Inside Pitch by Rick Allen

Author:Rick Allen [Allen, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

11

Searching for Home Plate

By late August, speculation was rampant about whether the Pilots would survive in Seattle. Attendance, the key source of income for sustainability, was obviously much lower than anticipated, and the danger signals were loud and clear. The papers were on it; the radio voices were on it; the TV newscasters were on it.

Potential local buyers were popping up with some regularity, but most had the same problems as the Sorianos: they couldn’t carry the huge loan balances, as they, too, were undercapitalized.

Meanwhile, the deep-pocketed co-owner from Cleveland had opted out of any further investment. The team still had less-than-needed radio revenue, no TV profit-sharing revenue, only 20 percent of concession revenue, and a stadium that was falling apart . . . on which they had to pay rent to the City of Seattle. Bank of California was not in a cooperating mood, either, sitting on an outstanding $4 million loan. They expected to be paid off as a part of any change in ownership.

One by one, local options were eliminated as the league reviewed proposals. One included the idea of a nonprofit team, but the other MLB team owners rejected that by one vote as the majority thought it might devalue their own teams. Other options included lovers of baseball, as the Sorianos were, but local proposals, one by one, fell short.

“Regretfully, I couldn’t help the guy who first hired me in baseball, Edo Vanni,” Bob recalls. “Edo kept asking me for financials on the Pilots as they continued to struggle; I think he was trying to put something together to buy the team. I told him he’d have to go to Dewey himself to get those. Edo said he couldn’t do that, having already been demoted by Dewey, so I went to Dewey myself and asked if I could give Edo the financials. Dewey blew up and gave me a firm no, then later let Edo go in the end, probably one of our more positive administrators and baseball guys. I felt badly about that.

“Another local option was a local guy, Fred Danz, who seemed a little slick around the edges. Whenever he came around to discuss the team, he gave us all tickets to the theaters he owned, sort of acting like he was throwing money around like a big shot. Turns out when some of us used the tickets, there was a ‘service charge’ on them that he forgot to mention. Danz wanted to appear as if he had deep pockets, but with a little sniffing it was clear his ‘deep pockets’ weren’t nearly deep enough to purchase the team. His ‘free’ tickets that weren’t really free were a clue.” Danz offered up a deal in November 1969, and his application was approved by the American League, but when it came time to put the money on the table, Danz either didn’t have it or just decided not to do it. By December, that option was gone.

By late fall and heading into the dark

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