There’s a decent chance that your life insurance premiums have helped pay for Shohei Ohtani’s contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
It’s possible that we don’t hate them enough.
The federal investigation into Mark Walters, the Dodgers’ owner and chairman, andthe lawsuit just filed by policyholders with various insurance companies he owns both point to the same thing: that the Dodgers are the powerful, infinite money cheat that they are because Walters basically loaned his Guggenheim Partners money from
these insurance money pools to enhance their investments. Like buying the Dodgers. Or the Lakers. Or everything else.
Pablo Torre, fresh off of exposing the Los Angeles Clippers’ pathetic efforts to circumvent the NBA salary cap to satisfy Kwahi Leonard, has moved on to the Walter story and even in the first episode of his report, there’s enough to make you want to chew asphalt to stop from screaming.
So, yes, your suspicion that this golden era of Dodgers baseball is fraudulent in some way has proved to be correct. I can’t remember when I said this — it was either 2023 or 2024 — but I figured that the only thing that could take down the Dodgers is some unforeseeable calamity or a massive scandal, and I think they’ve got a scandal.
From The Athletic:
At the core of the suit are allegations that the insurance companies misled policyholders about the structure of their annuity packages by secretly sending their money into a fund fueling Walter’s larger business network. That fund allegedly helped Walter buy the Dodgers in 2012 and a majority share of the Los Angeles Lakers in 2025, along with a raft of other investments.
In typical annuity plans, policyholders make payments to insurers, which then invest that money into stocks, bonds or index funds that pay the customer interest over time. Insurers normally invest their customers’ money into relatively safe assets and, by law, must notify regulators about any investments made in entities affiliated with the insurer.
Walter’s firms Delaware Life and Clear Spring allegedly reported having 3 percent of their assets in affiliated companies, but were actually investing 42 percent of those payments in companies affiliated with the billionaire’s other business interests, accounting for nearly $17 billion. The companies described the discrepancy as an internal labeling error.
The implications of the Walter investigation is sort of more than people probably want to fathom, because to think that Mark Walter is the only billionaire engaging in this sort of impropriety to enrich himself and his investing partners is a degree of naivete that should automatically ban you from using the internet. This entire century has seen digital robber barons loot the public in every conceivable manner.
The Torre video points to some of the extreme cronyism that setup Walter as he came to Los Angeles to purchase the Dodgers, including how rigged their incredibly rich cable TV deal actually was. It just underscores how naturally suspicious we all should be of so-called billionaires. They don’t come by those billions honestly, and they have your hand in your pocket whether you like it or not. They see a pot of money — risk pools, state and federal taxes, etc. — and they see opportunity and begin planning for a heist. They’ll dress themselves up however they have to get people to let them inside.
Mark Walter has no blood relationship to the Guggenheim family. Guggenheim Partners, founded in 1999, came by their name through a licensing deal with the Guggenheim family, because “The Guggenheim name has long been synonymous with philanthropy and has a reputation for its contributions to the advance of humanity.” ::wanking motion:: The real reason? Mark Walter, a charlatan, needed to buy credibility, which the Guggenheim name instantly conferred. “The firm was created to bring the Guggenheim name back to Wall Street after decades away from finance.”
A side note: this is actually standard practice in high finance. Giants principal owner Charles Johnson was the CEO of Franklin Templeton investments from 1957 to 2004 (taking over from his dad who began the firm in 1947). Franklin Templeton gets its name from Benjamin Franklin, “because Franklin epitomized the ideas of frugality and prudence when it came to saving and investing.” ::wanking motion:: Also, as a reminder, Johnson helped get Donald Trump into the White House and has bankrolled this century’s conservative reformation of the United States. Billionaires are, effectively, roaming nuclear warheads.
But these nukes don’t have autonomous guidance systems. They need to be brought in like the Trojan Horse. Mark Walter softened the ground in Southern California by charming the LA Times and getting LA’s mascot, Magic Johnson, firmly on board (see Torre video for more on Magic’s involvement). Granted, the McCourt family were rotten and hollowing out the Dodgers, but the LA Times puff piece on him was silly in the moment and gross to read now.
“Decent” is one word often used to describe Walter, 51, the chief executive of Guggenheim Partners, a financial services company that manages more than $125 billion in assets. He’s also private, unassuming and almost studiously unflashy.
Born in Iowa and schooled at Creighton University and Northwestern University Law School, Walter has a net worth of $1.3 billion, according to Wealth-X, a Singapore business-intelligence firm that assesses the fortunes of the ultra rich and ranks Walter seventh among Major League Baseball owners. Walter is not on the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires.
[…]
“I’m a fairly quiet and private person,” he said at the time. “So I haven’t sought publicity.”
[…]
The insider who spoke on condition of anonymity said the firm’s success owes largely to Walter’s fiscal discipline and his skill as a “very focused, very careful” investor.
“I can tell you he is a guy with one of the great financial minds of our time, and he will help that team,” the person said.
Walter has said he is making a significant personal investment in the team, but neither he nor the Dodgers’ new ownership group — Guggenheim Baseball Management — has revealed the sources of purchase money in its all-cash bid of $2.15 billion, which topped others by about $500 million and was well above most estimates of the franchise’s worth.
So, yes, everything is true. Families were denied life insurance claims while they paid for Blake Snell’s bogus rehab stints. Shohei Ohtani will be collecting your parents and grandparents’ premium dollars and down the ripping off taxpayers. The Dodgers are the devil and if this century has proved anything, it’s that evil always wins.
But make no mistake, the Dodgers will probably win this series because the Giants stink by comparison. Sure, there has been some excitement with some flashes of upside from younger players and Los Angeles is looking very old these days — but, come on. The Dodgers have been better than the Giants for a while now. Even if this scandal takes them down, the only thing that does is give Giants fans a momentary thrill. Like the old couple in What About Bob? who help Bob because they hate that Dr. Leo Marvin swooped in and took the house they dreamed of buying right out from under them and then cheer when Bob blows up that house.
It doesn’t change the fact that the Giants have been losers for most of the last decade (and 13-13 in this Oracle Park era). And, as shaky as LA has looked — they had a losing record in August (13-14)! and were 26-25 in July & August — they’re 11-5 in September, 47-28 on the season in Dodger Stadium (and have won 10 of their last 12 home games). Sure, Shohei Ohtani is out, Freddie Freeman’s power has disappeared, and Blake Snell actually seems to be hurt again. But, Tyler Glasnow’s off the IL. They have Tarik Skubal. Mookie Betts has been hot the past month (.951 OPS). Jorge De Paula, their top hitting prospect, is up and having Juan Soto-esque at bats. The Giants might shut down Logan Webb for the rest of the season, but if they don’t he’ll probably get buzzsawed. Rafael Devers is out, but Bryce Eldridge is heating up. Jonah Cox is a dude. Jung Hoo Lee is not.
The rivalry has never been more dead and over, but it’s never been a better time to hate the Los Angeles Dodgers, because you cannot hate them enough. They lied, cheated, and stole their way to championships, which on the one hand is great, but on the other hand might put a lot of insurance purchases in a bad situation. It’ll also be bad for baseball fans because it’ll be used as cover to lockout the sport and (attempt to) break the MLBPA. Of course the Dodgers won’t lose their championships over this. The Astros didn’t. In fact, the Astros were hardly punished. The rest of the sport was: the qualifying offer came in, the minor leaguers were shrunk, a bunch of rule changes meant to “improve” the game were foisted on the players… and that’s what’s on offer with the Dodgers situation infecting these CBA negotiations. Like the NBA’s ridiculous salary cap system, owners use their own management decisions to both damage their investments and inflect pain on their labor force.
Rich people and baseball owners, especially, steal money from regular people all the time — that’s what all those publicly financed stadiums amount to — but this time, it’s the Dodgers doing it and in a very damaging way. The Dodgers, the “crimes.xls” organization, might have ruined baseball, but in so doing, they might have given the public a crucial glimpse behind the curtain to see just what our American oligarchs are up to — it’s not just seeing the sausage being made, it’s seeing that we’re the sausage.
Series Overview
Who: San Francisco Giants (64-89) at Los Angeles Dodgers (93-60)
Where: Dodger Stadium | Los Angeles, California
When: Friday at 7:15pm, Saturday at 6:10pm PT, Sunday at 1:10pm PT
National broadcasts: Apple TV (Friday)
Projected starters
Friday: Cesar Perdomo (LHP 0-1, 3.68 ERA) vs. Tyler Glasnow (RHP 4-1, 3.50 ERA)
Saturday: TBD vs. Tarik Skubal (LHP 10-7, 2.70 ERA)
Sunday: TBD vs. TBD
Prediction time
Jonah Cox will steal a base. Freddie Freeman will homer. He has hit 1 home run in his last 244 plate appearances (58 games).
