Coaching stability for troubled Dodgers

By Mark Lamport-Stokes

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - While control of the Los Angeles Dodgers continues to be contested in a highly public divorce battle, the team gained much needed stability Monday when the entire coaching staff was retained for next season.

Hitting coach Don Mattingly, third base coach Larry Bowa, first base coach Mariano Duncan, pitching coach Rick Honeycutt and bullpen coach Ken Howell, among others, would return for 2010 general manager Ned Colletti said in a statement.

Under manager Joe Torre, who has one year left on his three-year, $13 million contract, the Dodgers have won two consecutive National League West Division titles.

Although beaten 4-1 by the Philadelphia Phillies in their best-of-seven NL Championship Series, Los Angeles have reached the post-season three times in the last four seasons.

They ended the 2009 regular season (95-67) with the NL's best record for the first time since 1983 and swept the NL Division Series for the second consecutive year.

Earlier this week, Torre told the Los Angeles Times he was considering extending his contract with the Dodgers for at least one more year.

"We were talking about my coaches and I've been thinking about it," Torre said. "It's been fun.

"When I came here, I was curious about how it might go but the last two years have been invigorating. You see progress and your ego tells you maybe you had something to do with it."

COSTLY DIVORCE

While Torre will be able to work with the same coaching staff for at least one more season in Los Angeles, the team continues to keep a wary eye on one of the most closely scrutinised and costly divorces in recent memory.

The week before the Dodgers's World Series bid ended, team owner and chairman Frank McCourt announced he and his wife Jamie were splitting up.

Dodgertown was then further rocked by the news that McCourt had sacked his estranged wife from her position as the team's chief executive.

The messy and very public breakup between the McCourts raised immediate speculation about future ownership of the Dodgers.

Frank McCourt asserts a post-nuptial accord gives him sole ownership and that the team is not for sale.

Jamie, however, contends she is a co-owner and her lawyer has said she has lined up investors to buy out her husband and gain control of the Dodgers.