How Some of the Richest Men in America Got Millions, Divided a State…Enter Lucchino (PART II)

Monday, June 25, 2018

GoLocalProv News Team

 

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Larry Lucchino

After Jim Skeffington died in May of 2015, Larry Lucchino took over as the frontman and leader for the millionaires and billionaires who had purchased the PawSox franchise from the wife of beloved Ben Mondor a year earlier.

READ PART I: How Some of the Richest Men in America Got Millions, Divided a State, & Ruined a Beloved Brand

Lucchino had been pushed out as the boss of the parent company, the Boston Red Sox. A little battered and bruised, Lucchino needed to prove he had one more big win in his career.

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After all, he was “Larry Lucchino,” the master of the proverbial sports world who had played with the biggest of big boys.

Lucchino was equally as controversial when he led the effort to build a new park in San Diego. Matt Potter of the San Diego Reader wrote a comprehensive look at the complex background of Lucchino back in 2000.

Lucchino’s connections to sports go back to the 1980s, working with Edward Bennett Williams and the Washington Redskins. He was considered a master negotiator for the team.

Lucchino was still at William’s hip when he took over control of the Baltimore Orioles and when Williams got sick, Lucchino was ready and positioned himself to take over the team. Lucchino pulled off one of the biggest wins in baseball management history — the building of Camden Yards.

The first new stadium that combined the heritage of the sports with the amenities of a modern stadium. The stadium was a huge win for baseball and Lucchino.

“Williams died in August 1988. Under the Orioles' new ownership arrangement, Lucchino became president and chief executive officer of the team. In 1993, after a new stadium was built and paid for by a public subsidy, the Orioles were again sold, this time to Peter Angelos, a successful plaintiff's attorney who reportedly made more than a billion dollars from fees related to asbestos litigation. Angelos and his minority partners, including novelist Tom Clancy, paid $173 million. Lucchino reportedly profited handsomely from his 11 percent interest. After that, Lucchino tried and failed to put together a partnership to take over the Pittsburgh Pirates in his old hometown,” wrote Potter.

Go West, Lucchino

Now out of Baltimore, Lucchino was off to San Diego. That team would need a new stadium too.

“If there was a figure in baseball who did not elicit neutrality, it was Larry Lucchino. His style, as described by admirers and detractors alike was fierce, bullying, and always in need of an edge,” writes Howard Bryant In his book, “Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball.”

“Lucchino could be charming, but also condescending. A difference of opinion with Lucchino might result in a civilized debate that resembled fencing, or it could be uncomfortable and primal, more like boxing than professional disagreement.”

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Lucchino introducing the new management team in Pawtucket - Mondors people were out

Bryant goes onto write, “One baseball executive believed Lucchino often sought to exploit weaknesses in others which produced a difficult dynamic: engaging with Lucchino always tended towards some level of confrontation.”

“Larry isn’t necessarily mad if you don’t agree with him, he just feels it's his duty to change your mind. I think that is the lawyer in him,” said Charles Steinberg in Bryant’s book.

In San Diego, Lucchino pushed through another stadium — this one more controversial. Now named PETCO Park, the San Diego stadium cost in 2002 nearly half a billion dollars.

"All told, land acquisition and construction for Petco Park cost $456.8 million: $225 million financed with municipal bonds repaid by hotel taxes; $57.8 million from redevelopment funds generated within the project area; $21 million from the Port of San Diego and $153 million from the Padres (not including their substantial investment in private development projects in East Village)," reported a column in the Voice of San Diego.

"The city and its redevelopment arm, the Centre City Development Corp., will contribute $275 million to the project, largely through the issuance of bonds. The bonds will be paid off with hotel-room taxes and new property taxes created by the project." The latter cash was to be routed through the city-controlled redevelopment agency, reported the San Diego Reader in an article about the impact of the failed financing structure.

“Because so-called general obligation bonds wouldn't be used to finance the deal, there was no requirement for two-thirds voter approval, and the measure, sold as largely a free lunch by its backers, passed with 59.5 percent of the vote.”

Instead of the bonds being paid by the independent agency, the bonds ultimately got shifted back to the taxpayers and their annual budget.

"Debt service on the PETCO Park Bonds was previously paid by the redevelopment Successor Agency in FY 2013 (pursuant to a Cooperation Agreement with the former Redevelopment Agency) but was later determined to be an unenforceable Successor Agency obligation, and the City was required to pay the full debt service beginning in FY 2014 and this continues in the FY 2015 Proposed Budget, with $11.3 million of the $13.8 million going to debt service," according to the Reader.

As a result of the perceived “bait and switch” San Diego voters rejected financing for a new stadium for the NFL's San Diego franchise and the team left town.

Lucchino, now working in Rhode Island, in 2017 plans his next strategy — building a “little Fenway Park” on a contaminated old retail location in Pawtucket — without his owners paying for the stadium.

Read Part 3 on Wednesday, June 27.

 

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