New Dodgers bidder close to deal

There's a new front-runner in the contest to buy the Dodgers from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, the L.A. Times' Jason Reid says. It is Frank H. McCourt, a Boston real estate developer who lost out on recent bids to buy the Angels and the Red Sox. Unnamed baseball executives tell Reid that McCourt "is on the verge of completing a purchase agreement" for the Dodgers. The previous front-runner, Malcom Glazer, has been unable to close a deal, and L.A. developer Alan Casden says that he dropped out a few months ago. Jeff Smulyan of Emmis Communications (Los Angeles magazine) is still somewhere in the background.