Dodgers put a low price on decades of experience

After spending the last couple of weeks choking on the McCourt divorce numbers -- $6,000 a year for birthday parties? -- Dodgers fans can finally relax.

Your favorite team has figured out how to pay for it all.

They're taking it out of George Genovese.

"I was like, 'What did I do?' " said Genovese, 87, a crooked grin rising from beneath his thick glasses and shock of gray hair.

Genovese, perhaps baseball's most notable living amateur scout, was sitting in the aging easy chair in his tiny North Hollywood home recently when he received a solemn phone call from one of his Dodgers bosses.

He was thereby informed that his annual part-time salary was being slashed.

From $18,000 to $8,000 -- a 56% pay cut.

Genovese nearly fell over his new cane.

"I knew with the divorce there might be trouble over there, but I never thought it would be like this," he said.

Genovese was told his salary was being whacked because of "budget cuts," and, sure, why not?

Ten grand, and Jamie now doesn't have to worry about skinny jeans.

Ten grand, and now Frank can go the extra mile on that Gulfstream.

"I love the Dodgers, I'll always love the Dodgers, but I was like, 'C'mon,' " Genovese said.

At the time, he was far more upset than he will ever admit today, so he immediately began doing what he has done throughout his 70 years in baseball -- coaching, coaxing, finagling, selling.

He tried to talk the Dodgers into only cutting his salary to $12,000.

"That's $1,000 a month, an easy figure, makes sense to me," he said.

The Dodgers said no.

They had also slashed his annual expenses from $5,000 to $2,000, so Genovese tried to talk them into an extra $1,000 there.

"Do you know what gas costs?" he said. "What's an extra $1,000 a year for gas?"

The Dodgers said no.

Genovese eventually hung up the phone, sighed, and waited for delivery of the same sort of thick envelope that has held him captive for more than half a century.

It was his contract, and when it arrived he did what he always does. He signed it.

"What else am I going to do?" Genovese said. "Baseball is my life."

What a life it has been.

His first baseball buddy was Stan Musial. His first baseball mentor was Branch Rickey.

As a 5-foot-6 shortstop from Staten Island, N.Y., Genovese was undrafted but fought his way through 22 years in the minor leagues and one at-bat in the major leagues, playing and managing sandwiched around three years in the Army.