(Texas) Rangers seek bankruptcy, still owe A-Rod $25M

[RamboLiberal]

Source: MSNBC/AP

ARLINGTON, Texas - The Texas Rangers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday in hopes of spurring completion of the $575 million sale of the team by midsummer to a group of investors that includes Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan.

Under the plan, the Rangers would fully pay the $75 million of the club’s debt tied up in Tom Hicks’ financially strapped ownership group. That would remove the team from the additional claims by creditors against Hicks Sports Group that have stalled the sale to the group led by Ryan and Pittsburgh attorney Chuck Greenberg.

“I did not want to put the baseball future of the Texas Rangers in jeopardy or uncertainty for an extended period of time,” Hicks said. “This action is all about creating an end to the impasse in allowing this team sale to go forward.”

A 21-page filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Fort Worth included the top 30 unsecured creditors, a list headed by Alex Rodriguez, who is owed $24.9 million in deferred compensation six years after he was traded away from the team.



Read more: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/37320950/ns/sports-baseball/

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How fitting - W's old team. Wish more of these teams would go broke with the obscene salaries they pay players.

[librechik]

1. Same fate for everything Junior touches. n't

[no_hypocrisy]

2. They never recovered from Shrub co-owning them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush

[Crowman1979]

3. Oh no! What are we going to do when all of these mediocre debt-ridden teams start folding?

:sarcasm:

Seriously, who gives a rats ass about major league teams. Especially when there's Team USA to root for and plenty of smaller minor league or college teams in the local area withing a short distance to check out. Heck, why not just start a rag-tag amateur team as opposed to sitting on your ass and watching the game, if your able-bodied that is.

I'd wish they had something similar to an FA Cup for baseball, in order to make these major league teams look like clowns.

[SpiralHawk]

4. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL (R)

"Everything I ever touched turned to FAIL. Smirk."

- xCommander AWOL (R)

[RamboLiberal]

5. But he always managed to get out with more $$$$$'s

before the failure.

[indepat]

6. And more failures, some catastrophic, will surely follow and all those sycophantic

assholes who literally jumped through their collective metaphorical asshole to give junior everything he wanted have done themselves real proud. :P

[starroute]

7. Tom Hicks was part of a lot of the Bush dirty dealings

Boy, it's been a while...

Here's a thread from 2003 where I quoted something saying, "The team was purchased for $86 million in 1989 and sold in 1998 for $250 million to Tom Hicks, a person with whom Bush had prior official business while governor. As reported by Tom Kruger in his July 16, 2002 article, Tom Hicks had a relationship with Mr. Bush that afforded Hicks the opportunity to use $9 billion of the University of Texas endowment fund without any accountability. The management fee to Hicks for investing the $9 billion could have exceeded the $250 million he paid for the Texas Rangers. In effect, Bush handed Hicks the money to buy the team as part of his official duties as governor."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x7888

Here's another one from 2003 about the Texas Rangers bidding to donate land for the George W. Bush Presidential Library where I added some more on Hicks.
http://progress.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x20467

And still another from 2003 where everyone was piling on Hicks:
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x875102


Yeah ... good times. But there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, and I guess things aren't going as smoothly for Hicks these days.