Dodgers Hired Physicist to Transmit Energy For Team

↵↵Untoward details continue to flow forth about the Dodgers McCourt era. Certainly, the revelation that the team has been paying the couple’s sons a princely salary to essentially do nothing was a bit embarrassing, but ultimately that’s just a bit of garden-variety nepotism. No, what really looks bad is finding out that the team shelled out as much as six figures to a Russian spiritual healer who promised to marginally improve the team’s chances of winning by thinking happy thoughts about them from his home.↵

↵↵That Russian, 71-year-old Vladimir Shpunt, is a emigre with three physics degrees and, if the McCourts are to be believed, a man capable of influencing baseball with his thoughts from 3,000 miles away. Though Shpunt gave the McCourts no guarantees that his services would make the team win, he did promise a positive effect which could translate to improved chances of victory by 10 to 15 percent. He had initially used his powers to treat Jaime’s eye infection when the owners first moved to Los Angeles in 2004. From there, a relationship was established.↵

↵↵⇥Shpunt’s work was one of the best-kept secrets of the McCourt era. The couple kept it hidden even from the team’s top executives. But from e-mails and interviews, a picture emerges of how the emigre physicist tried to use his long-distance energy to give the Dodgers an edge.↵⇥↵⇥The McCourts, who are embroiled in a contentious divorce, declined to be interviewed about Shpunt. Through their representatives, Frank said it was Jamie’s idea to hire him and Jamie said it was Frank’s.↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥Shpunt most often dispatched the energy from his home office, in a room that included a television, chair, bed and computer, watching the Dodgers late into the evening. If the Dodgers played on the West Coast, the game usually started at 10 p.m. in Boston.↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥Shpunt could transmit the energy at any time and from any place, Cohen said, but watching the games provided him with immediate feedback on its effects and intensity.↵⇥

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↵↵Of course, it’s the owners right to waste money however they see fit, but one episode the Los Angeles Times article detailed is when the team dispatched Shpunt to heal then-Dodger Jayson Werth’s injured wrist. As you might expect, the two sessions with the healer proved ineffective and years later Werth said the Dodgers didn’t give him proper treatment, though at the time he didn’t mention the healer, but when approached by the reporter, he seemed startled to even have Shpunt’s name mentioned. Apparently those few who were in the know were instructed to keep quiet.↵

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