What does it take to create a baseball winning culture? A competitive all-star roster? An ambitious front office? An empathetic coach? A $270-million-plus payroll?

According to Molly Knight, "Baseball, first and foremost, is a business." In THE BEST TEAM MONEY CAN BUY, the ESPN Magazine contributor takes a penetrating look at the Los Angeles Dodgers’ attempt to construct a winning organization.

Knight traces the Dodgers’ early history, from its Brooklyn roots to the team's move to Los Angeles in 1958. She follows the shifts in ownership from a family-run franchise operated by real estate businessman Water O'Malley to the brief adoption by Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch's Fox Entertainment Group (a purchasing decision primarily motivated by broadcasting rights), the bargain basement hand-off to Frank McCourt, a Boston businessman, who appointed his attorney wife as CEO and through severe fiscal mismanagement plunged the organization into bankruptcy in 2011, and the historic $2-billion acquisition by Guggenheim Partners, the Chicago-based financial services firm in 2012.

"THE BEST TEAM MONEY CAN BUY is an extraordinarily fascinating read, offering illuminating insights into baseball --- the sport, the business and the culture."

Knight's book is replete with colorful character studies. They include richly descriptive portraits of athletes from best fielder Mark Ellis (notable for playing with a "gnawing intensity"), starting pitcher Zack Greinke (a brilliantly eccentric patron saint of honesty) and pitcher Clayton Kershaw (an "unflinching warrior" with a signature breaking ball), to the good-humored infielder Juan Uribe and Cuban right fielder Yasiel Puig (an exceptional talent with a "hellion reputation" and the "most polarizing player since Barry Bonds").

Additionally, Knight reports on the differing management styles of Ned Colletti (he "approached the game with a chip on his shoulder the size of Illinois" and "refused to suffer coddled ballplayers"), while the ever-patient and optimistic skipper Don Mattingly had the primary objective of "keeping twenty-five grown men who lived in uncomfortably close proximity to one another for nine months out of the year from killing each other."

Knight expertly covers the dramatic highlights and low points in the Dodgers' 2013 and 2014 seasons --- from victories and rivalries to injuries and losses, reporting from the field, behind-the-scenes in locker rooms and about the front office. THE BEST TEAM MONEY CAN BUY is an extraordinarily fascinating read, offering illuminating insights into baseball --- the sport, the business and the culture.