Stadium For Rent: 10. Can't Tell The Players Without A Scorecard

STADIUM FOR RENT:
Tampa Bay's Quest for Major League Baseball
By BOB ANDELMAN

10. Can't Tell The Players
Without A Scorecard

"No matter how baseball comes out, I believe our community
is far stronger than it was eight years ago.
The baseball chase changed the region permanently."
-- Frank Morsani, President, Tampa Bay Baseball Group

Euphoria about Tampa Bay's new cross-bay partnership was short-lived for Frank Morsani and Rick Dodge, although both kept up the appearance that all was well.

The reality was too depressing.

Morsani's finances were in critical condition, victim of a hit-and-run driver. His longtime baseball partner Bill Mack was generally believed to be behind the wheel.

The oral agreement between the pair called for the car dealer to be out front, handling day-to-day opportunities, details and deals. Mack was expected to magically appear, checkbook in hand, whenever a deal appeared imminent.

Over the years, the Tampa Bay Baseball Group's expenses mounted. Its lease with the Tampa Sports Authority for land beside Tampa Stadium cost $5,000 a year. TBBG members traveled to baseball's annual winter meetings, All-Star Games and the World Series. Most all the bills were paid out of Morsani's pocket. According to Morsani and others, Mack spent $50,000 for two shares of the Tampa Bay Baseball Group in 1982 and never invested another dime. (Mack declined to be interviewed.) TBBG executive director Cedric Tallis shared the leasing office at Mack's One Mack Center in downtown Tampa, but even that was at a price.

"The baseball group paid rent on it for a long time," Morsani says. "Mack was supposed to provide it [rent-free] but something fell through the cracks and the baseball group paid $1,000 a month for a long time."

That was chump change compared to Morsani's baseball-related bank loans.

"I borrowed $3.15-million," Morsani says. "The baseball group had to pay architects because we were designing a stadium. I paid the $100,000 architectural fees. We had to pay $100,000 to tear down Al Lopez Field. I paid that personally. The group was supposed to. Others in the group were told I was having problems; they could have participated. I kind of [bear] responsibility in that I didn't necessarily ask them. I felt that Bill Mack was going to participate with me even though we did not have a signed agreement. He never did. I kept pumping all the money into it. It was maybe naive on my part but that's what I did."

When the TBBG's money ran out -- nine shares were sold in 1982 for $25,000 each, although not everyone paid up -- Morsani paid nearly 11 percent interest on the $3.15-million loans, $325,000 to $350,000 per year. He paid Cedric Tallis' salary and expenses. Morsani's total, out of pocket for that period was $2-million, "real cash that I wrote checks for," he says.

"I talked to Bill and I asked him to help me financially," Morsani says. "I thought that he was genuine about moving forward. He needed to come to the party and pay nearly 60 percent of the costs that I had put out. I tried for a long time to work out an agreement with Bill. It was never satisfactory. We could never get agreement on percentages. I certainly had some disappointment that he never helped me cash-wise. "

Even when the Tampa Bay Baseball Group nearly purchased the Twins and Rangers, it was Morsani who wrote the good faith deposit checks to Calvin Griffith, Gabe Murphy and Eddie Chiles. Mack showed up each time but he never had to open his checkbook. If Morsani wanted it so badly, let him pay for the "incidentals."
* * *

As 1990 began, baseball was on the verge of its first expansion in 15 years. Morsani geared up for one more big push and he needed Mack's financial support to make it over the hump. Morsani's personal bank accounts were exhausted.

Rick Dodge learned second-hand of Morsani's financial distress, confirmed it with the car dealer and got a little nervous.

"I found out that Frank took on the debt of the whole Tampa Bay Baseball Group in exchange for them basically shutting up and going away, not interfering with getting [the St. Petersburg] deal done," Dodge says. "He hadn't done that at our behest but it worked. It happened to be the best thing for us, too."

The bad news traveled fast. As lease negotiations between St. Petersburg and Morsani and Mack's MXM Corp. neared completion, Dodge heard from friends in baseball that the City of St. Petersburg ought to choose its partners carefully, hinting that Morsani either had financial problems or simply might not be acceptable to baseball. There was also a hint that Mack, not Morsani, was the problem, that baseball's owners had soured on the wealthy real estate developer.

"I got a call from Reinsdorf," Dodge says. "He said, 'There are other elephants out there in the jungle. I don't know who is going to be selected but just play it safe. Be open-minded if other people come forward. Don't sign a deal with any ownership group, specifically, because if you select the wrong group you are going to lose out.' "

Reinsdorf put Dodge in an awkward position. Knowledge was good, but Dodge needed to maintain the appearance of regional unity and positivism. And he genuinely admired Morsani. So while he looked for ways to prop Morsani up in the event Mack pulled out, Dodge kept watch for new beasts in the jungle. He also de-emphasized the lease prepared for Morsani and Mack.

"What we ended up with with Frank was a letter of intent," Dodge says. "It was not binding on either party. But there wasn't any way that we were going to say that Frank was not acceptable. Besides, we thought he was."

Parallel -- but opposing -- events were taking place. St. Petersburg signed Morsani up but Morsani couldn't sign Mack up. Dodge wondered if Mack's position was that of ambivalence or of a cautious negotiator. Maybe Mack thought it advantageous to keep St. Petersburg in a weak position so he could squeeze the city later, when he got a franchise.

It wasn't easy for Morsani to let on to anyone that every time he looked over his shoulder, a financial nightmare was gaining on him.

"Frank came from the Harry Truman school," Dodge says. " 'Never complain, never explain.' Frank was reluctant to share his problems. Not because he was embarrassed by them but because he didn't want to burden people."

Over the course of his career, Morsani saved many deals at the last minute. He hoped for a solution and a last-minute rescue. Maybe Mack would come through. Maybe some other answer would emerge.

Morsani believed in happy endings.
* * *

Morsani approached Guy Bostick, a refrigerated trucking magnate in Auburndale, Florida, to join the Tampa Bay Baseball Group during the 1980s. They had met while serving together on the board of a local bank. But the elder Bostick thought baseball a rather speculative investment at the time.

By the time Morsani came calling again in 1990, Guy's younger son Mark had stepped into his father's shoes as president of Comcar Industries. Mark knew if ever the time was right, this was it.

"I am a real sports fan," Bostick says. "I like baseball a lot. But I didn't want it to be a charity, a black hole that you throw a lot of dollars down. And I wasn't looking for it to being a home run, either. Somebody told me the reason they wanted to be involved in baseball was because of all the deals you got exposed to. That may be, but that's not the reason to be involved in baseball. To me, if you are fortunate enough to be involved as an owner, you're really the steward of the team for the community."

Bostick was born in Auburndale, 30 miles east of Tampa. He learned early on that impossible odds could be beat: Disease disintegrated his hip sockets when he was in the first grade, forcing him to use crutches for four years. Bostick was not someone who took no for an answer.

"I remember the day the doctor said I could walk again," Bostick says. "I took a step and fell flat." In the fourth grade he had to learn how to walk again, but eventually recovered enough to play Little League baseball. One day he'll face surgery for hip replacement although he generally gets around without pain.

Bostick earned a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's degree in business from Tulane in 1977. From the time he was 10 years old, he hung around the Comcar offices, working weekends and summers with his dad. He directed all his education toward making a career alongside Guy Bostick in the trucking business.

Comcar, one of the largest private trucking companies in the United States, was a privately held company with revenues of more than $220-million in 1990.

Something beside cash made Bostick especially attractive to Morsani.

The Bosticks did a great deal of business with Westinghouse, whose No. 1 man, Douglas Danforth, just happened to moonlight as chairman and chief executive officer of the Pittsburgh Pirates. And Bostick's older brother, Bill, knew the Boston Red Sox people very well as a result of attending the University of Florida with Sox owner Haywood Sullivan.
* * *

Truck dealer Lance Ringhaver once told auto dealer Frank Morsani that if the Tampa Bay Baseball Group ever had room for one more person, or if Morsani ever needed another investor, please call.

In 1990, Morsani called.

"He said he had asked several people and he had an opening," Ringhaver says. "Mark Bostick had been invited and since I knew Mark, maybe I'd join up, too."

Ringhaver, an enthusiastic sports booster at his alma mater, the University of Florida, was a baseball fan from way back. He first tasted the game as a bat boy on his father's company ball team and later played in the Pee Wee League. As he grew up, he loved to watch the game.

In 1961, Ringhaver and his father started Ring Power Corp. in St. Augustine, Florida. The company started as the Caterpillar engine franchise for North and Central Florida, growing to cover 44 of Florida's 67 counties. Lance Ringhaver became president of the heavy equipment company in 1976 and later added the title of chairman of the board. He operates Ringhaver Equipment Co.'s Central Florida companies out of Tampa and his brother Randal oversees North Florida operations of Ring Power in Jacksonville. Annual sales reached $400-million in 1990.

When the potential to own a piece of a major league franchise arose, it sounded too good to be true. "I initially thought it was fairly profitable," he says. "Reading about George Steinbrenner, the Yankees, his television contract, it was a pretty picture."

Ringhaver and the Bostick family were friends over two generations. Ringhaver met Morsani almost as soon as the car dealer came to town. Morsani was easy to know in the community. They also shared a love of the soil and engines. Morsani's career made him one of Tampa Bay's leading dealers of new cars; Ringhaver was one of the state's largest sellers of Caterpillar earth-moving vehicles.

"I liked Lance," Morsani says. "He was a very genuine guy. No big flair -- just get the job done."

The deal Morsani proposed to Ringhaver and Bostick all but cut out his original gang at the TBBG. The new guys would become the majority investors in pursuing an expansion franchise, each taking a 45 percent interest. "They both felt they could handle whatever the figure was. I never got into their finances. I never saw their financial statements," Morsani says.

"We'd both have gone to the bank," Ringhaver says of himself and Bostick. "We didn't have it sitting around. There's no doubt we'd be pretty well going into hock individually; I'd be going to my pocket, not my company's."

The remaining 10 percent would be Morsani's (less a fraction of the action for the TBBG) as compensation for the time and $2-million he already invested. The remaining $65-million of the expansion fee would be raised by SunBank of Tampa Bay through a limited partnership.

"We always felt that we had to expand the ownership group," Morsani says.

Morsani says he warned his new partners about the rocky state of his personal finances and that one of his banks might call in a loan. They knew he was in trouble and structured their partnership so that Morsani bore no responsibility for a cash investment. Morsani invited them to the table, knew his way around and possessed a decade of experience with baseball. He was worth a 10 percent stake if the partnership succeeded. Further, Ringhaver and Bostick were prepared to assume the Tampa Bay Baseball Group's debt if they were awarded a team, greatly reducing the pressure on Morsani.

What mattered most to Ringhaver as an investor was staying in the background. Much as he loved the game, he already ran a demanding company, one that took virtually all of his time and energy, day in and day out. "I never wanted to be a major part of the team but Frank wanted to keep it small. And it was easier to make decisions without a big committee," Ringhaver says.

The new Morsani group met two or three times a month, sometimes more. Ringhaver's primary responsibility was to work with Bostick to develop a line of credit for the partnership. Beyond that, Bostick and Morsani handled all the baseball-related responsibilities because they had all the contacts.

Bill Mack was the odd man out, although Morsani, Ringhaver and Bostick still wanted him in. Not just for cash but for continuity and appearance. "We kept hearing from Jim Cusack [Mack's Tampa attorney and himself a TBBG member] that [Mack] was interested, that he didn't want to be shut out," Ringhaver says. "We offered him this, we offered him that. We spent considerable time in meetings, on conference calls, working on drafts of partnership agreements. The attorneys spent a lot of time on this. I thought sometimes we were getting the cart before the horse, trying to nail so many things down."

In the midst of negotiations, Mack announced he was going to Europe. He instructed the Florida businessmen that his attorney had full authority. Of course, the attorney said, "I can't speak for Bill Mack." (It was the second time Morsani heard that refrain; the first time was from Minnesota Twins owner Calvin Griffith and his lawyer in 1984.)

Mack kept Morsani, Ringhaver and Bostick revving their motors for months, generating legal and accounting fees but never getting anywhere.

"I never did quite understand," Morsani says. "Why couldn't we go ahead and get the deal done and work out the details later? His attitude was, 'Let's get it all written up in black and white and dot the i's and cross the t's. Then we'll go forward.' I said, 'Bill, we are going to be honorable men and work out an agreement later,' and he would say, 'That is just not the way I want to operate.' He would tell you that he would do anything he signed. 'If I don't sign it, don't plan on me doing it.' "

Morsani organized a meeting with Mack at Tampa International Airport, availing himself of one of the Hillsborough Aviation Authority's meeting rooms (Morsani was chairman of the authority).

"[Mack] hashed out his concerns, the money he spent, how he knew everyone in baseball. He was very confident and high on himself to say the least," Ringhaver says. "Mark and I didn't get to say a word. He went on for half an hour. We owed him, he had done so much, we wouldn't be anywhere if it weren't for him. He didn't like comments that he wasn't part of the group, that he was stampeded by local guys he didn't know. He had written big checks and he shouldn't be questioned.

"That meeting gave me the impression he'd be a hard guy to work with," Ringhaver says. He knew that it was Morsani, not the deep-pocketed Mack, who had been making the interest payments on TBBG loans over the years. He wondered where Mack's money was, then. "The more I thought about it," he says, "this was not the partner I wanted. I didn't think he treated Frank fairly or right. But Frank was the one who held allegiance to the fella, who thought that maybe we owed it to him.

"You never know who'll want to buy a car. You look at Frank, he has no enemies, lots of friends. Maybe he should have run for office," Ringhaver says. "He didn't want to burn any bridges with Mack."

Later on, Bostick traveled to New Jersey to see Mack. The meeting was unproductive. Over lunch, Bostick learned what Morsani had long feared, that the developer did not want to pick up the tab for the millions the TBBG and Morsani already spent in pursuit of baseball.

"It got somewhat complicated," Bostick says. "There were all kinds of deals being flipped on the table. I don't think anybody was going to have 51 percent. I don't remember what the final deal was. There were some deals where Bill was going to be putting money up. There were some deals where he wasn't going to put any money up.

"I got along with him fine," Bostick says. "But we just got down to the point where we had to have our application in by a certain day and we had to go on without him."

Mack kept saying he had a financial statement that would look good in the group's presentation. But, Ringhaver says, "We could never find out what he wanted or would pay."

The deadline for Mack's decision came and passed. Ringhaver was not a man to play games in business. A quiet man not unlike his partners, he announced it was time for Mack to swing for the fences or hit the showers.

"If you want him in," Ringhaver told Morsani and Bostick, "I want out. I don't like him. How could we run a baseball club with him? We'll never know what he wants."

Morsani agreed. He signed the partnership agreement with Bostick and Ringhaver. "We went through all the legalities," Ringhaver says. "It seemed to me, in retrospect, that all that time should have been spent on baseball, meeting a few of the owners."
* * *

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