Washington Nationals owner Ted Lerner dies at 97 - MLB

WASHINGTON — Ted Lerner, the billionaire real estate developer whose family bought the Washington Nationals in 2006, has died, the team announce. He was 97.

A Nationals spokesperson said Lerner died Sunday of complications from pneumonia at his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Lerner’s group purchased the Nationals from Major League Baseball in 2006 for $450 million after the team was moved to the U.S. capital from Montreal. He was managing principal owner until ceding that role to son Mark in 2018.

Under the Lerners’ ownership, the Nationals went from one of baseball’s worst teams in their first several seasons in Washington to World Series champions in 2019. The Lerners also are credited with revitalizing the city’s Navy Yard area since Nationals Park opened in 2008.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Founding Managing Principal Owner Theodore N. Lerner,” the team said in a statement. “The crowning achievement of his family business was bringing baseball back to the city he loved – and with it, bringing a championship home for the first time since 1924. He cherished the franchise and what it brought to his beloved hometown.”

Lerner was born in 1925, the year after the Washington Senators beat the New York Giants in the World Series. That franchise left the city in 1960 to become the Minnesota Twins, and its expansion replacement lasted a decade before moving to Texas as the Rangers.

Washington did not have a baseball team until MLB assumed control of the Expos and moved them there from Montreal in 2005. The group led by the Lerners was chosen as the winning bidder.

Last year, the Lerners began exploring the possibility of selling the team, which is worth $2 billion, according to Forbes, which estimates the family’s net worth is $6.6 billion thanks to the Nationals and Lerner Enterprises, one of the largest property-owning companies in the Washington area.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred in a statement called Lerner “an extraordinary American success story” – a former stadium usher who brought baseball back to prominence in the nation’s capital.

“I have great appreciation for Ted’s impact on his hometown and the game he loved,” Manfred said. “The Nationals have always remained loyal to Ted’s vision of unity, philanthropy and civic pride in Washington.”

MIAMI — Trea Turner and Paul Goldschmidt and an unrelenting U.S. lineup kept putting crooked numbers on the scoreboard, a dynamic display of the huge gap between an American team of major leaguers and Cubans struggling on the world stage as top players have left the island nation.

Turner homered twice to give him a tournament-leading four, driving in four runs to lead the U.S. to a 14-2 rout Sunday night and advance the defending champion Americans to the World Baseball Classic final.

Goldschmidt also homered and had four RBIs and Cedric Mullins went deep in a game interrupted three times by fans running on the field to display protest signs.

“The team kind of represents the government over there, and people aren’t too happy about it,” U.S. manager Mark DeRosa said.

The U.S. plays Japan or Mexico in Tuesday night’s championship, trying to join the Samurai Warriors as the only nations to win the title twice.

“I think it took us a little bit of time, but now we kind of found our stride a little bit,” Turner said.

Turner has a tournament-leading 10 RBIs. He followed his go-ahead, eighth-inning grand slam a night earlier against Venezuela with a solo homer in the second inning off Roenis Elias (0-1) and a three-run drive in the sixth against Elian Leyva.

“I kept saying every time he went deep, who is the idiot that’s hitting him ninth?” DeRosa said.

Cuba went ahead when its first four batters reached off Adam Wainwright (2-0) without getting a ball out of the infield. The 41-year-old right-hander recovered to strand the bases loaded.

“I put myself in that situation in the first place by making horrible PFP plays — or not making PFP plays,” Wainwright said in a reference to pitchers’ fielding practice.

American batters had 14 hits, including eight for extra bases, and seven walks. Goldschmidt hit a go-ahead, two-run homer in the first on a 112 mph rocket high over the left-field wall. He added a two-run single in the fifth.

“For me that was one of my favorite home runs I’ve ever hit in my entire life,” Goldschmidt said.

St. Louis third baseman Nolan Arenado left after he was hit on a hand by a pitch in the fifth inning, briefly raising another injury concern before X-rays came back as negative. Mets closer Edwin Díaz sustained a season-ending knee injury during the celebration that followed Puerto Rico’s win on Wednesday and Houston second baseman Jose Altuve broke a thumb when hit by a pitch while playing for Venezuela on Saturday.

Fans in the sellout crowd of 35,779 at loanDepot Park sounded evenly split between the U.S. and Cuba. Several hundred people gathered before the game outside the ballpark in Miami’s Little Havana section to protest the presence of the Cuban team, whose island nation has been under communist rule since 1959.

Play was briefly interrupted in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings when fans ran onto the field. The first held a banner that read “Libertad Para Los Presos Cubanos del 11 de Julio (Freedom for the Cuban Prisoners of July 11)” referring to the date of 2021 demonstrations.

“There were provocations, but we never paid attention to it,” Cuba manager Armando Johnson said.

Cuban fans roared in the early going when their team’s first four batters strung together three infield hits and a bases-loaded walk. Wainwright allowed one run and five hits in four innings. Cardinals teammate Miles Mikolas followed with four innings and Aaron Loup finished.

An Olympic gold medalist in 1992, 1996 and 2004, Cuba’s national team has struggled in recent years as many top players left for MLB. Cuba failed to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Games.

Cuba for the first time this year is using some players under contract to MLB clubs, including Chicago White Sox Gold Glove centerfielder Luis Robert and third baseman Yoán Moncada — who were booed. But many Cuban big leaguers were absent.

“We would like for the other players to join,” Johnson said. “They should think about it and return to Cuba.”

SECOND GUESSED

DeRosa on what he did after Saturday night’s come-from-behind quarterfinal win over Venezuela.

“I was reading how horrible a manager I was on social media first,” he said.

OTHER SIDE OF THE BRACKET

In the other semifinal, Japan starts 21-year-old sensation Roki Sasaki against Mexico and the Los Angeles Angels’ Patrick Sandoval on Monday night.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Moncada left after the third baseman collided in the sixth inning with left fielder Roel Santos, who caught Kyle Schwarber’s fly. Moncada was hit on the ribs but is OK, Johnson said.

UP NEXT

Arizona RHP Merrill Kelly is likely to start the final.