Saturday, August 8, 2015

Some of the Worst Owners in All of Sports (MLB Edition)

        Owning a sports team is serious business. It requires hiring the right guys for the right job, getting a sports stadium/arena built, and trying to bring a winning team to a city. Now this edition revolves around Major League Baseball and concerns the worst owners in MLB. Some of these choices you might question, some of them you'll say, "Yeah, they suck." Anyways, here's the list of the worst MLB owners right now.


  1. Jeffrey Loria, Miami Marlins: No list of incompetent MLB owners is complete without Jeffrey Loria, the king of terrible MLB owners. This is his second time owning a Major League Baseball team; he bought a 24% stake of the Montreal Expos in 1999 and eventually sold them in 2002. That stint didn't go over well when the Expos weren't able to reach a television agreement and English-speaking radio rights during the 2000 season. His stint with the Marlins hasn't gone over as well as his Expos stint, either. He built a new park in Miami called Marlins Park, requiring taxpayers to pay at least $2.6 billion for the stadium. His team also acquired many marquee players in 2012 that included Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle, a season that was so disappointing that they eventually traded those players to the Toronto Blue Jays a year later. The Marlins had a lot of promise this year with Giancarlo Stanton heading a loaded outfield (at least on paper), but have faltered to 24 games below .500 at the moment, further bolstering the call for Loria to step down and resign. 
  2. Nintendo (Howard Lincoln), Seattle Mariners: No, that's Don Imus, radio personality. But Lincoln does look a lot like Don Imus (He might be as old as Imus). Anyways, the M's haven't been to the postseason in 13 years (The last time they made the postseason was during the Hiroshi Yamauchi years) and are in danger of being the MLB team with the longest playoff drought. That's mainly due to many disappointing signings/acquisitions that include Richie Sexson, Kendrys Morales, Chone Figgins, Milton Bradley, Jason Bay, Jack Cust, Mark Trumbo, and many others. In fact, M's ownership might've nixed a deal with Nelson Cruz before the 2014 season, the season where they fell a game short of the 2nd wild card spot. Other problems include hiring Jack Zduriencik as General Manager in spite of being accused of lying on his resume. It's really hard to have a winning playoff team on the field when your ownership cares more about the non-baseball experiences of the field than a playoff team.
  3. Fred Wilpon, New York Mets: Yes, the Mets are leading the NL East at the moment by 2.5 games. But Mets fans have called for Wilpon's head for quite some time. From paying Bobby Bonilla $1 million every year through 2035 to investing a lot of money in Bernie Madoff, i.e. the Ponzi Scheme (And losing millions from this investment), there's good reason for Mets fans to be pissed off at Fred Wilpon. Mets fans have even taken to Twitter to tweet to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred about the incompetence of Fred Wilpon. Maybe a World Series appearance will wash away all the woes? 
Honorable (Or Not) Mentions: David Glass (Kansas City Royals), Peter Angelos (Baltimore Orioles), Rogers Communications (Toronto Blue Jays), John Monfort (Colorado Rockies).

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