Dodgers To Go Public?

In an effort to keep the Los Angeles Dodgers under local ownership, the Los Angeles City Council decided to recommend that owner Peter O’Malley consider taking the team public.

The unanimous vote came nine days after O’Malley’s surprising announcement he had put the team his family has controlled since 1950 up for sale. The resolution was by council woman Laura Chick, who used the NFL’s Green Bay Packers as a model of such an arrangement.

More than 4,600 shares of Packers stock are owned by 1,898 people, with no more than 200 shares owned individually. When shares are sold, which seldom happens, no profits are allowed. The team turned a $5.4 million profit last year.

Left-handed pitcher David Wells had his left hand examined by Dr. Alan Miller, the New York Yankees’ orthopedic consultant for spring training, and Dr. John Rayhack, a hand specialist.

The doctors said Wells’ fractured the fifth metacarpal bone, commonly called boxer’s fracture.

Wells, expected to be part of the solution to the Yankees’ pitching puzzle, broke his pitching hand during a brawl early Sunday near San Diego. He was expected to be out four weeks, in time to report to spring training. Wells’ agent, Gregg Clifton, said the left-hander would be out for six weeks because of the injury. But after the examination, the Yankees said his recovery is expected to take four weeks.

The Yankees signed Wells as a replacement for Jimmy Key, who left New York for a free agent deal in Baltimore.