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

Former big leaguer turned Chicago White Sox broadcaster Ken "Hawk" Harrelson intended to challenge NBA Orlando Magic owner Bill duPont and Magic president Pat Williams for the right to represent Orlando when the time came for the National League to award expansion franchises.

But the flat response to the city's season-ticket campaign made Harrelson wonder if Central Florida was ready for baseball.

Then a little bull whispered in his ear: "Go west, young man, go west."

"Thanks, Jerry," the Hawk told the Bull.

Rick Dodge was the only one in St. Petersburg not surprised in April 1990 when Ken Harrelson and Sarasota, Fla.-based businessman Tom Hammons announced their intention of challenging Frank Morsani for ownership of a National League team in the Tampa Bay area. Chicago White Sox co-owner Jerry Reinsdorf already told Dodge that Harrelson was coming.

"The Hawk was a good friend of mine," Reinsdorf says. "I think I helped convince him that Orlando wasn't going to build a stadium, that he ought to go to St. Petersburg because that's the only place where there's a stadium."

Harrelson and retired Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Fame pitcher Don Drysdale worked in the White Sox broadcast booth when Reinsdorf hired the outspoken Hawk to be his general manager in 1986. He lasted in the position one week short of a year. Harrelson was the worst general manager Reinsdorf ever hired, he told Dodge, but he was a great guy. That's why, after firing the Hawk, Reinsdorf rehired him as one of the team's broadcast announcers. That's also why Reinsdorf steered Harrelson away from Orlando and toward Tampa Bay.

"Harrelson is one of the most charismatic people I've ever met," Dodge says. "He was real charming. You like him and you're comfortable with him right away."

As for Hammons, he would remain a mystery throughout the process, speaking to the media and St. Petersburg officials as little as possible. (He declined to be interviewed for this book.) This much is known: Hammons was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from The Ohio State University, where he played on the school's golf team. After a stint as an officer and pilot in the Air Force, he built a large financial empire from modest beginnings, at one time owning 35 Wendy's fast-food franchises in North Carolina. Hammons and his wife, Gerlinde, moved to Sarasota, 40 miles south of St. Petersburg, in 1980 and spread their investments across real estate, citrus and banking.

"I'm just a regular guy, not flamboyant," Hammons told St. Petersburg Times sportswriter Bruce Lowitt in a rare published interview. "But yes, I like my privacy. I'm not a public person . . . I'm not a publicity seeker. I'm not looking for a soapbox."

In their partnership, Hammons brought the cash, Harrelson the style and baseball contacts. The two were golfing buddies for 10 years when Hammons asked if he could help Harrelson acquire a team.

Hammons called up Dodge and asked for a meeting with city officials to introduce himself and discuss his plans.

"I want a level playing field," Hammons told Dodge, Mayor Bob Ulrich and city manager Bob Obering. Hammons indicated he would personally put up between $10-million and $25-million toward his group's investment.

Later, the group expanded to include Drysdale, the 1962 National League Cy Young Award winner, and Palm Beach, Florida, multimillionaire Abraham Gosman. Gosman was chairman of Meditrust, a $339-million health care company; Business Week named him a member of its "Corporate Elite" in 1991. The magazine wrote that he invested in nursing homes and substance abuse facilities. His greatest claim to fame? Selling a nursing home chain to Avon in 1986 for $240-million and buying it back three years later for $80-million.

Gosman met Harrelson when the Hawk played for the Boston Red Sox in the 1960s and met Hammons in the 1970s. Gosman told the Times he saw baseball as an investment he could pass on to his sons Andrew and Michael.

"Hammons was a real interesting guy. Real bright," Dodge says. "We never knew where his information on baseball came from but it was really damn good. More than likely it was coming from Harrelson, through Reinsdorf, so the reason it was so good was we were hearing the same things."

Reinsdorf whispered in Dodge's ear, too.
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Jerry Reinsdorf called his friend Allen Keesler, president of Florida Power, to say that the Hawk and Hammons needed to flesh out their group with some local hitters. Like you, Reinsdorf told Keesler.

Reinsdorf had heard the rumors of Frank Morsani's imminent financial demise and he felt confident he could deliver a franchise to Harrelson and Hammons. As a way of repaying Keesler's many favors and friendship, Reinsdorf wanted the utility exec to formally join the owner's club and participate in its future.

Reinsdorf and Morsani were not the best of pals; it would not be out of character for Reinsdorf to derail Morsani.

In 1988, Morsani had tried to prevent Reinsdorf from getting American League approval for moving the White Sox to Tampa. He contacted several team owners, including the owner of the Baltimore Orioles, Edward Bennett Williams -- who in 1960 mounted a legal challenge to Calvin Griffith's relocation of the Washington Senators to Minnesota.

Reinsdorf heard about it and became royally pissed off.

"Morsani tried to block our move to St. Petersburg," Reinsdorf says. "He fought us in the [Florida] legislature. And he went to see Edward Bennett Williams, who at the time owned the Orioles, and asked him to vote against the White Sox move to St. Petersburg. If baseball came to St. Petersburg, [Morsani] wanted to be involved. He had invested several million dollars trying to get an expansion team and if we came in, his money was going down the drain. But him going to see Williams was like someone who is not a member of a country club going to a member of the country club and asking him to vote against the admission of a third person. Ed Williams and I were members of the same country club and Morsani was not. I didn't think that was right."

For his part, Morsani denies speaking to Williams -- directly. He did talk to someone who worked for Williams. "I did not bad-mouth Jerry Reinsdorf," Morsani says. "I did ask for their support and I don't see where it was wrong to do that. I didn't tell him not to vote against Reinsdorf, I just asked them to vote for us."

Later in the same year, when Morsani attempted to buy the Texas Rangers, it was widely believed Reinsdorf was the man who stood in his way. Reinsdorf opposed the sale of the Rangers to Morsani; he also objected to broadcaster Ed Gaylord as owner. For blocking Morsani and Gaylord, the American League told Reinsdorf to find a qualified buyer for the Texas franchise. This made Reinsdorf even madder at Morsani, because he believed the price agreed upon by Morsani and Rangers owner Eddie Chiles was too high, making it tough to find an owner. However, Reinsdorf is generally credited with creating the George W. Bush ownership group.

Reinsdorf never forgot or forgave Morsani's actions, giving the Tampa car dealer a powerful and vocal opponent among baseball owners.

Of Reinsdorf, Morsani says, "I am not crazy about a lot of things that he did."

In the spring of 1990, Allen Keesler took Morsani to the White Sox spring training camp in Sarasota to try and patch things up between his friends. The trio sat in Reinsdorf's box, ate lunch and talked.

"Allen was trying to patch things up between Morsani and me," Reinsdorf says. "I was very angry because I felt, number one, he should be more civic-minded." Reinsdorf believed that despite Morsani's personal investment, he should have supported any baseball team that came to Tampa Bay, whether he owned it or not. "Keesler wanted to convince me that Morsani wasn't a bad guy. So we had this meeting and I did come away with a decent feeling from it."

The AL team owner told Morsani that expansion was a National League issue but that he would do everything he could to support St. Petersburg. The National League would sort out who the proper owners were.

"It was all out of my hands," Reinsdorf says, contradicting his own actions. "All I could do was advise them as to how to go about getting the franchise. If I was to come out in favor of one of the groups it would have been counterproductive in the National League. There's a certain chauvinism [between the National and American Leagues] and they didn't want ALers sticking their nose in. If they didn't pick Morsani, they didn't. If they picked him, they picked him. They'd go through a far more detailed process than I would just meeting with the guy."

Reinsdorf did encourage Morsani to merge his efforts with Hammons'. At the time, Morsani did not know Keesler was being urged to join the Hammons group.

"[Until then] I was able to work behind the scenes," Keesler says. "I told Jerry I could play a better role as a guy with no connections. Jerry convinced me that for Hammons to have any viability, he had to have someone from St. Petersburg."

Keesler felt torn between loyalties. He personally contributed to bringing Morsani and Mack to the Florida Suncoast Dome. And while Morsani never invited Keesler to join the Tampa Bay Baseball Group or MXM, Keesler never expressed any interest, either. Plus, Keesler was one of the multitude of folks in the bay area who respected Morsani.

"I felt I was looked at as a turncoat," Keesler says. Until this time, he says, "I openly supported Frank Morsani. I admired the courage he displayed to bring Tampa and St. Petersburg together. I was a leader on the [Join the Team] ticket drive."

A quiet summer meeting took place between Hammons, Morsani and Bostick one Sunday morning at a Holiday Inn in Tampa. Keesler was on hand, although his involvement with Hammons had not yet been publicly announced. Hammons knew Morsani's finances were near collapse. In exchange for taking the lead in Morsani's group, Hammons offered to reimburse the auto dealer the money Morsani had invested in baseball -- an estimated $2-million. Hammons wanted control of the joint group but he needed the community goodwill that Morsani enjoyed. The money would have saved Morsani from ruin but he said, "No thanks."

Morsani resisted yielding control to anyone. He didn't see any reason to change his mind about Hammons. Morsani's partners, Bostick and Ringhaver, supported him. Although Hammons' quiet demeanor meshed with their own, they didn't believe Hammons' baseball partners, Drysdale and Harrelson, were the best choices to run an organization.

(Rick Dodge heard about the meeting: "Frank wouldn't say this, but Mark Bostick told me once that Hammons' approach was brutal. Frank almost took it. Mark and Lance said, 'We'll help you through this. Let's not throw in with them.' ")
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