RESTORATION OF CONFIDENCE and infrastructure requires vision and energy, heart and stamina -- but it also requires cash, and lots of it. In the eyes of many staffers, the Dodgers were a humiliated organization, and Guggenheim Baseball responded with constant reminders that being a Dodger matters. If the franchise had lost its iconic self-confidence, reassurance in the form of plaques, photos, monuments of retired numbers serve as reminders throughout the stadium.

The Guggenheim model was to think big and spend big -- not only on the glossy surface paint, like the $147 million for then-free agent Zack Greinke or last summer's blockbuster trade with the Red Sox for Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto that absorbed $264 million in existing contracts, but also on the bones of the organization, the lights, and yes, the bathrooms. As a first order of business, Colletti received a phone call from Kasten and told him his international budget was being increased from $200,000 to nearly $1.5 million. Colletti's staff increased from four worldwide scouts to 15.

How Guggenheim Baseball formed illustrates the intricate and exclusive web of highly connected players in the sports and financial world. Only a handful of people possess the personal interest and the financial resources to put together a billion-dollar deal, and the creation of Guggenheim tells a story of high-level networking.

Kasten has been an inside player since he was 27, fast-tracked by Ted Turner. Kasten had always been quick and diligent, a master communicator and facilitator, gifted to network. He once oversaw the Hawks, Braves and the NHL's Atlanta Thrashers simultaneously, and was the first general manager of the Washington Nationals after Montreal was relocated to Washington. A career of connections allows him to speak almost blithely about the important threads that began to weave together and connect key people.

"I had been keeping my ears open along the way, just meeting people," Kasten recalled. "Most importantly, Mark Walter and his colleagues at Guggenheim. We didn't know each other. We had just met while I was making these calls and taking trips, and I just meet good people because one call leads to another and leads to another and you get introduced. So I met Mark's colleagues at Guggenheim and I met Mark personally. ... We thought there were real opportunities in sports if you did it correctly. And at that time what was on the table was Houston, so Mark and I began examining.

"I was considering everything. There were football, and basketball teams that were ripe, but I was aiming toward baseball. Mark was fascinated by opportunities in sports but for his passion, baseball was clearly his sweet spot. ... I got wind through various people that something could be happening with the Dodgers. Mark said to me, 'If that's true, let's put everything else aside and go all in on that.' "

Kasten had built a life along the sports middle, turning middling names into winners, winning the World Series with the Braves in 1995. But the Dodgers, however, represented a masterwork, a top-shelf franchise in a cannot-miss market. It was an opportunity that needed to be pursued. Boehly worked directly under Walter at Guggenheim, and Patton had been a Guggenheim client. For years, Peter Guber's name had been floated around the periphery of baseball ownership, but the opportunities seemed not to materialize. In the late 1990s, he was routinely canvassing investment groups to buy the Oakland A's, one of which included Hall of Famer Joe Morgan. Like Walter, Guber was well-financed, having produced major Hollywood blockbuster hits such as "Rain Man," "The Color Purple," and "Batman." In 2012, Guber partnered with Joe Lacob and bought the NBA's Golden State Warriors.

The group had the look of a dream team. Walter and Boehly and Patton had the money. Guber had money and big Los Angeles connections. Kasten has the team-building expertise, but something was missing: the connection to immediate credibility not only with winning but with winning in Los Angeles.

KASTEN AND EARVIN JOHNSON had known each other for two-plus decades. When Johnson retired from the Lakers in 1991, the first time after announcing he was HIV-positive, Kasten had tried unsuccessfully to hire him as coach of the Atlanta Hawks. That meeting took place in Rosen's living room. Twenty years later, in the L.A. offices of Magic Johnson Enterprises, Kasten, Rosen and Johnson met again, this time with Walter and Boehly.

"Mark and Todd had it together," Johnson said. "They laid out what they wanted to do. Then I asked one question -- 'Do you want to win?' -- because I cannot have my brand tied to a Dodger brand and we make this a real estate play or some other play because the fans won't kill them. They're going to kill me. And I said, 'I can't do it unless we're about winning.' "

"I want to be part of the strategy. I want to be a part of everything. I've never not written a check. I want to be invested in the deal. I want everyone to look at me as a real owner and not just some guy who put his name on it." Magic Johnson

An hour after the meeting, Rosen called Kasten to tell him that Johnson was in, potentially closing an important circle in the history of baseball. For the team of Robinson, where Robinson grew up, Johnson would become the first African-American owner in the history of Major League Baseball, no small achievement considering the history of black ownership in American professional sports began with baseball in the Negro Leagues.

"My mother did one thing that just shocked me, really got to me. She was sitting in the owner's box, and around the fourth or fifth inning I see her crying," Johnson said. "And I say, 'Mama, what's wrong?' She says you're not going to understand this, but your grandfather, my father, was such a big Jackie Robinson fan on the radio.' And that moment just like, wow. It was a prideful moment."

For Johnson, being in the ownership circle is new in baseball, but not new personally. Johnson sold both his equity stakes in Starbucks Coffee and in the Lakers at least in part to finance joining Guggenheim's bid. Internally, Johnson did not want to be patronized, the athlete, especially the African-American athlete, who lends his name to a venture and then has little say in its operation. In one of his first meetings with Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Johnson convinced the chain to remake its food menu at the Harlem restaurants because while the African-American clientele would purchase coffee like any other consumer, "Black people," Johnson told Schultz, "don't eat scones." It was a small but shrewd example of the different lens Johnson brought to the table.

"I want to show these athletes and entertainers that we can be owners," Johnson said. "Now, going in with Stan and Mark and Todd has been a great experience, but I want them to respect me, too. And the way you get that respect is to write a check. And not to say they wouldn't if I didn't, but the real respect comes from when you've got skin in the game. And that's what it's been for all my partnerships. Howard Schultz [said] if I didn't write the check, he wasn't going to do that deal with Starbucks. Go down the line. [Late Lakers owner] Dr. [Jerry] Buss told me, 'Hey, I love you like a son, but you have to write a check.'

Matt Kemp is the Dodgers' first homegrown African-American star in nearly 50 years. AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

"When you have to write a $50 million check, you have to say, 'OK, is the investment going to pay off? Is it the right move? Is it the right decision?' " Johnson said. "To me, your name is not enough. And I'll say it because first of all I think that fans react different. The players act different. The players when they're alone are saying, 'What? Magic wrote a check?' So they understand that, and it's also different for me because I want to make sure I make it right, make sure it goes the way of our strategy. I want to be part of the strategy. I want to be a part of everything. I've never not written a check. I want to be invested in the deal. I want everyone to look at me as a real owner and not just some guy who put his name on it."

Privately, Johnson was also motivated by creating a different orthodoxy for former players, to show them that actual ownership can be within their reach. But he's also aware of the fatal mistake; the one made so many times with tragicomic predictability is the expert in one field who believes he's an expert in all fields. For Johnson, it is a pothole he appears to have seen from a block away.

"My first real deal was with Sony, and Sony changed to Loews Theatres," he said. "We're about a week away from opening, and I ask the food buyer, 'How many hot dogs do you have for opening for Friday?' And he looked at me like I was just a basketball player and he said, 'You got the same amount as everybody else.' Thirty days, same supply. So we open up the theater on Friday and what usually would go for a month in a suburban theater we sold them all in one night. So what he didn't understand is that the black mindset is, 'We're not going to go to dinner and a movie. We're going to have our dinner at the movie.' And I called him the next day and I'm at the supermarket shopping for hot dogs and buns, and I said, 'This is the reason why I came to you.'

"So, there are things that I know about minorities that [the other owners] can't possibly know. Now, I'm not going to come in here and think I know baseball, because I don't. I'm a fan, but I don't know, so I'm learning from Stan, and I learn from Don and Ned. So I learn, but they also learn from me. So, it's a beautiful situation, and what we've decided here is just play our role: I'm not trying to get into trading players, Mark and the contracts with him and Stan. That's their thing, but when it comes to working the suites for all our corporate sponsors or the players, I go down there and I do that. And just to be around the guys, I don't go down there. This is their world. So they ask why I don't come down, and I say this is their thing. I had mine. I don't want the fans asking me for autographs when they should be asking Matt Kemp. So I stay away. This is their moment, their time to shine."