In the first of a three part series, this Washington Post article by Steve Fainaru examines the tactics that Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig is using in auctioning the Montreal Expos off to the highest bidder among several investor groups and American cities. The article provides an excellent background on how Selig and Major League Baseball owners have used baseball’s anti-trust exemption and public financing of stadiums to increase the value immensely of MLB franchises, an approach that several expert commentators — particularly Professor Sauer over at the Sports Economist — have criticized on economic and political grounds.
The entire article is well worth reading, and includes nuggets of information such as the following about Jeffrey Loria, the former majority owner of the Expos who ended up owning the Florida Marlins after Selig engineered a swap of franchises when MLB bought the Expos several years ago. Loria’s handling of the Expos is the subject of litigation brought by Loria’s limited partners, who were pursuing that litigation even as New Yorker Loria’s new team was playing in last season’s World Series. You certainly did not hear about the following on the MLB broadcast as the World Series Trophy was being handed to Loria and the Marlins:
On their way out of Montreal, Loria and Samson stripped the franchise. With them went computers containing scouting reports on every Expos player, dozens of signed home run balls, even life-size cutouts of the team’s former superstar right fielder, Vladimir Guerrero. The Expos’ limited partners, meantime, became unwitting owners of 6 percent of the Marlins. In July 2002, they filed a racketeering suit in U.S. District Court in Miami. It charged Loria, Samson, Selig, DuPuy and the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball of illegally conspiring in what the suit called an “Expos Elimination Enterprise.”
The ongoing suit could complicate baseball’s plans for the Expos. The limited partners have 90 days to seek an injunction if baseball tries to move the team.
Last October, Loria’s Marlins miraculously found themselves in the World Series against the New York Yankees. “Can you imagine?” anguished one of the limited partners. “I’m sitting here. I’m an owner of the Florida Marlins. I’m rooting for the Yankees!”
And then, of course, the Marlins won.
This spring, nearly all the limited partners received World Series rings, even as they continued to sue Loria and Major League Baseball for racketeering in U.S. District Court.