Major League Baseball is reportedly on the verge of naming the new owner of the Washington Nationals, and the D.C. Council voted Tuesday to let the league make its call without interference.
MLB Commissioner Bud Selig reportedly favors the group led by Ted Lerner, his family and former Atlanta Braves President Stan Kasten. Bethesda-based Lerner built a real estate empire and was one of the first to develop malls in the D.C. area.
Council members Tuesday struck down an emergency, nonbinding “sense of the council” resolution urging MLB to sell the team to either Fred Malek and Jeffrey Zients or Jeffrey Smulyan.
Both bid groups, the resolution’s proponents said, have more black members than the Lerner group and are therefore more representative of D.C. as a whole. But the resolution was struck down by a 10-3 vote.
“In 2006, we shouldn’t have to tell a potential owner to go get some people of color,” said Ward 8Council Member Marion Barry, who co-introduced the resolution.
Council Member David Catania, I-at large, called the legislation “foolish” and a “feel-good measure” that baseball will simply ignore.
Asians, Hispanics, women and gays aren’t well-represented on the Malek/Zients or Smulyan teams, Catania said, so those groups are not representative either.
In any case, opponents of the resolution said, the city has already made clear its desire to see minorities well-represented in the Nationals’ new ownership team.
“This is a sense of the council,” said Council Chairman Linda Cropp. “It will not amount to a hill of beans.”
Barry and Ward 5 Council Member Vincent Orange on Monday criticized the Lerner bid for a perceived lack of minority representation, which reportedly reaffirmed Selig’s resolve.
– Examiner Staff Writer Bill Myers contributed to this report.
