BY LYNNE LARKIN

Ah, the Dodgers.  Just saying the name evokes a sad and wistful “Yeah . . .”  As “42” premieres, a new movie about Jackie Robinson, our links to baseball and the boys of summer, the Big Blue Dodger organization, seem unreal.  It’s history both sweet and bitter for our area. 

Their almost departure in 1999 after Rupert Murdoch bought the team captured the headlines month after month.  The city and county spent millions to keep them here, and we felt safe again.  That comfort was soon eroded.  Walter O’Malley may have used leaving as a bargaining chip in dealing with the City, but his successors were ready to play that card for real.  Dodgertown vs. Tiny Town, big business usually gets its way.

The Dodgers’ real break with Vero Beach came soon after, in 2008, under Frank McCourt’s ownership, and Dodger blue faded to black.

Even though it was all about dollars, this was history.  No spring training facility anywhere was as famous.  Try to say the names Murdoch or McCourt without spitting just a little.  

When the Dodgers led us into their new contract back in 1999, city and county officials were touting all the financial gains for making a new deal.  We’d be losing $30 million or more a year if they left.  (What is it about that number that sounds familiar?) 

Eager to sign, certain of the benefits, the governments and citizen activists alike promoted the Dodger agenda.  Having been threatened with divorce, we re-stated our vows with a new pre-nuptial agreement in which the Dodgers promised they would pay us “liquidated damages” in the millions for all the money we’d invested if they broke the contract and left early.  Some might call that a penalty clause. 

Hateful to think, but a sports-hungry citizenry wedded to their stars can easily be fooled.  Cities and towns aren’t equipped to see the forest for the money trees.  When the Dodgers skipped happily away to Arizona and paid us nary a dime as a fare-thee-well, it was hard.  Not even when they bargained that damages payment down to $600,000, promising in return they would still play the 2009 season in Vero Beach, did they keep that deal. They ended up playing most of their games overseas or in Arizona.  Buh-bye!!

We didn’t even get visitation rights with the name “Dodgertown.”  Maybe you can call an $80 million facility in the Arizona desert “Dodgertown,” but it just isn’t.  Just as building a new statue of a lady with a torch in Montana and calling it “Liberty” doesn’t work.  Vero Beach cannot be denied its DNA.

Thank our lucky stars, the O’Malley family and several former Dodgers are with us on this.  They are here in little Vero Beach to reclaim some of the history, build a business, and see if in the long run we won’t be denied our love of baseball.  The county had to double back on themselves in the negotiations – how is it that Joe Baird tried to put that contract on the agenda with a “penalty clause” in it?? – but the commissioners got re-educated and we seem to be on track again. 

So how about that other Big Blue, are we on the same road? 

Big promises, huge ad campaigns, local votes, contracts broken, benefits unrealized in spite of the government and local promoter’s guarantees – you may ask how could it ever happen again. 

In our love-hate relationship with elected officials, the mistrust of government seems to co-exist with the idea that once elected, the normal person becomes omniscient.  Trash the ones that came before, just sitting in a big chair on a dais makes you, what, an engineer?  A lawyer?  A prophet?

The Council Troika were happy to distract us with high-handed rhetoric about FPL being our savior, then about this supposedly unusual and improper contract provision where Orlando Utilities and Vero Beach promise to pay a certain amount in case either party breaks the contract.  Much has been said, mostly by those with convenient memories and a need to sell books, about what a mystery it was, this liquidated damages clause.  They claim, as though expert in the legal field, that this clause is somehow clear evidence of nefarious or illegal activity. 

So we ask again . . . Really?  This is not such distant history.  These are not new or special circumstances when it comes to Tiny Town trying to do business with the big boys.  Whether sports mega-money or energy companies listed on the Dow Jones, don’t make the same mistakes you just made, and don’t let your elected officials re-write history.  Who’s on first?  The City Council.  What’s on second?  Negotiations for which they are unprepared and obviously being led by backroom players.  What will happen third?  I dunno.