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May 31 Is Deadline For Bids for Nationals

Tuesday, May 17, 2005; Page D02

MLB has instructed groups and individuals seeking to buy the Washington Nationals to submit their bids for the team by May 31, according to sources familiar with the process.

There are nine bidders who have each deposited $100,000 with MLB for the right to bid on the franchise, which is owned by MLB and is expected to fetch between $300 million and $400 million.

ON THE FIELD

Jesus Flores' two-run, ninth-inning double gives the Nationals a 4-3 win over the Marlins.

Notebook: The Nationals trade left-handed reliever Ray King, the most veteran member of their pitching staff, to the Brewers for a player to be named.

Boswell: The statistics show a return to normalcy in baseball and the end of the Steroid Era.

Minor Leagues: Justin Maxwell has come out of the slump he was in after straining an oblique muscle by sneezing and is now hitting .423 with 24 homers.

Box score: Nationals 4, Marlins 3

NATIONALS REPORT

By the Numbers

89: Errors for the Nationals through Monday. Through 138 games a year ago, they had 113 errors.

Personnel Dept.

OF Ryan Langerhans hit his first homer of a 14-game stint with Class AAA Columbus on Monday, just before he was called up. "I felt a lot more comfortable," he said. "My approach was a lot better." Langerhans will be used primarily as a defensive replacement. ... The club activated LHP Micah Bowie, who hadn't pitched in the majors since June because of a hip injury. ... The club announced that Centerplate would replace Aramark as the concessionaire at the new ballpark in 2008.

Quotable

"He certainly was a good influence on our young pitchers, had a lot to do with some of their developments. Our clubhouse was a better place with Ray King a part of it." -- GM Jim Bowden

NATIONALS JOURNAL

Barry Svrluga provides the latest news on the Nationals.

MULTIMEDIA

Podcasts: Postgame audio from Barry Svrluga and video from Washington Post Live.

Slideshow: A crowd of 40,389 pack into RFK Stadium to open up the 2007 baseball season.

Photos: Manny Acta returns home.

Webcam: Check back daily and follow the progress of construction on the stadium.

The bidders have been asked to submit two offers: one bid for just the Nationals, and a second bid for the Nationals and for a minority ownership in the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), a regional sports network owned jointly by MLB and the Baltimore Orioles, according to sources.

Mid-Atlantic Sports controls the television rights to the Orioles and the Nationals throughout the Baltimore-Washington region. MLB owns a 10 percent share in MASN, which increases to 33 percent over the next three decades. MLB is expected to sell its share in MASN to the new owner of the Nationals.

Commissioner Bud Selig has said he hopes to find a buyer for the Nationals, formerly known as the Montreal Expos, by this summer.

The league's 29 owners purchased the team from Jeffrey Loria for $120 million in February 2002.

The sale process started last fall and has been interrupted several times, most recently by a suit filed by Comcast, a cable television provider, against MASN over the rights to the Orioles. MLB is hoping to resolve that dispute before the Nationals are sold.

-- Thomas Heath

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