I've said it before but I'll say it again. While there are better owners, most of them are usually worse. Ted wanted to win and when the Nats needed to spend money to keep or get the players they needed to make that happen he spent that money. It's hard to complain about that too much.
Would it have been nice to spend money also when you were not good to be not terrible? Yes. That's a simple answer. But that didn't seem to matter to him. He wasn't win at all costs. He was win at a reasonable cost (with a good idea of what that actually meant - not a euphemism for cheap) when there was a reasonable expectation that could happen.
But most owners are "winning is a nice side benefit" types who are mostly interested in making money from the team. Ted didn't seem to be that - or at least wasn't until the recession hit his real estate. We don't really know. Strasburg and Corbin ending up being the exact wrong horses to bet on makes just as much sense for the complete tear down.
Back to the top though - He bought a team at 80 and won a title before he went. Good for him.
3 comments:
Fair winds and following seas, Mr. Lerner. 97 years is an excellent run, and I'll always appreciate your hand in setting it up so that my brother and I could walk through Nats Park after the WS Game 7 Watch Party singing "We Are the Champions" at the top of our lungs.
Mr Lerner, hats off. You went from worst to World Series champs in ten years, you bought the team, you put in the management, you put up the cash for the free agents, you built the new park. Really. You did it.
Hooray. In America's unrelenting neo-liberal landscape -- where the only viable way for a sports team to be built is to have a billionaire and his agencies put up the money. Buy the team, the free agents, the players, the support.
When the Vince Lombardi trophy was awarded this week, it wasn't first handed to the players or the coaches or the fans or the management team. No. It went to the billionaire owner of the Chiefs because, god forbid, that Kansas City run would not have been possible without the money bags that made it all possible.
Totally agree Harper, well said
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