Friday, August 21, 1998
The University Daily Kansan
Section B · Page 5
Royals fans urged to OK lawyer's bid
The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With Kansas City's major league status hanging in the balance, residents were urged yesterday to support a New Yorker's bid to buy the Royals.
"If people in Kansas City don't want baseball in Kansas City, what can we do?" Royals president Mike Herman said at a news conference. "If we can't find local buyers, we are permitted to move the team. It's something we don't want to do."
Herman said that the board met yesterday morning and declared that the group headed by New York lawyer Miles Prentice III had the best bid but failed to meet the requirement of 50 percent local investment.
Herman said that always had been a requirement for purchasing the team, which has been in ownership limbo since founder Ewing Kauffman died in 1993.
"I think we'll get it done," said Prentice, who owns a double-A team in Midland, Texas. "I love
baseball. I'm still having fun.
This has been an interesting odyssev."
Prentice has persuaded some of Kansas City's most prominent families to join him in reaching the board's minimum price of $75 million, including the adopted daughter and daughter-in-law of the team's late founder. Ewing Kauffman. His only competition is a partnership between Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, and Western Resources Inc., a utility giant from Topeka.
The Hunt group, however, has bid only $25 million up front, plus $27 million conditional upon tax-payers' making millions of dollars worth of improvements to Kauffman Stadium.
"The Miles Prentice group has submitted the superior bid. Our articles of incorporation require that we have to have 50 percent
local ownership," Herman said. "The board is now challenging the citizens of Kansas City to step up to the plate and support the Prentice bid."
Herman refused to say how much more local investment Prentice needs or whether the Hunt group was still in the running.
Hunt's office said he was traveling and not available for comment. A representative for John Hayes Jr., chairman of Western Resources, would issue only this one-sentence statement:
"We're continuing to work at the process."
Prentice, who has promised all along that he has no intention to move the team, said he was not upset when the 50 percent local investment condition was added.
"Not when I understood the reasons," he said. "It's very rational. I have no problem with it."
Many Kansas City residents recall that the late Charlie Finley, who was not a local resident, moved the Athletics to Oakland in 1967.
"You were burned once," Prentice said at a news conference yesterday. "I understand the concern."
Founded as an American League expansion team in 1969, the Royals were hugely successful through the 1980s, winning the 1980 pennant and the 1955 World Series. But attendance has dipped, and they have been consistent moneylosers since slipping into mediocrity and finishing in the AL Central cellar the past two seasons.
Kauffman, one of Kansas City's most generous philanthropists, set aside more than $50 million to shore up losses until a local buyer was found and stipulated that all proceeds from the sale would go to local charities. Although they are committed by lease to stay in Kansas City through 2015, no owner would be required to remain if the team is not adequately supported.
"I'm still hopeful everything will work out here," said David Glass, the chairman of the board. "But at some point in time, the Royals have to stay in Kansas City based on merit."
Chew on this: Bite Fight ref is TV judge
The Associated Press
The black-robed judge bangs his gavel and says, "Let's get it on."
It's how he opens his daily nationally syndicated television show, "Judge Mills Lane — America's Judge." It's also how Lane concludes his miding instructions to fighters.
Yes, it's the same Mills Lane who disqualified Mike Tyson for biting Evander Holyfield's ears.
"I'm no hero," Lane said. "I was just doing my job."
The Bite Fight, however, made Lane something better than being a hero in this day and age. It made him a celebrity.
He is now dispensing justice on television because he tossed Tyson, not because he's a former Nevada district court judge known as Maximum Mills.
"There's no question, it put me where I am now," Lane said.
Anyone tuning in between the
first and second case on Lane's first show this week might have thought his wisdom was biblical.
When the show resumed after a commercial break, viewers were told, "This next case involves a burning bush."
It seems a boy set fire to a bush on a neighboring property, and the neighbors wanted compensation.
Besides becoming a TV personality, Lane, who retired as a state judge May 1, also has written, with Jedwin Smith, a book — "Let's Get It On: Tough Talk From Boxing's Top Ref and Nevada's Most Outspoken Judge."
Of disqualifying Tyson after the third round of his rematch with Holyfield on June 28, 1997, in Las Vegas, Lane writes, "I went to Tyson's corner and chased him. I can still see him sitting on the stool, eyes blazing, his mouth open in disbelief. His cornermen were shouting at me, dumbfounded as I tugged on my left ear, indicating
"Admittedly, it took every ounce of willpower I could muster to mask my contempt for the obstinate, unrepentant creature that sat before me. I swallowed my anger and said, 'That's it, Mike. You're outta here. You're gone, you're done.'"
that while one bite was bad enough,
two bites was the end of the search.
Asked recently if he thought maybe he should have disqualified Tyson after the first bite, which took a chunk out of Holyfield's right ear, Lane said a case could be made for that. He said people who thought the fight should be stopped after the first bite could not be considered wrong.
Lane declined to comment about whether Tyson, who had his license revoked and was wined $3 million, would be reinstated, but he approved of his withdrawal of his license application from New Jersey and applying to Nevada. Tyson will appear before the Nevada State
Athletic Commission on on Sept. 9.
While Tyson's boxing future is in a state of flux, it appears Lane's career of refereeing almost 100 world championship fights is nearing an end so he can become a television boxing analyst.
He will always be remembered as the referee of the Bite Fight. People have already forgotten he was the referee for Holyfield's second-fight victory over Riddick Bowe in 1993, during which a man wearing a paraglider (Fan Man) crashed against the ring in the seventh round.
"A more bizarre fight to me was when Oliver McCall came apart," he said of the 1997 bout between Oliver McCall and Lennox Lewis in which McCall broke down in tears after the fourth round, then refused to defend himself, forcing Lane to stop the bout in the fifth round.
As for himself, Lane lists another bout as No.1 in his wacky-happening category.
Dance Cheerleading &Big Jay Tryouts
Open Gym Thursday, August 27th 6:30pm-8:30pm @ Anchutz,$5 fee Enhance your tumbling, stunting, leaps, and turns.
DANCE TEAM:
MANDATORY CLINIC: Wed., September 2nd, 6:30pm-9:30pm
Robinson Gym, Room 210 $5 fee
TRYOUTS: Thurs., September 3rd, Starts @ 6:00pm
242 Robinson Gym, Dance Studio
FINAL INTERVIEWS: September 4th (if you make cuts)
All Activities @ Anschutz Sports Pavillion (West of Allen Fieldhouse)
CHEERLEADING:
MANDATORY CLINIC: Wed., September 2nd, 6:30pm-9:30pm $5 fee
TRYOUTS: Thurs., September 3rd, Starts @ 6:00pm
BIG JAY (MASCOT):
MANDATORY CLINIC: Wed., September 2nd 6:30pm-9:30pm $5 fee and wear running shoes! TRYOUTS: Thurs., September 3rd, Starts @ 6:30pm
(MUST BE 5'11" - 6'2" IN HEIGHT)
All Activities @ Anschuts Sports Pavillion
Get KU Fit for a stronger student body GET KU FIT
*Aerobic classes start September 8
*Now offering personal trainers
*$60 per semeser or $120 per year
*Aerobic classes offered: high and low impact, step, slide, aqua, strength classes,
boot camp, basketball inspired classes, boxing, and much more!
Student Senate
Sign up today and Get KU Fit.
For more info call 864-3546 or stop by 208 Robinson
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