At one end of the country, Frank McCourt's most emotional and strongly worded response yet to Major League Baseball assuming day-to-day control over his tenuous co-ownership of the Dodgers might have sounded like a pre-emptive strike to just-appointed overseer J. Thomas Schieffer.
"I'm a self-made man," McCourt asserted Wednesday afternoon. "Every dollar I've made I've earned the old-fashioned way. Nobody handed the Dodgers to me, and no one is going to take them away from me. I'm not going anywhere."
He also went so far as to call the actions that MLB commissioner Bud Selig has taken against him and the Dodgers, "un-American."
But moments later, as Schieffer stood behind a podium at a hotel ballroom near LAX, the former U.S. ambassador to Japan and Australia hardly seemed rattled.
"I've dealt with North Koreans," he told reporters with something of a smirk.
Rather than meet up with Schieffer during his first day in Los Angeles to discuss arrangements, McCourt flew thousands of miles to Selig's New York offices.
Then, he unloaded - all but saying he was about to file any kind of lawsuit against Selig or the league to keep hold of the Dodgers.
McCourt's visit was again to plead his case for approval of a new front-loaded TV rights deal with Fox Sports that he insists would not only keep the team solvent but, as "one of the highest rights deals in all of baseball," would secure its financial future for years to come "whether I'm the owner or somebody else is the owner."
The terms of the Dodgers' pending deal with Fox is up to interpretation. McCourt said it is a 14-year extension on the current three-year deal (with those years renegotiated) that will bring some $3 billion into the fold - of which some $300 million would be paid at the beginning.
McCourt contends that Selig's office rejected it, even though it would go "entirely" toward the team and "in no way for any personal matter and I'm happy to make that commitment in writing."
He said an equity component would also give the Dodgers some ownership share of Fox Sports West's Prime Ticket channel.
"It's the same kind of components that baseball has approved (in the past) with other teams," he said.
MLB sources have reportedly replied that the deal is only for $1.7 billion.
Regardless, McCourt was neither satisfied with how the meeting went - Selig did not attend and hasn't returned his phone calls - nor was he willing to be quiet about it.
He arranged a teleconference through the Dodgers' communications staff only a half hour before going on a 45-minute diatribe that pushed back the start of Schieffer's pre-scheduled L.A.-arrival media gathering.
Contending that Selig and the MLB have been treating the Dodgers by a different set of rules, McCourt insisted that "in my personal opinion, there is a predetermined end result here and the investigation is designed to prohibit our ability to close this transaction."
He maintained the team has been "current on all of our obligations, all of our payments. We have not asked for a penny of emergency funding from (baseball) and we just put a multibillion-dollar media transaction on the table with only Commissioner Selig's approval standing in the way."
Yet just as defiant as he would be one minute, McCourt took the opportunity to sound contrite in how his public divorce with former wife Jamie has played out publicly over the last two years. He said he realized that it has played a role in Selig's recent actions to step in.
"I've made some mistakes," McCourt said. "And I'm sorry about that. And I'm definitely committed to doing things differently moving forward. Some things might have been overblown when you're going through a divorce, but overblown or not, I've learned from my mistakes.
"I'm very energized right now and very focused on the Dodgers and the Los Angeles community and everybody deserves a second chance.
"I apologize to the community, I apologize to the fans, (it has been) horrible and I can't imagine how tough it has been (for my sons). I wouldn't wish it on anybody. But there are silver linings and you learn. Your focus changes and if someone were to go through what I've been through and didn't become a changed person, then they'll never change.
"I look forward to showing the Los Angeles Dodgers community what I'm really made of and I hope they'll give me that chance."
While McCourt said he was willing to modify the structure of the Fox deal in any way that MLB saw fit, he still would like something in writing from MLB in return: Such as, what is Schieffer's job title?
Asked if he would be willing to work with Schieffer, McCourt said: "It depends if it is as a `monitor' or as a `receiver.' (If it is the later) we don't accept that pretense. We don't believe that Commissioner Selig has the right to jump the gun and send a receiver in to take control of the Dodgers."
Schieffer joked that he'd "never been a hall monitor in school before," but he only sees himself as "a representative of the commissioner" and acting "in the best interest of baseball."
Schieffer added that he hoped his role as a monitor didn't create any friction between himself and McCourt, but "that's really his choice."
Rob Manfred, MLB's executive vice president of labor relations, issued a statement later Thursday to correct McCourt's account of their earlier meeting.
Manfred said it was "unfortunate" that McCourt chose to publicize their discussion and "it is even more unfortunate that Mr. McCourt's public recitation was not accurate. Most fundamental, Commissioner Selig did not veto a proposed transaction (the TV rights deal with Fox).
"Rather, Mr. McCourt was clearly told that the commissioner would make no decision on any transaction until after his investigation into the club and its finances is complete so that he can properly evaluate all of the facts and circumstances."
McCourt also said that having "his property seized" was "not appropriate just because, you know, you get divorced, or for some arbitrary reason. That's one of the great core principles of this country. It's un-American for me to sit here having this conversation defending whether or not the franchise and property that I've put my hard-earned money and my family's blood, sweat and tears (is) susceptible to someone taking it away. And people will see that's not right."
McCourt did say that he made the point "very forcefully" that his pending divorce situation is "no reason to turn down this transaction."
Manfred also denied McCourt's assertion that the Dodgers had been seized, saying Schieffer has been appointed as a monitor and that McCourt was provided paperwork from Selig describing Schieffer's role.
"In our meeting, no one from the Dodgers asked a single, specific question about the terms of the document setting forth the monitor's role," Manfred said.
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