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Business With MLB Goes Beyond Price Tag
Theodore N. Lerner and his group earned the right to pay $450 million to Major League Baseball for the Nats, beating out seven other groups. The Lerners will take over the club in a month.
(By Michael Williamson -- The Washington Post)
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"We were disappointed, but we weren't sure it meant much because people in baseball told us they were only doing it to meet with new investors that they hadn't met with," Smulyan said. Still, members of Smulyan's group began to feel as if their chances were dwindling, that Selig had wanted local ownership all along.
"If they were looking for local ownership, they should have called Jeff Smulyan eight months ago," said Robert Pincus, chairman of Fidelity & Trust Financial Corp. and a member of Smulyan's group. "It was a long process [in which] they could have eliminated people sooner."
At the Wilson Building, however, the long-simmering issue of race and the Nationals franchise began to boil.
On April 25, council member Vincent B. Orange Sr. (D-Ward 5), once one of MLB's top allies on the lease negotiations, called Selig to air his concerns. "When the conversation got on the Lerners, Bud said, 'What is the problem with the Lerners?' " Orange said. "I told him, 'For one thing, I don't know the Lerner guys. I don't know the makeup of their team. I don't know what kind of minority equity they have.' He said they were still talking and no decision had been made, but I walked away with the impression that it was going to be the Lerners."
The next day, Orange declared that he would introduce an emergency resolution before the council calling on baseball to name either Malek-Zients or Smulyan as the new owners. Then last week, Orange, Barry and boxing promoter Rock Newman held a news conference. They bemoaned the addition of African Americans to the Lerner group -- a list that included Slater, banker B. Doyle Mitchell and BET executive Paxton Baker. Barry likened it to "blacks being rented for a day."
Selig, who for weeks had been leaning toward Lerner, and other baseball officials let it be known that the news conference had infuriated them. If anything, it stiffened Selig's resolve to give the team to the Lerner group.
Within hours, Selig told close associates to proceed as if the Lerners were going to be the choice.
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
