Stan Kasten’s sentence is up at the end of this year. So Thursday at Nationals Park, he declared himself a free man.
Kasten, the team president and minority owner — who merged with the Lerner family for the successful purchase of the Washington Nationals in 2006 — made it official before Thursday’s game against the Houston Astros that he is resigning as team president at the end of this season.
This coincides with the end of a five-year contract Kasten signed with the Lerners that quickly became more of a sentence than a presidential term.
Being president of the Washington Nationals didn’t turn out to be what Kasten expected. As we have seen time and time again in sports, successful businessmen promise to be peaceful and quiet partners before the purchase of a franchise, but it often changes once the deal is done.
The Lerners made that clear from the start when they insisted that the team president would have to live with Lerner love child Jim Bowden as the general manager. Bowden left the franchise in disgrace in the spring of 2009.
If the team president — especially one with Kasten’s credentials — can’t pick the general manager, he might as well be interviewing hot dog vendors. Kasten, after all, is the former Braves boss who presided over three franchises at one time in Atlanta and has 30 playoff appearances to his credit.
If Kasten had a three-year contract, I am convinced he would have been gone at the end of the 2008 season, the first one at Nationals Park and the first of what is now three embarrassing seasons.
“He has wanted to get out for a long time,” said an industry source familiar with the situation. “He has been miserable for quite some time. He had no authority to do anything. He will say all the right things, but this has been below the surface for quite some time.”
Kasten said the right things when he met with reporters Thursday afternoon.
“This is just about me,” he said. “This has nothing to do with anybody else.”
The shame is baseball could have been something special in Washington right out of the gate. The Lerners were handed a new ballpark in one of the highest profile cities on the face of the earth, not to mention arguably the most successful sports executive of his time.
They managed to turn it all into 100-loss teams and empty stands.
The Lerners, of course, don’t see it that way.
“Over his tenure he has positioned the Nationals to become one of the most exciting franchises in baseball and we thank him for all that he has accomplished,” Ted Lerner said in a statement issued by the club.
The question now is this: Will the Lerners replace Kasten? They hired a chief operating officer last winter. And with Mike Rizzo firmly in place on the baseball side as general manager, it’s not clear what a team president would do, save for representing the Lerners as the spokesman for the franchise.
I’m sure Mark Lerner still has Jim Bowden’s phone number.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN 980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
