From a Washington Post profile:
The feeler about the Rangers had come from William O. DeWitt Jr., a friend who in 1984 had merged Bush's small company with his own oil exploration operation, Spectrum 7. The team's owner, Eddie Chiles, an old friend of the Bushes', was in financial trouble and was eager to sell. The task for Bush and DeWitt was to line up investors....
...Negotiations with Chiles went forward in early winter, with Bush and DeWitt rounding up investors, virtually all from the East. Bush's investment was to be relatively small – a half-million dollars, obtained in a loan in which he put up his stock in Harken Energy as collateral.
Bush, like his father, adored baseball and played it in school, and had a formidable capacity for trivia. He and DeWitt – whose father had owned the Cincinnati Reds in the mid-'60s – had often dreamed about buying a franchise. The Rangers were a second-string ballclub, financially and on the field, but the team clearly had potential. With a larger, fancier stadium, the club could generate the revenue to attract first-rate players...
...Even Betts, while assuring Bush that becoming managing partner of the Rangers would pave the way for a political future, expressed concerns about Bush's timing. "I don't want to make the investment, if you plan to run in two years," said Betts, a New York entertainment mogul, who became the largest single investor in the Rangers.
In early August, Bush made it official: He would pass on the 1990 governor's race.
By then he was already a part-owner of the Rangers, a deal signed on April 21. His team of investors had purchased 86 percent of the team for about $75 million. He and DeWitt raised half of the money, with Betts being the main investor; the other half came from a group led by Texas financiers Richard Rainwater and Edward "Rusty" Rose III. Rainwater and Rose had joined with Bush after Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth concluded that Bush and DeWitt hadn't raised enough Texas money.
Bush and Rose, it was agreed, would have joint power in running the franchise, with Rose behind the scenes and Bush serving as the ownership's public face. Bush's total investment eventually would reach $606,302. For putting the deal together and running the club, Bush would receive an additional 10 percent return when the team was sold.
Baseball experts say the new ownership team enhanced the value of the franchise. Gross revenue more than doubled from $28 million to $62 million in a few years, and after the new stadium opened in 1994, it nearly doubled again – to $116 million last year. The club went from a mom-and-pop operation with 30 front-office employees and a consistently mediocre record on the field since moving to Texas from Washington in 1971 to a major corporation that now has 170 employees. In 1996, the Rangers made it to the playoffs for the first time, ultimately losing to the New York Yankees.
And for Bush, Rove and Betts's predictions proved accurate. For the first time, he became a public figure in his own right, attending ownership meetings, speaking at the Rotary Club, sitting in the stands at all the games and handing out baseball cards with his picture on them. Fans by the dozens would line up by his seat for autographs, just as they would for the team's superstar pitcher, Nolan Ryan.
Having a father in the White House didn't hurt, and Bush made the most of his opportunity. "The name brought a celebrity element," said Tom Schieffer, former president of the franchise and an investor. "But it wasn't the only thing he brought to the franchise. He brought his ability to speak to people and tell them why it was fun to come to baseball games. The public persona of the franchise was greatly enhanced because of George Bush."
Other team owners and former Ranger employees say Bush brought an instinctive feel and passion for the sport to his job, and managed to garner loyalty from players as well as hot dog vendors – all of whom he knew by name.
"You know, this guy fired me," said Bobby Valentine, a former Ranger manager now managing the New York Mets. "The honest truth is that I would campaign barefoot for him today."
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