Nationals principal owner dies at 97
Billionaire real estate developer Ted Lerner, who bought the Washington Nationals in 2006 and helped bring a World Series title to the nation’s capital for the first time in 95 years, has died at the age of 97, the team announced.
A Washington-area native who once served as an usher at Griffith Stadium for Washington Senators games, Lerner and his family purchased the Nationals from Major League Baseball in 2006 for $450 million.
“The crowning achievement of his family business was bringing baseball back to the city he loved,” the Nationals said in a social media post, “and with it, bringing a championship home for the first time since 1924.”
“He cherished the franchise and what it brought to his beloved hometown.”
After the team spent its first three seasons playing at RFK Stadium following its move from Montreal, Lerner supervised the construction of a publicly funded new home, Nationals Park.
Bolstered by the drafting of future stars Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper – and Lerner’s willingness to pay them sizable bonuses – the Nationals grew from perennial doormat to playoff contender, winning four NL East titles in six years from 2012 to 2017.
However, the Nationals were bounced from the playoffs in the first round in each of those seasons.
The team finally broke through – ironically the year Harper left as a free agent to sign with the division-rival Philadelphia Phillies – in 2019.
Led by Strasburg and Max Scherzer on the mound and Ryan Zimmerman, Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto at the plate, the Nationals made the postseason as a wild-card team. A comeback victory over the Brewers in a one-game playoff, an upset of the Dodgers in the NL division series and a sweep of the Cardinals in the NL championship series put the Nationals into the World Series against the heavily favored Houston Astros.
Falling behind three games to two, the Nationals won two in a row in Houston to give the team, the city and the Lerner family a long-awaited championship. As his health began to decline, Lerner and his family have begun looking into additional investors or a possible sale of the Nationals. So far, no particular buyer has stepped forward as the front-runner.