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working together to make these necessary temporary decisions and discussing numerous problems arising from them, Aritha was left to put the result on paper to take to Mike to argue for approval. Larry had another task, one that would eventually require a revised budget. He and Mike had already discussed it and decided on the numbers. Larry began searching for a couple of Double A franchises, either to buy or to organize. One big problem was where to put them. He was looking for cities where there were Double A franchises for sale, or where new franchises could be established and integrated into established leagues. He and Mike had decided on three Double A teams for the farm system. To round out the search, he was after two A level franchises and one for the Rookie league. Larry knew he would be at least a year and a half or more at that task.
    Molly left town on a scouting trip of her own. She first organized a list of players who could be free agents at the end of the next season and, as well, she wanted to search out players who might be available for trades. All three knew these tasks of finding available franchises and negotiating purchase prices, as well as negotiating contracts, would take a long time—up to the year and a half available to them, and maybe more in order to bring them to fruition. As for making offers to free agents, that couldn’t even begin until after the World Series of the year before the Gold were due to begin playing.
    In addition to all this, there was a constant stream of interruptions. Especially difficult to deal with politely were the calls from the media requesting information—information frequently unavailable. “Who are you thinking of going after among the free agents?” was a popular question. The most sought after of the executives by the media were the never-ending requests for interviews with Molly.
    It seemed to her every newspaper, TV and radio station in the US and Canada wanted an interview with her. After a week of dodging calls, Molly called her father and asked—pleaded—for a media relations person to take the pressure off. More weeks passed before somebody could be hired, and even more time before the person could begin work. Finally, just before Labor Day, Sparky Hooper, a sports reporter who had worked in both press and electronic media for twenty years, agreed to take the job. Sparky’s arrival finally alleviated the interruptions from the press, but not before Molly had spent hours of time dealing with the media, time she didn’t want to spend.
    Larry, Molly and Aritha, the “Big Three,” as Mike Malone called them, met for dinner with him every Tuesday evening in Las Vegas to discuss the progress to date. Mike was not interested in details, just the overall picture, whether it was emerging according to plan. Of course, the overall plan seemed to require constant amendments; Larry, Molly and Aritha had never begun a Major League Baseball team from scratch before. They found a great deal of help from the people at the Commissioner’s Office, and more from people at previous expansion teams who had gone this route, assistance for which they were extremely appreciative.
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    The Dodgers were playing a bit better than .500 baseball, holding down second place in the National League West. A big reason for what success they had was the pitching of Tabby O’Hara. By the time of the All Star break, his record stood at 15 and 4, phenomenal for any pitcher, let alone a rookie. His reclusive, surly behavior remained the same, however. The week after the break, the Dodgers were in Milwaukee for a series with the Brewers. Around breakfast time–early in the morning, LA time—following the first game, won by the Dodgers 9-2, Pat Trenowski, Tabby’s contact, was wakened by the ringing of the phone. In his groggy and hung-over state, he didn’t recognize the voice, which said, “Tonight.” That was all, just