Crazy Man Hired By Lunatics To Cheer For The Dodgers

Some people get paid a lot of money to be really, really bad at their jobs.  Russian physicist and mystic Vladimir Shpunt (not pictured), for instance, was apparently paid six-figures to be a Dodger fan for the last five years, and they only won one playoff game. 

Frank and Jamie McCourt hired Shpunt to sit on his couch in Boston and watch Dodger games while going all Marky-Mark on them and pumping positive vibes at the team.  Shpunt claims that he had the ability to improve their performance from between 10%-15%, and he's a physicist, so it must be true.

The Dodgers should probably ask for their money back, considering that they are apparently broke and getting divorced.  How broke?  Well, remember that Jamie Carroll was their big off-season signing, and they drafted a kid in the first round this week that they knew wouldn't sign with the team.  Thus they avoid having to pay a first-round bonus and salary.  The draftee had already committed to playing quarterback (and pitching) at LSU, and said had announced that he wouldn't sign if he was drafted.  And then the Dodgers drafted him.

If Shpunt got paid over a half of a million dollars over five years and the Dodgers only got one postseason win for it, I feel like I am owed a crapload of money by the New York Giants.  They won Super Bowl XLII despite being double-digit underdogs and despite trailing with under two-minutes to go at their own 17-yard line.  The upset was ridiculous and I called it in a column for CBS on the Friday before.  I want my money.  Or just a ring would be fine.

Though as crazy as Shpunt is for thinking that his cheering for the team from 3000 miles away made an impact (what did he think happened in the 350-400 games they lost in that span?), the real over-paid, utterly inneffective ones here are the McCourts.  These two lunatics tried running a professional franchise, one of the world's greatest, with a ouija board and burning incense.  The funny thing is that they even knew this whole enterprise was crazier than a family going to a Dodger game and thinking the bleachers are a good idea.  They hid the Russian witch-doctor from the rest of the organization, paying him under the table and now each denies hiring him and insists that the other one did it. 

(For those playing at home, yes that is Leo Tolstoy pictured above)