Management

In youth baseball, there are certain laws of the game. The kid who can't hit a lick will always be first in line for snacks. The hitter with the most expensive bat will almost always finish last in home runs. At almost any level, you can't buy a title - with equipment, with players. To even try futzes with the gods of baseball. In our Pony League, there are no million-dollar contracts - not yet, anyway. We pay our 9- and 10-year-olds in pizza that tastes like it was trod upon by Russian tanks, reward them with home-baked brownies that their sisters put their grubby fingers in, ply them with too warm watermelon.

Herbalife Ltd. shares gained 4% and traded part of Monday above the price they were when hedge fund manager Bill Ackman first accused the Los Angeles nutritional products company of operating a long-running pyramid scheme. The company's stock price plummeted Dec. 19 after Ackman publicly disclosed that he had taken a $1-billion short position against its shares. In the four trading days after Ackman's announcement, the stock fell 43%, reaching an intra-day low of $24.24 on Christmas Eve. Taking a short position involves borrowing shares at a high price and selling them, expecting to repurchase them later when the price falls and thus profit from the decline in stock prices.

It's one thing to leave your heart in San Francisco, quite another to lose your mind there like Don Mattingly . Has there ever been a more ridiculous comment offered by a Dodgers manager, and take into account Tom Lasorda said a lot of ridiculous stuff while on the job, than what Mattingly said Sunday? The Dodgers lost three straight to the Giants, whom they will probably have to beat if they are to win a division title. And Mattingly said: "I feel better about our club walking out of here than I did walking in. " My apologies to Mike D'Antoni for thinking he was the most clueless coach in town.

SAN FRANCISCO - As road trips go, this one looked like a disaster. The Dodgers were swept by their rivals, the first-place San Francisco Giants. They lost their power-hitting shortstop to an injury that will cost him weeks, not days. They flew home just half a game ahead of the last-place San Diego Padres. And yet, according to some of the voices in the visiting clubhouse after a 4-3 loss Sunday, the sweep marked a turning point in the Dodgers' season. BOX SCORE: San Francisco 4, Dodgers 3 In a good way. "It's really hard to start talking about moral victories after a sweep," catcher A.J. Ellis said, "but we felt like a ballclub the last two nights - a winning ballclub.

Mark Tercek had some horribly awkward moments after he left Goldman Sachs to run a U.S. environmental charity, the Nature Conservancy. At one of his first big staff meetings, he committed a total eco no-no by drinking from a plastic water bottle. When he got to work the next day, his new colleagues had left him a batch of reusable Klean Kanteen bottles. At about the same time, he went to a big event packed with luminaries in the environmental field and found himself face to face with Russell Train, founding director of the World Wildlife Fund in the U.S. "Who are you?"

Herbalife Ltd. said its feud with billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman has been more costly than it anticipated, prompting speculation that the company is bracing for potential government investigations. The Los Angeles nutritional products company estimates it will spend $25 million to $40 million this year on legal and advisory fees to defend itself against Ackman's allegations that the company runs a pyramid scheme in which most of its independent salespeople lose money.

Frank Espinoza is aware of the history of a boxing manager daring to allow two of his fighters to square off against each other in the ring. In April 1977 at the Forum in Inglewood, manager-trainer Arturo Hernandez sided with Carlos Zarate over Alfredo Zamora Jr., working the World Boxing Council bantamweight champion's corner after having recently split with Zamora. After Zarate won by fourth-round knockout,  Zamora's father was so angry at Hernandez that he walked across the ring and kicked the manager near  the groin.

More than a month into the season, Angels Manager Mike Scioscia admits he's still not sure what kind of team he has. That's understandable, because he really hasn't seen his team much. "It's tough to evaluate exactly what our team's going to be because the team hasn't been out there," said Scioscia, who has lost his top starter, the left side of his infield and his starting center fielder and leading hitter to injuries in April. "So it's tough to say, 'Well, this will happen or that will happen.'" It would have been extra tough to predict all the things that happened in the Angels' 5-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Thursday, mainly because many of them hadn't happened all season.

Reputation.com may need a little help with its own reputation after the company revealed that someone had broken into its network and stolen some customer data.  Based in Redwood City, Calif., Reputation.com sent users an email Tuesday disclosing the breach. The company reset customers' passwords. It said it did not believe any financial was taken.  The thieves apparently did grab the names, addresses and passwords of some customers. However, the company said that because passwords were encrypted they should be unusable to the thieves.

WASHINGTON - President Obama on Wednesday will nominate venture capitalist Thomas Wheeler as the nation's top telecommunications regulator, tapping a major campaign fundraiser with long ties to the media and the telecom industries, White House and industry officials said. Wheeler, managing director of Core Capital Partners in Washington, D.C., would replace Julius Genachowski as chairman of the five-member Federal Communications Commission board. Democratic Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who was mentioned as a candidate, will take over as acting chairman when Genachowski steps down in the coming weeks.