Frank tells stories in the Irish way, with a Boston accent and a faint stutter. Long, elaborate, convoluted stories, all curlicues and digressions, swirling back on themselves, redundant, pointless, spinning and spinning and spinning, but apparently going nowhere, until, miraculously, they begin to rise in a masterful flourish like a baroque concerto from Handel, rising and rising to a deafening crescendo, the point.
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Frank and Jamie McCourt Sooooo Love L.A. Why Hasn't L.A. Loved Them Back?
The fightin' Irish from Boston are on a mission to restore the Dodgers' winning ways. If only the city would believe them.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday August 20, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 48 words Type of Material: Correction
The McCourts: In West magazine's July 23 article on Dodgers owners Frank and Jamie McCourt, the quotes from Bill Chadwick, former president of the Coliseum Commission, and Bernard Parks Jr., chief of staff for City Councilman Bernard Parks, were from a December 2005 story by the Boston Herald.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday September 03, 2006 Home Edition West Magazine Part I Page 5 Lat Magazine Desk 1 inches; 45 words Type of Material: Correction
In the article on Dodgers owners Frank and Jamie McCourt (July 23), the quotes from Bill Chadwick, former president of the Coliseum Commission, and Bernard Parks Jr., chief of staff for City Councilman Bernard Parks, were from a December 2005 story by the Boston Herald.
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"So I was a construction foreman on one of my dad's projects when I was 18 and I'd come home filthy every night just looking for my dad to tell me I was doing a great job, and everyone had to wait for me to wash up because I was late for dinner and one night I sat down at the table and he was looking at me and I knew this was it and he was gonna tell me and we said grace and then he looks at me and says, 'You should be ashamed of yourself,' and I was crushed because I thought he'd say how proud he was I was working so hard but all he said was, 'You don't get it, you're a foreman and you should go to the job in a white shirt and come home clean and not keep everyone waiting for dinner because you grabbed a shovel and jumped in a hole with laborers to show them how to dig dirt and while you're in the hole you can't see what's going on on the site,' and I was stunned while it began to sink in that it was important for me to get out of the hole to see the whole picture, which wasn't really his only point because he said, 'If they can't do the job, get rid of 'em!'"
Jamie tells stories reluctantly, in fits and starts, truncated stories with conspicuous gaps, like neurotically over-pruned shrubs, clipped with embarrassed silences, until, under prodding, she begins again, another nip here, a nip there, her stories without point except to protect her sense of privacy.
"I don't want to say." Pause. "I was so embarrassed." Pause. "It was our fist date." Pause. "1971." Pause. "I was . . . " Pause. " . . . wearing." Pause. "It was so embarrassing." Pause. "I stood up." Pause. "He could see I was wearing . . . " Pause. " . . . hot pants."
"I'm sooooo happy here!" Jamie McCourt says. "It's sooooo L.A.!"
