As of Monday, the Washington Nationals will no longer be the only baseball team without an owner, because that’s when the sale of the team to The Lerner Group will be finalized.
WASHINGTON — On a day when the Nationals revealed their new fan experience and had a come-from-behind victory at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium on Friday, incoming president Stan Kasten announced that the sale of the club will be finalized on Monday.
The money to buy the club will be wired to Major League Baseball on Monday morning to make it official. The sale price is $450 million. The paper work between the Lerner group, led by Theodore N. Lerner and his son, Mark, was completed during the series opener between the Nationals and Cubs.
“It’s obviously too late [to wire the money] tonight,” Kasten announced during the eighth inning in which the Nationals rallied to defeat the Cubs, 7-6. “The wiring offices are not open. On Monday, we will officially own the team.”
And that’s one part of the District that I wouldn’t risk carrying around that much cash.
Seriously, though, this can only be good news for the Nationals. They’ve suffered from not having an owner since moving here. Sure, they’ve been “owned” by Major League Baseball but what they need, which they will now have, is someone with the incentive to invest the money that’s needed to build the team up.
To mark the ocassion, the Nats returned today to a refurbished RFK Stadium
Last year, the Nationals’ first season in Washington, the atmosphere at RFK was electric, especially during a stretch when the team was actually in pennant contention. This year, fans haven’t exactly been fired up by a pitching-starved team that could be on the verge of unloading one of its biggest stars, left fielder Alfonso Soriano.
Behind the scenes, it’s not much better. Major League Baseball is accusing the D.C. government of missing deadlines that could threaten the April 2008 opening of a new ballpark. The stadium is supposed to be a showplace — suitable for the contending team that the Lerner family has promised to build. It will be nothing like the spartan RFK, with its peeling paint and weatherworn exterior.
The Lerner family even cut prices, starting next week, on some tickets. The owners have made an appeal to families with new fun zones with batting games. And they stocked more than 100 new concession stands, with new offerings to go along with the traditional standbys.
Kellie and I will be returning to RFK in August to see the Nationals take on the Mets and it will be interesting to see how things have changed since our trip there last month. In the long run, though, the Nats need a stadium of their own. RFK was built for football, not baseball, and can’t compare to places like Camden Yards.
