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The saga has come to a head the past few months, as it has become clear to the Dodgers no longer have the money to meet the monthly payroll. McCourt has been scrounging around for his next short-term credit, and the Lords of Major League Baseball to the conclusion that enough is enough.

First, the league appointed a special commissioner to review the team's finances. Then it vetoed a 30-year broadcasting deal McCourt had negotiated with Rupert Murdoch's Fox network – in part because of misgivings about the terms of the deal, but mostly because the McCourts wanted to capitalise on the proposed advance payment and pocket well north of $100m for themselves.

Last week, developed into a high-risk gambit, not to lose the team as a whole, McCourt went to bankruptcy court, rather let a judge decide the wait Dodgers 'future rather than for the league to throw him out on his ear, that's what its commissioner was clearly itching to do.

The Dodgers are not the first American sports franchise to the victims venality, selfishness and poor oversight are shocking - especially in this time of big money, marketing and licensing deals. Nevertheless, the extent of the McCourt era excesses is breathtaking.

"There are many subplots, but the real story is that McCourt has stripped the team," \ one of the country's leading sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, said. "He has made a fortune, he has broken it, he used the income from these to fund his extravagant lifestyle, and he now wants to use the income of some of these assets to pay off the divorce. It 's Thanks also for baseball. "

It's too much, in particular, for Angelenos of a certain age who think of the Dodgers as an improbably gentlemanly organisation in a town of Babylonian fleshpots and entertainment industry debauchery. That ideal image is almost certainly too rosy – especially to anyone familiar with the sordid history of Dodger Stadium, which crudely supplanted a teeming Mexican working-class neighbourhood in the 1950s and early 1960s.

It is also true that for 30 years or so the Dodgers a remarkable degree of continuity in the possession of the O 'Malley family, and a steady stream of clear, well-spoken star and enjoyed regular success in winning trophies.

Essentially, McCourt spun off the most profitable team ventures – the stadium car park and the ticket office – into separate companies he claimed as his own. These companies then charged the team rent, skimmed much of the profit they generated away from the team coffers, and used the combined revenue as a basis for McCourt to borrow yet more money.