De Blasio unlikely to block Cohen from becoming an owner, but Reinsdorf will try
NEWYORK— Jerry Reinsdorf’s long-standing objection to the idea of Steve Cohen as a major-league owner goes back nearly a decade.
The Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bulls owner voted against Cohen becoming control person of the Mets on Tuesday, as the News reported. Reinsdorf was the sole ‘no’ vote, in an overall 7-1 decision from Major League Baseball’s ownership committee in favor of Cohen taking over the Mets from Fred and JeffWilp on and Saul Katz.
Tuesday was not the first time Reinsdorf opposed a Cohen bid.
“I would hazard a guess that it would be very difficult for [Cohen] to get a team,” former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent told Bloomberg in a Nov. 2013 telephone interview. “People like Jerry Reinsdorf, who is very important andastrong keeper of that tradition of vetting owners, would be a very major obstacle.”
Reinsdorf has long been a staunch Cohen adversary and successfully lobbied against his bid to buy the Dodgers in 2012. Around the sametime, Cohen’s hedge fund, SACCapital, pled guilty to criminal insider-trading charges and agreed to pay a record $1.8 billion fine. Cohen himself was not criminally charged.
Reinsdorf also has a long-standing relationship with Alex Rodriguez, who waged a lengthy and intense campaign against Cohen in a bid to buy the Mets for a cheaper price this year.
A couple of days after being handed down his record 211-game suspension in August 2013, the Yankees were in Chicago when A-Rodmetprivately with Reinsdorf in an effort to have him intercede with CommissionerBudSelig to get the suspension reduced.
As the News reported several times, the group led by Rodriguez never stood a chance. He was outbid by Cohen, who has an estimated net worth of roughly $14 billion per Forbes.
But Rodriguez’s bid had significant media firepower behind it, leading to ultimately inaccurate stories like an August USA Today report that A-Rod was the front-runner to buy the Mets. On Wednesday, USA Today reported that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio could serve as a hurdle to Cohen’s pursuit of owning the club. Multiple industry sources strongly believe Reinsdorf was the primary source for the story.
Like the August story, this story is inaccurate. DeBlasio, in reality, is not expected to “torpedo” Cohen’s plans before his approval reaches an owners’ vote. DeBlasio has enough problems (controlling the COVID19 shutdown in New York City and avoiding confrontations with Orthodox Jewish leaders) without enraging the vast majority of Mets fans who want Cohen to own the club. The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, though de Blasio did say in August that A-Rod owning the Mets “would be very good for baseball and very good for this country.”