Nationals’ Ted Lerner, man credited with bringing baseball back to DC, dies at 97 – WTOP News

AP Picture/John Bazemore

AP Picture/John Bazemore

AP Picture/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, file

MLB Images through Getty Photos/(Picture by Alex Trautwig/MLB Phot

Courtesy Washington Nationals Baseball Membership

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The person credited with serving to carry baseball again to the nation’s capital has died on the age of 97.

Ted Lerner, the previous principal proprietor of the Washington Nationals, died Sunday, in accordance with a information launch from the crew.

A Nationals spokesperson mentioned Lerner died of problems from pneumonia at his house in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

He’s survived by his spouse of 71 years, Annette Morris Lerner; three kids, 9 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

“It’s with nice disappointment that we announce the passing of Founding Managing Principal Proprietor Theodore N. Lerner,” the crew mentioned in a statement. “The crowning achievement of his household enterprise was bringing baseball again to town he beloved — and with it, bringing a championship house for the primary time since 1924. He cherished the franchise and what it delivered to his beloved hometown.”

Lerner, a longtime actual property mogul within the D.C. area, bought the previous Montreal Expos from Main League Baseball for $450 million, bringing baseball again to D.C. after a three-decade absence.

After early struggles on the sector, the Nationals made the playoffs 5 instances between 2012 and 2019 — and finally gained the World Sequence in 2019. Lerner handed over the reins, as managing principal proprietor, to his son, Mark Lerner, in 2018.

Ted Lerner was born in D.C. in 1925, graduated from George Washington College with a regulation diploma and based the actual property firm Lerner Enterprises in 1952, which went on to turn into the one of many largest non-public real-estate growth corporations within the space.

Lengthy earlier than shopping for a crew, Lerner’s reference to baseball in D.C. was far humbler: He labored as an usher in D.C.’s previous Griffith Stadium, the place the American League’s Washington Senators performed from 1911 to 1960.

Ted Leonsis, CEO of Monumental Sports activities, known as Lerner a enterprise icon and “big,” and mentioned he “constructed this metropolis.”

The Lerner household is almost all proprietor of the Washington Nationals franchise, controlling over 90% of the shares. The household can be a associate in Monumental Sports activities and Leisure, which owns the Washington Capitals hockey crew, the Washington Wizards basketball crew, the Washington Mystics basketball crew and Valor, the Area Soccer League crew, in addition to Capital One Area.

When the Nationals got here to D.C. in 2005, it had been 33 years for the reason that nation’s capital had a significant league baseball crew after the departure of the Washington Senators within the early Seventies.

Final yr, the Lerners started exploring the potential for promoting the crew, which is price $2 billion, in accordance with Forbes, which estimates the household’s internet price as $6.6 billion due to the Nationals and Lerner Enterprises, one of many largest property-owning corporations within the space.

The Related Press and WTOP’s George Wallace contributed to this report.