‘MOOCH’ TO MINE MOOLAH
Helpin’ Jeter buy Marlins
Derek Jeter and Jeb Bush are calling in a surprise pinch-hitter in their bid to buy the Miami Marlins.
Anthony Scaramucci, an outspoken New York financier who served on President Trump’s transition team, is advising the Bush-Jeter group, a source familiar with the situation told The Post.
The former Florida governor and former Yankee are hoping that Scaramucci — known as “The Mooch” in hedge fund circles — will help them raise cash to purchase the Marlins from the current owner, Manhattanbased art dealer Jeffrey Loria.
Next month in Las Vegas, Bush is scheduled to speak at the SALT conference, an annual confab for deep-pocketed hedge fund titans that Scaramucci created — and where he may grease the wheels for dealmaking, insiders said.
Scaramucci, who recently reaped $100 million selling his hedge fund SkyBridge Capital, has no plans to invest in a Marlins deal himself, according to a source.
Earlier this month, Bush and Jeter teamed up to make a $1 billion bid on the Marlins, sources said. Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday that two groups remained in the running to purchase the club.
Bush and Jeter have expressed confidence privately that they will be able to secure the necessary financing, although a source said the two men were exasperated by reports this week that they had reached an agreement in principle to buy the team for $1.3 billion — reports they say are inaccurate.
Bush and Jeter, who don’t have an exclusive deal to buy the Marlins, suspect the team has been spreading misinformation including the terms of the bid, the source said.
The source added that Bush and Jeter may decide, after conducting due diligence that has only just begun, that they do not even want to buy the moneylosing team.
“These are not guys who can afford a vanity acquisition,” the source said. “My guess is they will back out.”
A Scaramucci spokesman did not return calls.
Scaramucci worked on Bush’s ill-fated presidential campaign last year.
When it fizzled, Scaramucci pivoted to Trump. Nevertheless, Scaramucci and Bush remain on excellent terms and were recently spotted dining together at Rao’s, the power broker’s paradise in Harlem.
The 52-year-old Scaramucci founded the global investment firm SkyBridge Capital in 2005. He sold it earlier this year to make himself eligible for a role in President Trump’s administration.
In the baseball world, Scaramucci earned fame last year when he teamed with two other people to buy Mike Piazza’s “9/11 jersey” — the Mets jersey he wore on Sept. 21, 2001. That day, Piazza hit a game-winning homer in the first New York City baseball game immediately after the terrorist attacks — from an anonymous seller for $365,000.