th rate writers in newspapers to tell them what to think. Keep up the good work.
John Scanlan
Dodger Fan for all 31 years of my life

To my surprise, his secretary wrote me back and told me McCourt wanted to speak with me on the phone. We had about a 15 minute conversation where he thanked me for my support and compared Depodesta's vision to that of Branch Rickey when he broke the color barrier. He seemed to genuinely want to do well and did not come across as condescending in the least bit. I felt great about our chat and came away convinced the Dodgers were headed in the right direction under his ownership.

Then came yesterday.

Now I am convinced that while he has good intentions (the path to hell is paved with them), McCourt is in over his head and his sugar high style of quick reward and good feelings over long-term health lead me to believe that he must go. While I was with him up until yesterday, I cannot endorse an owner who feels it is better to be lauded by Bill Plaschke than it is to stick to the long-term vision of a bright young executive. McCourt is officially the high school slut who so desperately seeks the approval of everyone, he sleeps with them to gain their favor. And we all know how that girl turns out.

Henceforth, I will update this blog with various Dodger news and thoughts while keeping an eye on McCourt and both his fumblings and successes.