I’ve been hearing that the winning bidder for the Rangers is going to be announced this week. Today SI’s Jon Heyman reports that a front runner has emerged:
Former baseball superagent Dennis Gilbert and his ownership group
have emerged in recent days as the surprise frontrunner to buy the Texas Rangers SI has learned. The
deal is not believed finalized yet, but the winning bid is expected to
be “north of $500 million,” according to people familiar with the
talks.
Gilbert used to represent Barry Bonds, George Brett and Jose Canseco. He’s a Beverly Hills estate planner and insurance man by trade. His website claims that he “revolutionized the sport of baseball through developing the free agent system.” I’m guessing that Marvin Miller, Curt Flood, Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally would be curious to know that. Murray Chass has a pretty good takedown of the claim. Murray also notes that Gilbert is a former assistant to and good friend of White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, and if you know anything about how ownership politics works in baseball, you know that being one of Jerry’s boys makes you one of Bud Selig’s boys, and that puts you at the front of any line you wanna be in.
Anyway, it certainly will be interesting for the guy who claims to have invented the very institution that has led to such high player salaries to show up at the owners’ meetings this winter. They’d probably greet him with a beating from a bag of doorknobs. It will also be interesting to see a well-heeled Beverly Hills businessman to take over a Dallas sports team. Think he’s gonna make a lot of home games?
