Ownership in Major League Baseball is in such a state right now that Bud Selig looks like the Little Dutch Boy sticking his finger in the holes in a dyke to keep sea water from flooding the city it was built to protect.

The flood facing the baseball commissioner is the sale of teams, and it receded somewhat Tuesday night with the $2 billion sale of the bedraggled Los Angeles Dodgers. But the tide is still rising in southern California with the uncertain status of the San Diego Padres, who could suddenly be in play. It must be something in the sand of the beaches in southern California.

The finale to Frank McCourt’s destructive ownership of the Dodgers was unexpectedly resolved Tuesday night when McCourt accepted the historically high bid by a group that includes Stan Kasten, a long-time baseball executive, and Magic Johnson, and that is funded primarily by Mark Walter, chief executive officer of the financial services firm Guggenheim Partners.

The timing was unexpected because the auction among three groups had been scheduled to take place Wednesday. But less than six hours after the owners, on a 5 p.m. conference call, unanimously approved all three finalists, the Dodgers, without explanation of the early result, announced the sale at 11 p.m Eastern time Tuesday night.

It’s possible that the Guggenheim group offered $2 billion after it was approved, and McCourt’s advisors from Blackstone took it to the other finalists, who said they were not prepared to go that high. That scenario would have eliminated the need for a Wednesday auction.

The magical Magic, long a hero in Los Angeles, was the featured name in the announcement and news reports of the outcome. In my view, however, Kasten was the magical presence in the winning group. Three months ago and again more recently, this column said the Guggenheim group was the leading contender, and the reason was Kasten, a long-time friend and ally of Selig.

True, the bidders had to deal with United States bankruptcy court, and the Kasten group had to at least match other bids. But McCourt had the final say on accepting the winning bidder, and I have no doubt that the commissioner exerted some influence on that acceptance.

Yet in most reports of the sale, Kasten was an oh-by-the-way mention, very secondary to Johnson.

The first words of the Los Angeles Times report were “a group led by Magic Johnson.” The New York Times began its report with “a group headed by Magic Johnson.” In its lead paragraph the New York Daily News used “a group led by basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson.”

MLB.com’s headline said “Dodgers sold to Magic Johnson’s group” and the start of the story said, “A deal has been consummated between the Dodgers and Magic Johnson’s bidding group.” ESPN.com referred in its lead paragraph to “the Magic Johnson group.”

Give the Associated Press credit. Its reports by Ron Blum, had Johnson and Kasten in the leads of its reports. That’s one of the good things about the AP, where I began my career. Its reporters learn to get multiple facts into their leads without cluttering them.

Why was I so certain about Kasten? As the long-time president of the Atlanta franchise, he turned it into the strongest organization in Major League Baseball. As an adviser, he guided the Lerner family through its successful effort to buy the Washington Nationals in 2006 and as their president laid a strong foundation for the construction of a growing organization.

Besides having great respect for and confidence in Kasten as a top club executive, Selig found in him a strong, intelligent and close ally in the labor wars that the owners fought with the players for decades.

Well, on second thought, how smart could Kasten have been to join in Selig’s many years of failed labor strategy? I’ll leave that for another time.

Not to be overlooked is Johnson’s presence in the group. As a result of his contributions to the Lakers’ success and his community efforts, Johnson is a god to Los Angeles sports fans and by his name and presence alone will bring many of them back to Dodger Stadium.

Because the Dodgers are in bankruptcy, the court has to approve the sale. It should have no trouble doing that, and the Dodgers’ creditors should be delighted with the sale price. Jamie McCourt, on the other hand, may have second thoughts about letting her ex-husband off too easily by agreeing to a payment of $131 million.

The sale of the Dodgers lifts a large load off Selig’s shoulders. Now he has only one bizarre franchise matter to deal with.

The Padres’ owner, John Moores, thought he had sold the team to Jeff Moorad three years ago, but now he has to play a do-over. Will he try to sell the team a second time or hold onto? He was not prepared to disclose his plans Tuesday.

“I have no comment,” he said on his cell phone. “The only thing I’ll comment on is my date of birth.”

Having no need for that bit of information, I began to ask the question I was seeking an answer to – did he plan to sell the Padres? – but he abruptly ended the call.

A high-ranking executive of another club said Moores hadn’t made his plans known to other owners but added, “Everyone believes he will sell the club.”

A club executive said, “Once the Dodgers thing shakes out, we’ll have a better idea.”

Some people had speculated that once the Dodgers’ sale had been completed, there would be a lot of losers available as potential bidders for the Padres, not only the two losers in the auction (Steve Cohen and Stan Kroenke) but also the more than half dozen groups that entered bids for the Dodgers but didn’t make the auction.

However, as one follower of the sale of baseball teams observed, “The difference between buying the Dodgers and the Padres is like the difference between a Mercedes and a Buick.”

He said he doubted that Cohen, the billionaire founder of a hedge fund, would want to buy the Padres, and he had the same view of Kroenke, who owns the St. Louis Rams football team.

I spoke to one losing Dodgers bidder, Dennis Gilbert, the former player agent, who has been unsuccessful more than once in trying to buy a team.

“I don’t want to comment,” he said. “The team isn’t for sale.”

One interested buyer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, speculated that it was possible that Moores would no longer want to sell the team. “From what I’m reading” he said, “he’s waiting for his t.v. deal to be done. Depending on the t.v. deal, he might not want to sell.”

Moores, who like McCourt is divorced from the woman who was his wife when he bought the team, thought he had sold the Padres three years ago or at least reached an agreement to sell the team.

Moorad and his group of investors had agreed to buy 100 percent of the Padres over five years, had purchased 49 percent and were looking to accelerate the rest of the process. They had planned to take 100 percent control in January, a step Moores eagerly favored, but the owners delayed a scheduled vote at their meeting that month.

According to baseball officials, the delay was the result of concerns that the Moorad group didn’t have the money to operate the franchise successfully, and the owners and the commissioner didn’t want a repeat of the McCourt fiasco.

Moores, however, was so angry at the delay that he initially opposed a two-year contract extension for Selig, who had let the owners know that it would take a unanimous vote for him to accept an extension of his term. Subsequently, though, Moores changed his vote and made it unanimous, presumably after the Moorad situation was explained to him.

Moores has also changed his opinion of Moorad. “”I’ve never consistently been so wrong about anything that’s happened to me,” Moores told the San Diego Union-Tribune about his original support of Moorad.

Moorad stepped down as the Padres’ chief executive officer last week, saying he was remaining as vice chairman and making the move to focus on negotiations for a new television contract. I found that explanation difficult to believe. Less than a week later, it became known that Moorad was out altogether.

As for his group’s share of ownership, a club executive said it wasn’t known how it would be worked out.

A baseball official said owners suspected that Moorad was trying to get the t.v. deal done, then use that money to help buy the remaining 51 percent of the Padres. If that was so, Moorad, who did not return a call seeking comment, should have known that trick wouldn’t work.

McCourt tried it when he was still trying to salvage the Dodgers, planning to use television revenue to bolster his phantom finances, but Selig rejected the idea and forced McCourt to sell.

There is no such category listed in the authoritative Elias Book of Baseball Records, though I haven’t received the 2012 edition. But I doubt that it has been added: largest single-season payroll reduction.

Yet in writing about the New York Mets’ poor financial condition, reporters have pronounced the team’s payroll reduction, which they have estimated at about $50 million, to be the biggest in baseball history.

There are several problems with that claim:

• The Mets’ season-opening roster hasn’t been set and it’s not certain which 25 players will be on it and if any players will be on the disabled list and therefore count for payroll purposes.
• Reporters calculating the payroll plunge are basing it on the payroll at the end of last season, which is like comparing the proverbial apples and oranges. To compare payrolls properly, it is necessary to use the same time of year, either season-opening or season-ending figures.
• No matter what figures are used for the Mets, before their season-opening roster is set, their payroll decline is not the steepest in history. Their payroll may not drop as much as the Texas Rangers’ payroll declined from the start of the 2003 season to the start of 2004.

The comparison with the Rangers the Mets hope for is reaching the World Series as quickly as the Rangers did after they slashed their payroll. The Rangers played in the World Series six years after they demolished their payroll and then again the following season.

What are the Mets’ chances of matching that feat? Probably not great.

But John Hart, who was the general manager who made so much of the Rangers’ payroll disappear in 2004, said Friday, “The Mets could expedite our situation by two or three years. Ultimately they would get good when they have a core of young players and maybe they can supplement quicker through the free-agent market.”

At the moment the Mets and the free-agent market don’t fit in the same sentence. That’s why they have slashed their payroll from $139.8 million at the start of last season to close to $90 million for this year’s opener. For the size of their reduction to eclipse the Rangers’ 2004 reduction, they would have to open at no more than $91 million.

In 2004 the Rangers plummeted from $103.5 million to $54.8 million, a difference of $48.7 million. That is the standard the Mets will be shooting for as they select the 25 players to be on their opening-day roster.

Not that the Mets will compile their roster based on the players’ salaries. Johan Santana, Jason Bay and David Wright, whose salaries total $57 million, more than those of the other 22 players combined, will be on the roster regardless of their pay. After all, the Mets need someone to lure fans to Citi Field to watch them play.

A significant segment of the Mets’ 2011 payroll was consumed by players who didn’t play for them. Oliver Perez received $12 million for the final year of his guaranteed contract after the Mets released him, Luis Castillo got $6 million and Gary Matthews $1 million (with the Angels paying him $11 million).

Even though the Mets traded Carlos Beltran to the Giants July 28, they paid the $6.77 million that remained on his contract, and they included $5 million in the trade that sent Francisco Rodriguez to Milwaukee July 12. In addition, they didn’t re-sign Jose Reyes, who earned $11 million last year.

Add up those figures, and you have nearly $42 million in savings for this year.

How did the Rangers shed $48.7 million from their payroll for the 2004 season? They got rid of the most sizable chunk, $22 million, by trading Alex Rodriguez to the Yankees. Another $22 million disappeared with the expiration of the contracts of Juan Gonzalez and Rafael Palmeiro.

Those developments marked the end of the wild-spending era of owner Tom Hicks.

“In the reduction in payroll at that point there was a financial motivation for it,” said Jon Daniels, the Rangers’ current general manager, who was the assistant general manager under Hart then. “It was about the financial health of the company. It was similar to the Mets.

“It was clear it wasn’t working. Ownership wanted to take a far different course. A lot of it was financially motivated, but it gave us an opportunity to get younger players.”

The signing of Rodriguez before the 2001 season epitomized the out-of-control mindset of Hicks, who eventually succumbed to his financial irresponsibility and was forced to sell the team.

Once he met Rodriguez and had dinner with him, Hicks had to have the talented shortstop and personable young man.

How much, he asked agent Scott Boras, who told him, and Hicks said where do I sign? It was an historic 10-year deal for $252 million, and it turned out to be $100 million more than the next highest offer Rodriguez received.

A year later the Rangers signed pitcher Chan Ho Park for 5 years and $65 million. In that same free agent-signing season, the Rangers wanted to bolster their bullpen so they signed a trio of relievers, each for three years, to what were then considerable contracts for their jobs: Jeff Zimmerman $10 million, Jay Powell $9 million, Todd Van Poppel $7.5 million.

Zimmerman injured his arm and didn’t pitch after he signed that contract, Van Poppel lasted with Texas less than a season and a half, emerging with a 5.91 earned run average, and Powell compiled a 5.37 in his three years.

“When Tom hired me,” Hart said, “he wanted to make a push with that group, in a sense justify the Alex contract.”

The Rangers, however, did not achieve the owner’s goal. They finished in last place in the American League West for four successive seasons, including all three years Rodriguez played for them.

The winter between the ’03 and ’04 seasons was the time the Rangers’ baseball hierarchy decided a change was necessary if they hoped to become a playoff contender.

“A big part of it was not so much Tom Hicks’ financial condition,” Hart said, “but we convinced him we weren’t going to win the way we were. We felt we had to shed some veteran players and commit more to young players and international players.

“We did shed the payroll with the idea of getting younger. We didn’t feel it would necessarily affect us. It didn’t. We were right in it at the end.”

Benefiting from the practice of addition by subtraction, the Rangers raised their record from 71-91 to 89-73 in 2004, finishing only three games from first after losing three games of a four-game series with the first-place Angels in the last week of the season.

“We probably overachieved that year,” Daniels said. “But we had a younger, more athletic team. We basically kept our payrolls relatively the same for five, six, seven years. We were in the $55 million to $70 million range for an extended period of time. We made a commitment to build with scouting and development. We started coming together in ’08 and ’09. The following year we put it together and made the playoffs.”

In those years leading to repeat World Series appearances, the Rangers added position players named Kinsler, Cruz, Hamilton, Andrus and Moreland and pitchers named Wilson, Lewis, Feldman, Hunter, Harrison, Holland, Feliz and Ogando.

Not all of those players have been home grown. Daniels made one of the best trades in recent years, sending Mark Teixeira to Atlanta at the trading deadline in 2007 in a seven-player swap in which the Rangers received Elvis Andrus, who is their shortstop, and two pitchers, who are in their starting rotation, Matt Harrison and Neftali Feliz, who was their closer last season.

Daniels also acquired catcher Mike Napoli in a 2011 trade with Toronto three weeks after signing third baseman Adrian Beltre as a free agent.

The payroll has understandably risen again, reaching $104 million at the end of last season. However, it ranked only 13^th in the majors. In 2010, the team that played in the Rangers’ first World Series had a $75 million payroll, 22^nd in the majors and $2 million less than the pay list of the low-revenue Tampa Bay Rays.

In contrast, in the seven seasons before the great payroll reduction, the Rangers placed in the top 9 each year. They won two division titles in that stretch but finished last four times.

OUT-OF-COURT, OUT-OF-MONEY SETTLEMENT?

The sighs of relief from Fred Wilpon, Saul Katz and all of the other members of the Mets affected by the lawsuit filed against them by the trustee for Bernie Madoff’s victims were audible. Instead of standing trial in Federal court in Manhattan, the Mets’ owners escaped with their financial lives. Or did they?

The party line, as uttered by Wilpon, principal owner of the Mets, always is he and they are unaffected. By what? By anything and everything.

That’s why they reportedly are hundreds of millions in debt. That’s why they are spending no money for players. That’s why they are headed for last place in their division, seen as finishing behind even the Washington Nationals.

New York teams are important to their leagues in every sport. The bedraggled Mets are not doing their part.

Observers wonder how Commissioner Bud Selig can allow Wilpon to continue operating the Mets. It’s a fair question. So is the one that asks why Selig allows Wilpon to continue running the Mets as if nothing is wrong while he is forcing Frank McCourt to sell the Dodgers.

Selig bristles when that question is raised, saying vehemently the cases are entirely different, and if you don’t know that, you don’t know anything. And anyway, Wilpon settled with the Madoff trustee and very likely will owe him nothing, not bad for a case that started out at $1 billion and still had $386 million on the table when it was settled.

When the case was settled last week, it was believed that the trustee, Irving Picard, decided to settle because his case against Wilpon et al wasn’t as strong as he initially believed. The Federal judge in the case, Jed Rakoff, told him that in open court, and perhaps Picard had to be concerned that even if the jury found in his favor, the judge could overrule the jury and throw out the verdict.

But a lawyer I know who is well versed in baseball, financial matters and the law has a different theory as to why Picard settled.

“Wilpon has no money from which Picard could have collected,” he said. “It’s hard to make a deal with someone who doesn’t have money. There’s no sense litigating with someone who is broke.”

Wilpon, my friend noted, has retained bankruptcy lawyers and is trying desperately to avoid bankruptcy “but I don’t know if he can.”

Bankruptcy would certainly lead to Wilpon’s baseball demise, just as it did for McCourt in Los Angeles, Tom Hicks in Texas and Eli Jacobs in Baltimore.

IT DIDN’T TAKE VALENTINE LONG

When the Boston Red Sox foolishly hired Bobby Valentine as their new manager, people asked, “Can he change?” Even before managing a game that counts in the standings, Valentine apparently has answered the question: NO.

I have no first-hand knowledge of this circumstance, but the Boston Globe reported the other day that Valentine was already engaged in a power struggle with the general manager. So what else is new?

Valentine and general manager Ben Cherington, the Globe reported, disagree about who the starting shortstop should be, Mike Aviles or Jose Iglesias, and whether Daniel Bard should start or relieve.

What I liked most about the Globe piece by Christopher Gasper was this part:

“Word of the differing views about Bard and Iglesias going public is Bobby looking out for Bobby.

“If he doesn’t get his way, and Bard struggles in the rotation or the bullpen is so bad it needs to be fumigated, or Aviles starts channeling Edgar Renteria, he has it on record that these failings aren’t his fault.”

That is pure Valentine. Leak something to a favored writer so it’s out in front of fans who now will know where to place blame if there is reason to place blame.

Cherington, a rookie general manager, is overmatched against Valentine and his devious schemes. Cherington, who replaced Theo Epstein, didn’t select Valentine to replace Terry Francona. Larry Lucchino, the chief executive officer, did despite knowing the potential pitfalls posed by Valentine.

If there is to be a loser in this power struggle, it will be Cherington. It would be most unlikely and uncharacteristic of Lucchino to act against Valentine and, in effect, admit he made a mistake. Lucchino doesn’t make mistakes.

Managers and general managers often disagree, but in most instances they keep their differences private and thrash them out privately. One of them doesn’t usually leak their differences to a friendly reporter. But that’s Valentine’s modus operandi.

Valentine, according to reporters who have covered him and the teams he has managed, also divides reporters into two opposing factions, one he favors with leaks for doing his bidding, and those who won’t and don’t.

Gasper, the author of the Globe piece exposing Valentine’s inaugural effort in his Red Sox role, should not count on being the recipient of Valentine leaks. But I would guess he won’t be looking for any. Based on his recent piece, he doesn’t strike me as someone who would stoop that low.

STAN AND MAGIC IN THE LEAD

When recent reports said the number of candidates for the purchase of the Los Angeles Dodgers had been reduced, I was pleased.

I don’t root for prospective owners any more than I root for teams or players, but one of the three finalists was reported to be the group that includes Stan Kasten and Magic Johnson. While others list Johnson first, I give Kasten that spot because he is the most important member of that group.

As soon as I became aware last December of Kasten’s interest, I pronounced his group the leading contender. Now that I see who the other two finalists are, I have to say that as long as the bids are at least close to being equal I would be shocked if Kasten and Johnson were not the winning bidders.

Even though the Dodgers are in bankruptcy and a bankruptcy judge is involved, Commissioner Bud Selig can influence the outcome, and he would clearly prefer Kasten, a long-time friend and ally, and Johnson, a prominent African-American and Los Angeles hero, who from a public point of view, would fix everything that Frank McCourt has done to turn off Dodgers fans.

The other two finalists are Stan Kroenke, owner of the N.F.L.’s St. Louis Rams, and a group headed by hedge-fund billionaire Steven Cohen and Los Angeles billionaire and philanthropist Patrick Soon-Shiong. Cohen recently agreed to buy a $20 million share in the Mets.

The winning bidder, who is expected to pay at least $1.5 billion, is supposed to be selected by April 1 so that a deal can be closed by the end of the month, when McCourt is legally bound to pay his ex-wife Jamie $131 million as a divorce settlement.

The trustee for the swindled victims of Bernie Madoff listened. It reminded me of the time in 1975 when baseball’s club owners didn’t listen and it cost them in a monumental, historic way.

Irving Picard, the trustee, presumably felt his case against the Mets’ owners, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, at one point for $1 billion, was strong enough to argue before a jury and have the jury decide whether Wilpon and Katz were “willfully blind” to the money they were making from Madoff’s fraudulent Ponzi scheme.

But in a court session March 5 before Judge Jed Rakoff of United States District Court in Manhattan, Picard’s lawyers heard the judge express skepticism about the strength of their case.

“The court remains skeptical,” Rakoff wrote in his four-page ruling, “that the trustee can ultimately rebut the defendants’ showing of good faith, let alone impute bad faith to all the defendants.”

It was immediately following that session and that remark that Mario Cuomo, former New York governor and the dispute’s mediator, convened lawyers for the two sides and resumed settlement negotiations, which concluded successfully last Friday.

In the 1975 instance I referred to earlier, representatives for baseball owners and players were locked in a struggle over free agency. Peter Seitz, the impartial arbitrator, who a year earlier had declared Catfish Hunter a free agent in a breach-of-contract grievance, was hearing the Messersmith-McNally grievance in their bid for free agency.

As the end of the year and the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement approached, Seitz was nearing a decision. He met with John Gaherin (owners) and Marvin Miller (players) and urged them to negotiate an agreement on free agency rather than having him issue a ruling.

Seitz didn’t want to have to decide the issue. He felt it was too important for anyone but the owners and the players to decide it. Gaherin, a truly professional and wise negotiator, left the meeting convinced that if he had to rule, Seitz would find for the players.

He conveyed that feeling to the owners and urged them to negotiate, but they would not hear of it. Let Seitz rule against us, Lou Hoynes, the National League attorney, said; we’ll take him to court and win there and keep the system we have always had.

Hoynes was a good courtroom lawyer, but he didn’t have experience with labor law. Had he been better versed in labor law, he would have known that judges rarely overturn arbitrators’ decisions.

The Seitz decision for Messersmith and McNally, saying that players could become free agents after playing out the renewal year in their unsigned contracts, was upheld in United States District Court and the Court of Appeals.

The two sides subsequently negotiated a free-agent system, but it would most likely have been more to the owners’ liking had they listened to Seitz through Gaherin and precluded Seitz from ruling.

Picard, on the other hand, heard what Judge Rakoff said and reassessed his case. Few people seemed to be expecting a settlement, but readers of the Daily News and the Post had a better chance of anticipating the possibility than Times readers. That’s because of the way the Times covered the story.

Excuse me for repeating myself, but I believe it’s necessary in light of the settlement the two sides reached, avoiding the trial. Readers of the Post and the News might have seen it coming; Times readers didn’t have a chance as their favorite newspaper gave them misleading news.

If you were reading New York City’s three newspapers for news of the case the day after the judge questioned the trustee’s case, you would have found that telling remark in the Post and the Daily News. You would not have found it in the Times.

In a case of poor news judgment by reporter or editors or a case of deliberate stacking of the news against the Mets, the Times ignored Rakoff’s remark except to paraphrase it.

The headlines reflected the differences.

Judge throws heat at Picard’s claim vs. Mets, the Post headline read.

The News headline said, NY Mets case goes to trial even as judge slams Bernard Madoff trustee’s evidence against team’s owners.

The Times? Judge Deals Financial Blow to Mets’ Owners. That was the headline on the story in which Rakoff’s non-quoted view of Picard’s case was buried in the 13^th paragraph of a 21-paragraph article.

In reporting on the settlement, the Times tried to recover, reversing its previous position by mentioning setbacks Picard had suffered. In addition, the news report, nearly 90 percent through the articles, said, “Mr. Picard might also have had second thoughts about the strength of his case.”

But why should Picard have had second thoughts if his case was as solid as the Times had portrayed it for months? And if it wasn’t so strong, why hadn’t the Times pointed out its weaknesses instead of consistently hammering the Mets and, in effect, forecasting a crushing loss for them.

Far from a loss, this was a huge victory for the Mets. And readers didn’t need a host of so-called experts telling its readers that. Once upon a time the newspaper’s readers could depend on its reporters to explain the significance of a development. Now, though, the Times quotes a host of law professors, lawyers, former prosecutors and assorted other so-called experts to explain and interpret the news. In its account of the settlement, the Times quoted two of these types and referred in two other instances to “a number of experts” and “legal experts.”

In a Web site article, the Times quoted Rob Tilliss, a partner at Inner Circle Sports, a sports advisory firm, as saying that the Mets were “basically in the same position they were in even though the Madoff ruling is a net neutral to them.”

On the contrary, the Mets would have been far worse off had they gone to trial and lost. A trial loss would have cost them much more, perhaps $303 million more. As a result of the settlement, the Mets may not have to pay Picard anything. That’s a pretty good outcome for a team that the Times had suffering great financial losses.

One last note:

In my recollection of the baseball owners’ failure to heed the arbitrator’s thinly veiled warning, I noted that the owners did that large on the advice of their National League lawyer, Lou Hoynes. He was with the New York firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher. The dispute between the Mets and Picard was settled in the offices of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, the legal home of former New York Governor Cuomo, the mediator in the case.