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The furious growth of Orlando in the mid-1980s impressed Pat Williams from the
first moment his plane landed at Orlando International Airport. Everywhere he
looked during a brief stay for a speaking engagement there were new
attractions, hotels, restaurants, office buildings and tourists. Riding back to
the airport at visit's end, the general manager of the NBA Philadelphia 76ers
asked the local businessmen who were his hosts how the rapid development of
Florida might one day apply to his own business.
"Casually," Williams recalls, "I said, 'Would pro basketball ever go in
Florida? And where would you put it -- Tampa or Miami?'
"They said: 'Here.' "
Williams was surprised. Pro hoops in the Mickey World?
A technicolor pipe dream, Williams thought -- the city lacked an arena or
college basketball powerhouse and no major league sports franchise history
except a season of the USFL Orlando Renegades. And population in the metro area
was half that of Tampa Bay or Miami/Fort Lauderdale.
So Williams waved goodbye, boarded his plane and turned his thoughts to
another season with Julius "Dr. J" Erving and Moses Malone. He quickly forgot
the conversation about pro basketball in Orlando.
Eight months later, an Orlando real estate developer, Jim Hewitt, called
Williams.
"We have done everything the NBA has asked of us," Hewitt told him. "From our
standpoint [a franchise] makes sense. Except for one thing: You would have to
come and head it up."
Williams didn't laugh off the call. Dr. J was going into his last season in
the league. Malone had already left the team. The 76ers were rebuilding and
Williams didn't want to endure another round of that -- not in Philadelphia,
anyhow. On the other hand, Orlando -- Orlando -- represented pretty long
odds against Minneapolis, Charlotte, Toronto, Orange County, California, and
Miami.
At the buzzer, Williams took the half-court three-point shot.
Once on the team, Williams joined forces with city government and the Greater
Orlando Chamber of Commerce to launch a season-ticket drive for his imaginary
basketball team. He and his team were embraced by the city's dreamers,
including Mayor Bill Frederick, who personally shepherded development of the
$110-million, 15,200-seat Orlando Arena. (Echoing the deal made between
Pinellas County and the City of St. Petersburg to build the Florida Suncoast
Dome, part of the cash for the "O-rena" materialized when Orange County pledged
a portion of its resort tax to pay for construction.)
Williams went to work on the corporate community, pulling in William duPont
III as the majority investor who would pay the league's $32.5-million entry
fee. Buell Duncan Jr., chairman of the board of SunBank Inc., threw his
considerable weight behind the effort despite having never been to an NBA
game.
The "Orlando Magic" -- a name that captured the flavor of Central Florida --
captivated the entire community. Williams asked for $100 deposits on future
season tickets and three-year contracts whenever possible. "We had to
demonstrate the area cared, because they had no track record," Williams says.
"We were going for this in a league that never said it was going to expand, in
a city without an arena and [with] skepticism. As I look back [season tickets]
were our trump card. That got the league's attention."
In four months, the Magic collected 14,000 seat deposits, including sales to
the "Golden 100," 36 corporate sugardaddies each popping for 100 season
tickets.
By the time the NBA announced its readiness to consider new franchises and
subsequently heard presentations from interested cities, there was no turning
back in Orlando. The arena was under construction downtown and the community
could virtually guarantee a first season sell-out. That put Orlando in the big
leagues.
On April 22, 1987, Williams won himself a team.
* * *
Orlando officially began angling for an expansion baseball franchise
in mid-1989. But Pat Williams' mind had been set on acquiring a ballclub within
days of capturing the Magic.
"There was a sense of momentum, a headiness that we were experiencing," he
says. "It became apparent to me that baseball expansion was next. It was going
to happen. Florida was going to be a very central part of that and somebody was
going to make a run at Orlando. My advice to Bill duPont, the principal owner
of the Magic, was to spearhead that effort to protect our own basketball
interests and the market. Bill agreed and understood the vision of that. At
that point, Miami was not a factor. They were nowhere. The competition was St.
Petersburg. Our sense was that we were ready to go head-to-head with St.
Petersburg and try to convince the National League that long-range, Orlando
would be the place to put a team. We were not going to concede the state to St.
Petersburg; We would give them a run for their money and try and make it a two
horse race."
Williams began his sports career not in hoops but as a catcher ("What I lacked
in size I made up for in lack of speed") for the Philadelphia Phillies' old
minor league team in Miami. What he lacked on the field he made up behind the
scenes, rising in the Phillies organization to become president and general
manager of the Spartanburg Phillies. He joined the Philadelphia 76ers
basketball team as business manager in 1968, moving up and over to general
manager of the Chicago Bulls the following season and south to the Atlanta
Hawks (briefly) in 1973. The next year he moved again, rejoining the 76ers for
the first of a dozen competitive years.
But once a baseball man, always a baseball man. Williams began his second
expansion team effort in Orlando by convincing Bill duPont to pay $2.1-million
to acquire the Class AA Orlando Twins.
"I sought the counsel of basketball people about Orlando as a potential city
and always got a positive response," Williams says. "I also got a lot of that
with the baseball fraternity, asking them if they could pick any spot in
Florida and it was their money and their choice, everything being equal, what
city would you pick? Enough of them said Orlando. None of them said Miami.
Baseball had a real aversion to Miami. They had not had success there. Spring
training had dried up and Miami was just a turn-off. It was an Orlando/St.
Petersburg decision in most of their minds and I just think that there was a
fascination with the future growth here and of what it was going to be like 10
years from now."
Nothing happened for a while. Orlando's primary goal was to get the state
legislature to let Orange County raise its resort tax by one-half cent to
partially fund a $110-million, 38,000-seat ball park. "Had that not been done,"
says Williams, "it would have been a futile chase."
Orlandoans saw baseball as an uphill sprint. The city was smaller than its
competition and was never mentioned prominently -- if at all -- among potential
candidates. "I think there was some relief that Orlando had finally joined the
race," Williams says. "For years [local] writers had written, 'Why doesn't
Orlando get in it? Why don't they do something?' "
The state approved the funding Orlando sought and the city joined the fray.
Williams and duPont went public in late summer 1989 announcing their intention
to bring Major League Baseball to Orlando. Williams revealed the team's name,
the "Orlando SunRays" -- the same as duPont's renamed Class AA minor-league
team -- showed its logo (a smiling sun wearing Ray-Bans), colors and announced
the start of a season-ticket drive.
But Major League Baseball still revealed nothing of its plans. There was no
game plan, no information, no timetable.
"I think that deep down the owners didn't want to expand," Williams says.
"They held off and did everything they could to hope it would go away but the
Congressional pressure was such that they realized they couldn't avoid it."
Baseball revealed its game plan in June 1990 -- bad timing for William duPont
III. He paid a visit to Williams' office at the Orlando Arena and revealed to
his general manager that he had suffered severe financial setbacks. He lost
$10-million in stock when a savings and loan collapsed and consequently, his
real estate holdings were not going well.
"I am not going to be able to participate [in baseball]," duPont told
Williams. "You're welcome to go forward if you can find somebody else."
A frantic pursuit followed in which Williams rang up every possible contact to
find somebody who could and would take over duPont's lead position.
"I was very disappointed that all this work and planning would just fall apart
and end up not happening," Williams says. "It was very difficult to accept and
I basically refused to accept it without doing everything we could to find that
person to head up the ownership.
"I investigated 20 different options," he says. "You can't realize how
difficult it was. I was very fortunate to find the one guy in the country who
could make the deal, who was willing to and wanted to. A lot of wealthy men
just aren't interested. Not everybody wants to own a sports team."
Richard DeVos, co-founder and president of Amway Corp. fit the profile.
"We had mutual friends," Williams says. "I had never known him but we did have
people we both knew. I was introduced to him through one of those people and
flew up to Ada, Michigan, to meet with him in August."
They met for one hour at Amway's corporate headquarters.
"We talked and I shared the Orlando vision," Williams recalls. "He was
intrigued by it. He had a great respect for the Disney organization. I sold the
whole vision for about an hour. He then excused me from the room for 10 minutes
and met with his advisers."
Williams was nervous. The clock was ticking. The DeVos meeting took place on a
Thursday and Orlando's application had to be in New York by the following
Monday.
After just 10 minutes, DeVos emerged and asked Williams to join him.
"Rich simply said, 'Submit my name and tell the National League that I will go
forward with you. We will play it by ear. I don't know all the answers and I
don't know where this is heading but we'll go forward one step at a time,' "
Williams says.
Williams held a press conference after Labor Day to announce the change in
Orlando's lineup.
The press in Tampa Bay and Miami delighted in Orlando's troubles.
So duPont had financial trouble? Aw, that's too bad. And you're going to
replace him with a guy from Michigan who runs Amway? Ha, ha, ha ...
"I guess Amway was viewed as a kind of cult," Williams says. "But it was an
incredibly successful organization. DeVos was listed in Fortune
magazine as the fourth or fifth wealthiest man in America. His net worth was
listed as $4.2-billion. He brought great financial stability."
DeVos was not from Orlando, but he owned a home in Boca Raton and vowed to
make it his permanent residence. In the guidelines that the NL established,
specifying its strong desire for local ownership, however, DeVos did not meet
the requirements.
But of all the would-be ownership groups across the country, only one perfect
investor, Fort Lauderdale's H. Wayne Huizenga, existed. Ohioans whipped the
Denver group into shape. A Washington, D.C., lawyer led Tampa Bay's effort. And
while baseball said it wanted open-air, baseball-only grass fields inside
40,000-seat stadiums, it eventually allowed a converted football stadium in
South Florida.
"We had the strongest owner," Williams says. "So, okay, he didn't live in
Orlando. But he would buy here and we could build them the ballpark they
wanted. He could make the deal."
Was Williams' confidence rekindled? Days before the New York presentation, he
took out a personal loan to pay baseball's $100,000 application deposit. Then
he announced that 19-year veteran baseball catcher Bob Boone would manage
Orlando's franchise in 1993. He also revealed former infielder Denny Doyle
would be director of baseball operations and Doyle's brother Brian would be
director of player development. Former Yankee second baseman Bobby Richardson
would also advise the SunRays.
Bill duPont went with Williams and DeVos to New York for Orlando's
presentation to the National League expansion committee. It was a show of
solidarity and interest; Williams figured that while everyone knew duPont was
out, his name still carried clout. Williams had another valuable name at his
disposal. Walt Disney Attractions produced the pro-Orlando videotape Williams
showed the committee.
While making the short list was no surprise to Williams, it should have been a
wake-up call to St. Petersburg. If there was one thing that gave Pat Williams
an advantage over everyone else in the expansion competition it was that he had
rocked the NBA.
"It gave us some good insights," he says. "We were in pro sports. We knew the
business. We were professionals. We made our living in pro sports. None of the
other groups other than Buffalo [the Rich family owned the Class AAA Buffalo
Bisons] really were in the business. Miami, St. Petersburg, Washington and
Denver had no experience at this. Everything we did we tried to do with a
first-class touch."
Williams worked hard to keep the expansion committee up to date on Orlando.
Everything positive that appeared in the local or national press -- including a
glowing Time cover story on Orlando ("Where Fantasy Meets Reality") --
would appear on the desk of committee members Fred Wilpon, Bill White, Douglas
Danforth and Bill Giles the next day.
Using his friends in baseball for the inside scoop proved fruitless for
Williams. They repeatedly told him the issue rested in the hands of the
expansion committee. "They made it clear that they were not involved," he says,
"and they did not know what was going on. These were people that I knew but
they were not going to be dragged into it. It was none of their business. The
expansion committee had been given the authority to pull it together and that's
what was going to happen."
* * *
Like A. Ray Smith in St. Petersburg a few years back, Pat Williams
was equal parts shark and carnival barker when it came to promoting his teams.
Before the Magic even played its first game, he stood toe-to-toe with Miami
Herald humorist Dave Barry to ignite a cross-state rivalry between Barry's
Miami Heat and the Magic.
BARRY ON ORLANDO: "You'd think that, coming from a town that is only
just now getting the hang of flush toilets, they'd think twice about launching
vicious unprovoked attacks against Miami, a city world-famous for its
sophistication, its cosmopolitan culture and its vast privately held stockpile
of automatic weapons."
PAT WILLIAMS ON MIAMI: "I heard about a family that moved into a Miami
neighborhood. They were fired on by the Welcome Wagon."
BARRY: "Chances are, like most normal people, you're not aware that
there's anything to Orlando other than Disney World and the other cultural
attractions such as Snake World, Appliance World, Fungus World, Trapezoid
World, Commode World, The Truss Outlet and about 200,000 stores selling
Korean-made souvenirs to German tourists."
WILLIAMS: "Miami's the only place I've ever been where people bowl
overhand."
While he packs a loaded wit, critics say Williams doesn't know when to quit.
One of his more underappreciated expansion pranks: sponsoring "St. Pete Night"
during an Orlando SunRays game at Tinker Field.
"The media in St. Petersburg took it very personally," he recalls. "They
asked 'Why would you do this? Why would you turn on us?' They got very huffy
and I immediately apologized. I said we were just trying to have some fun."
It didn't end there, though. Williams' next idea was "Expansion Night." Any
fan whose last name was "Danforth," "White," "Giles" or "Wilpon" -- as in
members of the National League expansion committee -- or whose first name was
"Bill," "Doug" or" Fred," would get in free. A parade of "expansion cars" cut
across the field: a flashy '57 Chevy with a surfboard (Miami); a black stretch
limousine (Washington); an old clunker (Buffalo); a snowmobile (Denver); and a
Model T Ford (St. Petersburg). Orlando? It was represented, of course, by a
sleek, bright red Lamborghini.
* * *
The best chance for Williams to put on an effective dog-and-pony show
was during the expansion committee's visit to Orlando in late February 1991.
"We all felt a lot of pressure," Williams says. "They made it very clear they
wanted [the process] to be streamlined and simple and no more than four hours.
We were all looking for little signals. Did he smile when we said that? Were
they pleased? We were all looking for any little expression or reaction or
smile or sigh or frown as we made our presentation. They played that role
perfectly. They lauded everything. Doug Danforth's line was 'There are no
negatives.' "
That's what the committee wanted each city to think. Williams wasn't
convinced.
"When they left here I kind of sensed that we had not satisfied them,"
Williams says. "At that point, Rich DeVos was just not comfortable committing
to the whole thing. The numbers never did make sense in this deal. It was going
to have to be a buy for other reasons. It would have to be an emotional buy.
Or, as in Huizenga's case, related to a stadium he had equity in.
"I was told by a reliable source that we had fallen out of it because they
just could not get comfortable that we were strong enough. They liked Rich
DeVos and were impressed with him but they never did quite know where he
stood," Williams says.
DeVos initially committed to taking 51 percent of the deal with local
investors buying the rest. But Williams couldn't get local investors
solidified. Williams asked DeVos for a meeting. They spent six hours at DeVos'
Boca Raton home on March 18, 1991, talking through the situation. DeVos knew
the effort was in trouble and he knew he was the problem. The expansion
committee demanded to know if he was in or out.
"Rich," Williams said, "we are out of time. We have got to make a decision.
If you don't want to do it, I understand, but we ought to do something publicly
and not run this chase to the end and not really be a factor."
DeVos responded by asking Williams to "sell me on this deal" all over again.
"I went over the whole thing and why I believed in baseball and that it was an
investment for tomorrow, that over a 10- to 20-year, period baseball teams were
going to appreciate and that it would be an investment of value. He had the
right location in Orlando and I thought it could be a special thing," Williams
recalls.
"It looks like I have to fish or cut bait," DeVos said. "Well, I'm going to do
it. I will do the whole thing."
Williams was not just relieved, he was jubilant. "I remember driving back from
DeVos' house. I was flying, just floating," he says. The next day he notified
the expansion committee that his billion-dollar sugardaddy, DeVos, was going to
be the sole owner. Bill White told Williams, "That is a big plus for Orlando."
But it was still an uphill battle, getting steeper by the day.
The push to sell season-ticket reservations intensified. Williams collected 55
corporate commitments boosting his total to 30,000 tickets but only 8,000 came
from individuals. "The ball park issue was getting done," he says. "I really
think by the closing weeks we were coming on with a rush. Hoping to catch up.
We were riding a very exciting wave down the stretch.
"There was a definite sense that Miami was doing everything right," Williams
says. "We all sensed that they were strong. Denver remained the mystery. They
were viewed as not having a strong owner. Washington was openly floundering.
Bob Rich had all but dropped out in Buffalo. He had all but told the city 'No.'
I was extremely optimistic. We were down to four: Denver, Miami, Orlando and
St. Petersburg, with Miami obviously very strong and Denver very iffy. Nobody
could figure out what St. Petersburg was doing. I thought we might just leap
over St. Petersburg and Denver."
END CHAPTER 15
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Meanwhile, in San Francisco . . .
One. Where Did All My Friends Go?
Chapter 1. About Last Night
Chapter 2. For a Team to Be Named Later
Chapter 3. Is It Later, Yet?
Two. Blame It On Bowie
Chapter 4. The Egg
Chapter 5. The Chicken
Chapter 6. Don't Build It. We Won't Come.
Chapter 7. Taking Away Tom's Bone
Chapter 8. Don't Screw With Mr. Dodge
Chapter 9. Anatomy of a Fast Pitch
Three. We Are the Competition
Chapter 10. Can't Tell the Players Without a Scorecard
Chapter 11. Such a Bargain!
Chapter 12. The Pitch
Chapter 13. Happy Holidays, Mr. Morsani
Chapter 14. The Dog and Pony Show
Chapter 15. That's Not Funny, Pat
Chapter 16. H. Wayne's World
Chapter 17. Deep Pockets, Short Arms
Chapter 18. Heartbreak City
Four. Dream On
Chapter 19. Something's Got to Give
Chapter 20. Wish I May, Wish I Might
Chapter 21. The Gameboys of Summer
Five. Take a Giant Step
Chapter 22. The Artful Dodger
Chapter 23. Do You Know the Way to San Jose?
Chapter 24. Four Guys Named Vincent
Chapter 25. Make The Check Payable To Bill White
Chapter 26. Bottom of the Ninth, Two On, Two Out, Winning Lawyers in Position
Epilogue
About the Author
Tampa Bay Devil Rays Home Page
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