Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt described himself Friday as a devoted husband who tried to comply with his wife's exorbitant wishes but stopped when she sought $250 million US for her personal use.

Testimony on the fifth day of the divorce trial turned away from whether a postnuptial agreement should be invalidated and delved instead into the nearly 30-year marriage between McCourt and his estranged wife, former Dodgers CEO Jamie McCourt.

Late in the day, however, Jamie McCourt took the stand and said a family lawyer didn't tell her before signing the agreement in March 2004 that she was giving up her stake in the Dodgers if there was a divorce.

"We were committing all the assets that we created together through our entire lives," said Jamie McCourt, who was wearing a light purple outfit. "Frank and I practically raised each other, and the notion that this was not something that we wanted to get together or that I would just give it up without remembering that and without worrying about what that would mean is preposterous."

The trial is slated to take a two-week hiatus and resume Sept. 20.

The break was probably welcomed by those involved, especially after an exhaustive 15-hour examination of Frank McCourt, 57, by lawyers on both sides that covered four days.

He said he and his wife had a "fundamental, philosophical" difference about how many homes they should have and how many advisers they should hire.

The couple had more than a half-dozen houses that, according to the terms of their postnuptial agreement, were Jamie McCourt's separate assets.

In a March 2008 email, Frank McCourt told his wife the couple might be unable to carry the financial burden of the expensive homes they were accumulating, but "I am willing to figure out how to do it because I want to make you happy."

McCourt said he took out a $60 million loan on land around Dodger Stadium to help pay off the mortgages. Court documents indicated the couple has taken out more than $100 million in loans from Dodger-related businesses to fund their lavish lifestyle.

Taken aback

Frank McCourt, who said he didn't like to disagree with his wife, testified he was taken aback that Jamie McCourt sought $250 million at one point.

"I told her no," he said. "It was ridiculous. I thought she was wildly overreaching."

The couple are embroiled in a contentious and costly divorce case in which a judge will try to decide if the team, stadium and surrounding property belonged solely to Frank McCourt, as his side argues is spelled out in the post-nuptial agreement, or if the pact should be thrown out and those assets split evenly under California's community property law.

Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon also could order the sale of the storied franchise. McCourt said he wasn't in favour of changing the marital agreement to maintain the homes as his wife's separate property and list everything else, including the Dodgers, as shared property.

"I told her point blank I thought it was absurd," McCourt recalled. "It said what's mine is mine and what's yours is ours. I thought it was patently unfair."

Eventually, McCourt acquiesced but never signed a revised agreement. In the months leading to their separation last summer and their eventual divorce filing in October, he said the marriage hinged on him kowtowing to his wife's demands to change the agreement.

"She made it a litmus test of the marriage," he said. "She said, 'If you love me, you'll sign the agreement.' The more she pushed, the more I withdrew."

On Thursday, McCourt claimed his wife was more concerned with property than baseball and didn't want to take the risk associated with buying one of baseball's most storied franchises six years ago.

Jamie McCourt only started representing herself as a co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers last summer when her marriage was on the ropes, her husband testified.

Protection from creditors

Earlier this week, he told the court that a postnuptial agreement signed by the couple in March 2004 was created to give his wife protection from his creditors while giving him the ability to run his businesses, including the then-recently purchased Dodgers.

McCourt bought the Dodgers in what he called a risky deal for about $430 million, a majority of which was funded with loans that needed to be refinanced within two years.

"She said to me repeatedly, 'You can make a billion dollars, you can lose a billion dollars. I want my own nest egg,' " McCourt, 57, said Thursday.

His testimony cuts to the heart of the dispute that could decide who owns the team. He contends the agreement gives him sole ownership of the Dodgers, the stadium and the surrounding property, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Jamie McCourt believes the agreement should be thrown out and those assets should be split evenly under California's community property law.

She eventually became the team's CEO, but her husband fired her last year. In court documents, he accused her of having an affair with her bodyguard-driver and not meeting job expectations.

McCourt also said he never told anyone that his wife was co-owner, a claim she began making last summer. Around the same time, McCourt was considering changing the agreement to make the Dodgers community property, but held off for nine months before deciding against it.

To make matters more confusing, three copies of the agreement list the Dodgers under McCourt's separate assets, while three other versions do not. Her lawyers have alleged that a family lawyer, at some point, replaced the three versions that excluded the Dodgers from McCourt's assets with the three that included the team as his property.

Her lawyers have even suggested McCourt knew about the switch and committed fraud, something he vehemently denied Thursday.