Mark Cuban is a funny, smart, charming, and successful NBA owner. Most NBA fans wish they had a guy like Cuban running their team. Most NBA owners appreciate the attention (and revenue) he’s driven to the league. Most MLB owners, on the other hand, wish he would just go away. And so it goes with Mark Cuban’s efforts to infiltrate the Billionaire Boys Club known as Major League Baseball.

Anytime a MLB team gets put up for sale, ”media reports” link Cubes to the deal. First, it was the Pirates. Then the Cubs. Then the Rangers. Now, the Dodgers. As Cuban told some crappy off-shoot of ESPN:

“It all comes down to price… It’s important to have more than enough money to pay players and invest in the organization.”

At this point, one might think Bud would finally take pity on the guy, right? After all, if Cuban can transform the Dallas Mavericks from basement dwellers to regular playoff contenders to world champions, surely he deserves a shot at saving one of baseball’s greatest franchises?

Well, as my aunt used to say, “Dream on Alice, it’s a long way to Wonderland.”

Cuban, for all his success, is a loose cannon. Major League Baseball, much like THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE™, is not very quick to implement change or accept being held in derision. Their ownership is anything but progressive. Cuban is the exact opposite. This scares Bud. To wit:

On Cuban possibly buying the Cubs, according to MLB sources:

“There’s no way Bud and the owners are going to let that happen, zero chance.”

When Cuban sought ownership of the Rangers, the incumbent administration (read: MLB-backed bid) repeatedly lobbied to throw out Cuban’s bid, going as far to suggest if Cuban’s group won the auction for the team, there was only a “50-50 chance” MLB would approve the deal; thereby sending the asset back to bankruptcy court (and royally pissing off the team’s creditors). According to ESPN’s Jayson Stark, there would have been “significant opposition” to Cuban controlling the franchise.

Throughout these trials and tribulations, Cuban has said all the right things. He’s professed a willingness to step aside and allow baseball people to run the show. He’s intimated he’d be willing to spend the money necessary to field a competitive team.  As someone who cares about the “sanctity” of the game as much as anyone, I think he’d be an excellent addition — his commitment to winning and innovation would be more than welcome in a sport that is still afraid of instant replay.

Unfortunately, from field to front office, baseball is a game that moves incredibly slow, even more so when there’s money involved (which makes even more sense to bring in Cuban, a self-made billionaire). Allowing Cuban to own one of baseball’s crown jewels is a long shot at best, even at any price.

Mavericks owner Mark Cuban loves sticking his finger in the Eye of Stern. Fines? Who needs your stinking fines? He’s richer than Nazis. He hasn’t been afraid of anyone in the NBA let it be his fellow owners or David Stern. It’s one thing to mess with a bunch of crusty old guys who can’t get it up anymore. It’s another to mess with an owner who knows his way around an AK-47. In the words of Eazy-E, “Boy you should have known by now, eazy duz it“. Just ask Apollo Creed** and Alexander Litvinenko.

Mark Cuban directed his thunder at new Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov before the Mavs-Nets game on Thursday night.

“He’s a pussy,” Cuban quipped Thursday when asked about Prokhorov.

Cuban, who spoke while on his exercise bike in the Mavericks locker room, lifted his head up to smile, and then continued to verbally jab at the Nets’ new owner.

“(Prokhorov) doesn’t come to games,” Cuban said. “Who the hell knows?”

Aw hell naw. If Cuban thinks he’s going to get away with that, he’s got another thing coming. He didn’t stop there.

“When [Avery Johnson] was with us, the expectation was to win a championship,” Cuban said. “I don’t think that’s the situation right now with the Nets. I think he recognizes that his job is progress more than rings right now. But you never know. If Prokhorov does what I did to try to make deals and get something before the trade deadline then all that changes.

“But, you know, building a true professional team means having to spend money. We just haven’t seen it.”
Asked if there was any added motivation to beat Prokhorov’s team, Cuban responded, “Who?”

Prokhorov didn’t take long to respond.

“I think Mark has it wrong,” Prokhorov said. “I don’t like cats.”

Cuban might want to have Brian Cardinal open his mail for the next couple weeks in case Prokhorov sends a bit of the 210 to the American Airlines Arena. It would serve him well to watch the 60 Minutes interview in which the Nets owner professes his love for the ladies and guns. You’ll never catch Mikhail acting like Cuban (pictured above) up in the club. He brings his own to the party. Hopefully this starts a rivalry where both owners try to one up each other then take each other out. “I must break you.”

**Random thought: The Apollo Creed reference got me thinking. Why do all national anthems have to be uptight, carbon copies of each other? Can you tell one from the other? We all know the Star-Spangled Banner. It gets you up when it’s played before an international sporting event like the World Cup but does it really do anything for you when it’s played before every domestic college and professional game? Imagine if our national anthem was “Living in America”.

Tell me that doesn’t make you want to run through a wall for the USA. Why should we be so somber about loving freedom? What says it more than James Brown and a backing band of guys with jheri curls. America, fuck yeah! We may be uptight and Puritanical underneath but we still know how to throw a good party to show how much we love the red, white and blue. At the least, some baseball team should use this for the 7th inning stretch. I’d say the Nationals but they really need to break out “Bustin’ Loose” by Chuck Brown. I’m looking at you, Detroit.