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One of the most storied franchises in baseball history filed for bankruptcy protection in a Delaware court Monday.

Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt blames Major League Baseball for forcing him to make this decision.

MLB Commisioner Bud Selig said last week he wouldn't approve a proposed $3 billion dollar tv deal between Fox and the Dodgers that McCourt believes would have kept his team afloat financially.

"The Dodgers have delivered time and again since I became owner, and that's been good for baseball," McCourt said according to ESPN. "We turned the team around financially after years of annual losses before I purchased the team. We invested $150 million in the stadium. We've had excellent on-field performance, including playoff appearances four times in seven years.

"And we brought the Commissioner a media rights deal that would have solved the cash flow challenge I presented to him a year ago, when his leadership team called us a 'model franchise.' Yet he's turned his back on the Dodgers, treated us differently, and forced us to the point we find ourselves in today. I simply cannot allow the Commissioner to knowingly and intentionally be in a position to expose the Dodgers to financial risk any longer. It is my hope that the Chapter 11 process will create a fair and constructive environment to get done what we couldn't achieve with the Commissioner directly."

Former Dodgers manager Joe Torre said it was a sad day..

"It's sad. The Dodgers were a very storied franchise in my years in Brooklyn growing up and as a player going out to LA," he said. "I know the decisions that the commissioner made certainly weren't easy for him to make given that he understood that the, he felt that the organization and the city deserved better than that."