Number of prospective Dodgers' owners down to eight

It isn't often that $1 billion isn't enough money, but that was exactly the case for a lot of prospective Dodger bidders on Friday.

Two of the biggest names -- Mark Cuban and Dennis Gilbert -- were informed their initial bids did not get them to the second round.

Gilbert getting ousted is not too shocking, as Frank McCourt gets to make the final decision and Gilbert is buddy-buddy with MLB Commissioner Bud Selig (not exactly McCourt's favorite person right now).

Cuban has stood firm on the amount of money he'd spend on the Dodgers -- or any baseball team, for that matter. Cuban told this to the Los Angeles Times in November:

"'I don't think the Dodgers franchise is worth twice what the Rangers are worth.'"

Besides, he's only (using this loosely) worth upward of $2.3 billion, so it would have been really surprising to see him put up more than half his net worth to buy the Dodgers. But he's a smart man and I'm sure he could have found a way to make it work.

Cuban's been weary of buying the Dodgers for too much since November, so it's not that surprising he's out after the first round.

I know when the Dodgers first went on the market, a lot of folks wanted Cuban to end up owning the team. He's proven with the Dallas Mavericks that he'll spend the money to win. But this could be a good thing for everyone involved.

The Orel Hershiser-Steve Garvey group is also out of the bidding.

The confirmed remaining bidders are:

• Steve Cohen
• Stanley Gold/Roy Disney
• Leo Hindery/Marc Utay
• Magic Johnson/Stan Kasten
• Stan Kroenke
• Josh Macciello
• Peter O'Malley
• Joe Torre/Rick Caruso

Macciello confirmed, on his Twitter account, that he's still in it -- at least, one could deduce that from this:

"love That Pearl Jam song 'I'm still alive'"

So there you have it. The Johnson-Kasten group remains my favorite and is probably the favorite overall.

Man, April 6 cannot get here soon enough.