From the Archives
August 12, 2000

The Corked Bat President

August 12, 2000

Presidential politics and baseball are both as American as throwing out the first ball of the season. William Howard Taft, our Ruthian 27th President, initiated the practice in 1909, and it's been an annual rite since. Not only was baseball then a consuming national passion, thus making the first pitch a good photo op, it drew a contrast between Taft and his onetime mentor-turned-enemy, Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy had intervened in national controversies surrounding violence in college football, considered by the public of the time to be the game of spoiled upper class brats, and he reportedly detested baseball. Baseball, historian David Voigt reported in his three-volume American Baseball, had been played by all but two members of the 1910 Congress, the two exceptions both having suffered from physical handicaps. It was a simple contrast then for the electorate to make: baseball was the game of the people, football of the moneyed elite.

Ever since, while all Presidents have liked to associate themselves with baseball, dogs, and sick children during the campaign season, there's been a clear set of baseball presidents and football presidents.

Franklin Roosevelt? One of the great fans of the game -- he didn't cancel baseball during World War II, unlike Woodrow Wilson in the Great War in 1918. Baseball President. John F. Kennedy? Think Kennedy, it's hard not to think touch football on the lawn in Hyannisport. Jimmy Carter still hangs out at Turner Field, and can talk the game in great detail. Richard Nixon reportedly called football plays in to the Washington Senators in mid-game. (In fairness to Nixon's baseball credentials, it should be noted that George Steinbrenner was convicted of a felony charge of illegal contributions to the 1972 Nixon Re-Election campaign.) Dutch Reagan? He might've been confused, having played both George Gipp and Grover Cleveland Alexander on film, but confusion and Reagan are practically synonymous.

But the great Baseball President, without a doubt, has to be George Herbert Walker Bush. Bush, after all, was Captain of a fair Yale baseball team back when Ivy League teams were still respectable, well-enough thought of in his time to have been introduced with special care to Babe Ruth himself, as you may have seen in a celebrated photo of the two shaking hands. By all accounts, he's still a great fan of the game.

So, as you may have heard, this year Bush's son is running for President.

Double-Ya's baseball credentials compared to his dad's seem approximately equivalent to comparing the elder Bush's service as an aviator in World War II to Double-Ya's Vietnam-era hitch in the Texas Air National Guard. A pale imitation for the resumé, with help from some good old buddies. Bush fils wasn't as adept as his dad at playing the game, and didn't have strong associations with the game until he bought an entire Major League Franchise, the Texas Rangers, in 1989.

I think it's entirely fair to review Double-Ya's involvement with the Rangers, since this is his sole private-sector achievement, and a prominent part of his resumé. Bush, after all, is given credit for running a successful business enterprise. And as baseball fans, we're told at the time of record attendance and revenues that the game is somehow in an economic crisis. You know, kind of like having a record-setting economy for the last ten years but somehow Social Security is still broke. If baseball is our particular prism on the world, as fans we might even have special insight into the Bush, Junior Presidential qualifications, since presumably what he did for the Rangers he plans to do for the country.

In having stated Bush "bought" the Rangers, I should note that's not entirely true. Bush bought a tiny portion of the Texas Rangers. In 1989, coming from what may charitably be called a mixed record of running various oil enterprises, Bush was part of a group of investors that bought the club for $86 million. Bush's total investment was $606,000, of which $500,000 came as a loan from a Midland, Texas bank where Bush was on the board of directors. For this, he initially got 1.8% of the team, the smallest portion of ownership among the new partners, but was nevertheless named managing partner. He had no baseball experience, no real business management success on his record. Did his assuming the mantle of figurehead of the new team have anything to do with name recognition, given his Dad had just been elected President? You make the call.

One thing is quite certain. During Bush's tenure with the Rangers, the club got a tremendous asset added to its ledger: the Ballpark at Arlington. The Rangers were rumored to be heading out of town prior to the Bush group's acquisition. However, after the Bush group took over, the State of Texas and the City of Arlington funded the construction of the new Ballpark at Arlington, largely with a local sales tax. The Government also supplied the power of Eminent Domain, to force private owners of land to be used for the ballpark to sell -- in some instances at below fair-market prices -- including hundreds of acres around the new ballpark that have since been developed for non-baseball enterprises. Unlike other publicly-funded new ballparks, the Ballpark and surrounding acreage was deeded to the club in exchange for a total of $60 million in "rent" payments. Meaning, in short, the whole schmeer is now property of the Rangers. One might charitably call this a rather extreme case of corporate welfare.

Were the Rangers a success under Bush's guidance? Let's start on-field. Well, they never won anything on Bush's watch, and are oh for nine in the post-season since. Bush has stated the biggest regret of his adult life was having traded Sammy Sosa to the White Sox. But then again, Bush never claimed any acumen at the baseball side of things.

However, we may use Calvin Coolidge's claim that "the business of America is business" and instead judge Double-ya on the economic success of the team. The Major League Baseball Blue Ribbon Commission on the Economics of baseball reported (p. 49) that the Texas Rangers lost an average of $7 million a year from 1995, when Bush began to sell the team, through 1999. This commission, it should be noted, included former Democratic Senator George Mitchell, columnist George Will, and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Paul Volcker: bipartisan to a fault.

Blame the economics of baseball if you want to, but here's another fact for you: when Bush's group finalized the sale of the team in 1998, the sale price was $250 million. The value had appreciated nearly 300% in eight years -- this during a time when there was a baseball strike and attendance plummeted. Bush had been "awarded" an additional 10% of the team by the board of directors in the interim, so his gain on his initial $606,000 investment (only $106,000 out of pocket) was a whopping 4900%. [more]

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Putting it another way: if the Lords of Baseball are to believed about their operating losses, during a time in which, on an investment of $86 million, the Rangers lost in the region of $70 million, the franchise still went up in value about $164 million.

Let me give you an analogy you might be better able to relate to. Suppose you buy a house for $89,000. You only have $106 to put down on the house, but get a great mortgage from a pal for the rest of the down payment of 1.8%, though, at a low interest rate. The house is a bit run-down, to be sure, and you end up putting $7000 a year into it in repairs and utilities and so forth just to keep it habitable, but again, your buddies supply the money for your expenses. However, the Government (did I mention a lot of your buddies have Government ties?) magically comes along and gives you $500,000 to tear down the old house and build a new one on its spot, with no strings attached other than asking for $60,000 back in "rent". In fact, they waive your property taxes on top of everything. After ten years, you sell the house for $250,000, and end up walking away with $30,000 on your $106 investment.

Now, you're clearly "successful" in your real estate venture if we count the amount of money you took away. But the value you added? It came from the taxpayers' pockets. Now, does this success qualify you to be Mayor of your city?

Hey, I'm glad as a baseball fan for the people of the Dallas- Fort Worth area that they got to keep baseball. But if you're a politician running on a record of "personal responsibility" and decrying governmental support, it's more than a tad hypocritical that your great management achievement in life was largely due to the government using its power and money to support you.

Let me get to the crux of the reason why I, as a baseball fan, am distrustful of Bush's record in baseball as a qualification for high office. It's called Leadership. Bush was actively involved in management from 1989 to 1995, the time of baseball's worst turmoil since the Black Sox. There was a judgement against the baseball owners for collusion, the labor lockout of 1994, the hiring of replacement players in 1995, a plummet in the game's image. Billionaires and milllionaires couldn't agree on a split, and the ordinary fan suffered. Where was Double-Ya during all this? I find his name to be conspicuously absent from any public commentary of the era, and for that matter, it's clear baseball couldn't save itself. If a man can't even be a leader in his own industry, a small industry at that, and one with only 28 owners at the time -- if a person in that position can't demonstrate leadership, how can we honestly expect such a person to lead the whole country?

So, you want an endorsement from The Crank for the best candidate to be the Baseball President? Me, I think the game is best left as a private enterprise, without big government giving it handouts. If the Lords of Baseball really understood that, they wouldn't need a Blue Ribbon commission or be squawking about big market vs. small market, they'd be revenue sharing. If I want my government run like a baseball franchise, I don't want the Texas Rangers as my model.

Your best bet may thus be to pull the lever for Ralph Nader, who's adamantly against corporate welfare -- after all, Green is the color of the baseball field.
The Baseball Crank may be contacted at crank@thediamondangle.com.
(c) 2001 Matthew Wall/The Baseball Crank.