A Businessman and a Gentleman

Bill DeWitt, Jr. Managing Partner and Chairman of the major league baseball team, the St. Louis Cardinals, pictured above with Manager, Tony LaRussa, is both a Businessman and a Gentleman. He is the "other side of the story" in the Albert Pujols melodrama.

In the recent media frenzy of the Pujols contract soap opera played out spectacularly over the airwaves last week, Bill Jr. displayed both roles expertly. At the end of the day, he showed Albert and everybody else who cared, who was in charge. The businessman. And he did it with great gentlemanly aplomb amidst the glare of the moment. This was not suprising. He was well trained for this moment.

As a businessman, Bill Jr., got his start "gophering" around for his entreprenurial father, Bill Sr., who owned both the old St. Louis Browns in the thirties and forties and the Cincinnati Reds in the '60s. In 1965, Bill's Dad as owner of the Reds, traded away "an old" Frank Robinson to the Baltimore Orioles. The next year Frank Robinson won the Triple Crown and MVP for the Orioles and went on to a Hall of Fame career. It is regarded as one of the worst baseball trades of all time. Bill Sr. was vilified in the media for this "mistake." Young Bill felt his Dad's pain. It weathered him for what may lay ahead for him in his own journey.

In the '60s a young ambitious and precocious Bill Jr, graduated from Yale with an undergraduate degree. A few years later, he graduated with a master's degree in business from Harvard. Leaving academia, Bill Jr. found himself adept in deal making in the business world. Over time, his risk-laden deals made him and his partners alot of money. Due to this success and access to money, Bill Jr. got the inside track on attractive deals in all types of businesses from around the country. One such deal involved one of his fellow Yale and Harvard alum and future President of the United States, #43, George W. Bush. Bill Jr. told George about the hushed and reluctant sale of the baseball team, the Texas Rangers. George Bush assembled a partnership bought the team for $86M and sold it 10 years later for $250M. George's windfall profit from this one deal paved his way to successful political campaigns in both Austin and Washington DC. Needless to say, Bill Jr. and George remain close friends today in spite of eight tumultuous years in the WH.

In 1996, Bill Jr., picked his own plum in the baseball world. His investment group bought the iconic St. Louis Cardinals from Anheuser Busch for $150M. Recently, Forbes Magazine has valued the Cardinals over $450M. Not a bad investment in 15 years.

So as the dust settled from last week's baseball theatre, two things emerged: Bill Dewitt Jr. is an astute businessman and leader who is strong and decisive while unyielding to sentimental public opinion; and, secondly, he performed this unenviable task in front of the world's stage with modesty, respect, great class, professionalism and gentlemanly conduct.

With Bill DeWitt, Jr.'s hands firmly on the tiller, the Cardinals will be OK with or without #5 next year. Just think, the Cardinals could have an owner like the dysfunctional McCourts in Los Angeles. Now that would be a disaster for the Redbirds.

Go Cards.