• Knowing the Hicks parties were impossibly conflicted, he appointed an independent chief restructuring officer to maximize recovery for the creditors.
• Knowing certain tasks had to be performed by someone else during the course of the proceedings, Lynn appointed Fort Worth bankruptcy Judge Russell Nelms, to serve first as mediator, and then as auction arbiter. He ruled that the Cuban-Crane bid qualified for the auction given questions raised about the certainty of their financing, and that the Cuban-Crane bids had to be adjusted because of certain uncertainties. Those uncertainties included a lengthier closing process and the league owners’ approval, as compared with the certainty of Greenberg-Ryan’s all-cash financing and certain MLB approval.
• Knowing the timetable involved in running a team, and mindful of when Greenberg-Ryan’s financial commitments to purchase the team would expire, Lynn set a schedule that kept the proceedings on track while giving all participants a reasonable amount of time to do what they needed to do in a constantly evolving litigation landscape.
• Knowing the financial strength, power and egos involved in the proceedings, including many of the country’s finest bankruptcy lawyers, Lynn kept in line all these high-powered individuals, establishing both his court’s total control of the case and his refusal to be intimidated by media or public reaction.
  

Ever since he became Commissioner of Baseball more than a decade ago, what Bud Selig has said about what’s “in the best interests of baseball” has been the law of the diamond — until now.

The commissioner has repeatedly put his seal of approval since last December on the proposed sale of the Texas Rangers by a Tom Hicks partnership, which contains other Hicks entities as general partners, to a group led by Chuck Greenberg and Nolan Ryan. But whether that sale closes will be made not by Selig but by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Lynn, who is presiding over the Rangers’ Chapter 11 proceedings filed in Fort Worth on May 24, 2010.

At a May 26 hearing, Judge Lynn directed the following statements on the record at Rangers CFO Kellie Fischer at the conclusion of her testimony: “Until such time as it is clear to me that all creditors are to be paid in full in this case, you are fiduciaries acting for the benefit of your creditors, and you’ve got to keep in mind that it doesn’t mean that you’re acting necessarily for the best interests of Major League Baseball. ... As an officer of a debtor-in-possession, the fiduciary duty you owe to your creditors and to your equity interest holders has to come first in this court.”

Lest there be any doubt about it, during the hearing, Judge Lynn stated emphatically on the record that he and not Major League Baseball “is in charge of the sale process.”

Two questions to answer

The following two questions will be answered soon by Judge Lynn after hearing arguments from the armies of lawyers representing Major League Baseball, the Greenberg/Ryan partnership, the Hicks entities and the 40 creditors on the short end of the $525 million default by Hicks’ Rangers-related companies last year:

The first question is, if MLB wants the Rangers sold to Greenberg/Ryan at the agreed-upon price of $575 million — made up of cash and debt assumption, and such price includes the purchase of the team and some surrounding land — and it is demonstrated to the court that Greenberg/Ryan’s price was not the highest offer made for the team, and another bidder is still ready, willing and able to pay more than $575 million, must the court approve of the sale to Greenberg/Ryan? Selig has said he expects no problem getting the required 75 percent from the league’s other owners should the time come for the up-or-down approval vote.

Asked another way, in light of all pertinent considerations, and recognizing that none of the losing bidders in last year’s bid process ever expressed any interest in moving the team away from North Texas, do the Rangers have the duty to maximize the amount of proceeds made from the sale of the team? This question is raised in the context that 1) Tom Hicks has stated publicly that there was no bid made by anyone else that exceeded Greenberg/Ryan’s bid, which would have been approved by MLB, 2) HSG Sports Group’s creditors insist that there was at least one bid materially higher than Greenberg/Ryan’s bid, and 3) the shortfall between the Greenberg/Ryan bid and the total owed to the creditors by Hicks’ Ranger-connected entities is reportedly at least $30 million.

Can creditors block sale?

Question No. 2 is this: Do Hicks’ creditors have enforceable rights under their loan documents and the U.S. Bankruptcy Code that empower them to block the team’s sale unless and until they consent to it?

Asked another way, because of having defaulted on their loans, have Hicks’ now (as of May 26) involuntarily bankrupt companies, which serve as general partners of the partnership which currently own the Rangers, forfeited their right to consent to the sale of the team, and because of the defaults, has such right to approve or disapprove of the sale to the ultimate purchaser been transferred over to Hicks’ lenders?

Legal briefs arguing all sides of the parties’ different answers to these questions will be filed with the court on June 11, and then nationally renowned lawyers will present oral argument on the two issues to Judge Lynn on June 15.

How the bankruptcy judge ends up answering the two questions will determine whether he chooses to reopen the bidding process with an auction sale of the team.

If the parties fail to achieve a settlement at the upcoming mediation ordered by the court, two things are for sure: 1) the person who will determine the fate of who gets to buy the Texas Rangers is not the Commissioner of Baseball and 2) the controlling issue in making the determination of who will be selected as the team’s ultimate purchaser is not about what “is in the best interests of baseball.”

In other words, to use the game’s parlance, in this collision at home plate over who will get to buy North Texas’ Major League Baseball team, Judge Lynn is safe, and Selig is out.

Season ticket holders had declined almost 10 percent. No big-name free agents had been signed to generate fan interest. Negative press had arisen in the off-season over the team’s moving veteran Gold Glove shortstop Michael Young to third base in deference to untested 20-year-old rookie Elvis Andrus. And the dismal economy produced expectations that fans would be cutting their baseball-spending budgets.

Cutting ticket prices for most seats to many games

Creating a ticket discount package with next-door-neighbor Six Flags Over Texas

Expanding the availability of the all-you-can eat seats to all games, so fans have the opportunity every night to cap expenses on food and non-alcoholic drinks

Offering free tickets for kids on most Tuesdays

Selling $1 hot dogs and offering half-price tickets on most Wednesdays

Providing post-game fireworks shows to go along with $10 tickets (instead of the standard $25) and $5 parking (instead of the usual $12) on 13 Fridays (as opposed to five last year)

Booking seven pre-game and post-game concerts, two more than in 2008

Increasing the number of giveaway nights (bobbleheads, caps, etc.) to 16 games

Improving the fun quotient with the “Ring of Fire” ribbon-band video boards that encircle the ballpark and bring down the house with Johnny Cash singing while the opposing manager talks to his troubled pitcher on the mound.

Oh, and one other thing: To enhance the marketing initiatives, team president Nolan Ryan and general manager Jon Daniels improved their ballclub. In large part due to new pitching coach Mike Maddux, the 2009 Rangers have gelled into an elite team, now in the hunt to win their division.

How? They got better quickly through management’s new focus on improved pitching and defense. In the first 94 games this season, as compared to last year, they have reduced their opponents’ scoring by 1.3 runs per game, largely because more effective pitchers (thanks to Mr. Maddux) have allowed 69 fewer walks, while the defense (led by the amazingly rangy and graceful shortstop, Mr. Andrus) has committed 28 fewer errors. This has caused the team to compete in close games almost every night, which obviously provides heightened drama for the fan. 

Put these factors together, and the Texas Rangers’ success this year is proven by the following facts:

Through 50 home games, they’ve sold 164,505 more tickets than last season, meaning they’ve sold more single game (i.e., non-season) tickets than any other team in baseball.

Because more fans are staying through the ninth inning at their more competitive games, food and beverage concession revenue has increased by more than 20 percent and merchandise sales have gone up more than 30 percent, in large part due to the reintroduction of the color red to the team’s uniform colors.

Television viewing of the games has surged, increasing 59 percent over last summer (the biggest increase in baseball), with recent games against the Red Sox and Angels drawing more than 100,000 local viewers.

In short, in a year of economic blues, this year’s Rangers have been THE success story of 2009 in North Texas, with prospects good that the buzz, sizzle, and good vibes coming out of Arlington will only continue, as more and more people in these parts hop aboard the gleaming, high-speed train appropriately named “The Ryan Express.”

Jim Collins’ book, “Good to Great,” came out in 2001 and defined what it takes for a business to fulfill its potential. If he starts looking for a new case study to support his theories, Collins should come to Arlington where, in the last 15 months, Texas Rangers President Nolan Ryan has left the organization’s historically underachieving mind-set in the dust.

He’s implemented a system with all its ingredients coming together to jell, using his common-sense approach to management that happens to coincide with Good to Great’s key principles.

Among Collins’ precepts being executed in Arlington these daysRyan identified what Collins calls the “One Big Right Thing,” being the one central goal that can drive a company to its highest level, around which all aspects of the organization are built. For the Rangers, he says that one thing is: “having a competitive team on the field, which drives everything in our operation. If we’re competing well in every game, and winning our share because of our improved pitching and defense, to go with the great hitting we’ve always had, more fans will attend our games, more will buy our merchandise and more will follow us on television and radio, causing more companies to be sponsors.”

He’s rigorous in making personnel decisions. Using Collins’ metaphor, Ryan’s gotten the right people on the bus, put them in the right seats and gotten the wrong people off the bus. He says his greatest accomplishment thus far is “bringing in an outstanding staff of quality baseball people who have a passion for the game.”

In the dugout, he hired Mike Maddux and Jackie Moore as coaches, who were formerly with Ryan's minor league team in Round Rock. To maximize stadium appeal, he brought in Rob Matwick, who used to keep Houston's Minute Maid Park squeaky clean and fan-friendly to be Rangers' executive vice president of ballpark operations. In marketing, he hired Dale Petroskey, who led the Baseball Hall of Fame into its position as the country's top sports history venue. And to head up communications, he brought John Blake back from Boston to do what he had done in Ryan's last years as a player.

Not everyone on the bus, however, needed to be replaced. Ryan saw that General Manager Jon Daniels, Chief of Staff Jim Sundberg and Manager Ron Washington should be kept. Of particular importance is Daniels, who built the farm system into baseball's finest (recognized as such by the magazine Baseball America), while making the 2007 Mark Texeira-to-Atlanta swap (which brought in current starters Matt Harrison, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Elvis Andrus, and top pitching prospect Neftali Feliz), doing for the Rangers what the Herschel Walker trade once did for the Dallas Cowboys.

The organization epitomizes Collins' "3 D's" -- Disciplined People using Disciplined Thought to inspire Disciplined Action. To be a dominating pitcher for 27 years requires a superhuman level of self-discipline, which since retiring as a player Ryan has brought to his banking, real estate, minor league baseball and meat business successes and now brings to the Rangers.

"Disciplined thought is driven by hard data," says Collins. In baseball's information age, GM Jon Daniels has put in place an instantly accessible system of statistical, physical, historical and psychological data on every professional player and top prospect in the world, which drives his every move.

Collins' final component for an organizations' success is having a "Level 5 Leader" -- someone who combines humility with ferocious resolve to produce results.  Yes, Nolan Ryan is the greatest power pitcher ever, but he doesn't wear his accomplishments on his sleeve. He also wants fans to see he's not above sitting in 100-degree heat and weathering rain delays in ballpark seats.

The will that empowered Nolan Ryan to throw fastballs into his mid-forties now drives the 62-year-old executive toward one goal: win the World Series. And why not? If the Boston Red Sox could exorcise the Curse of the Bambino in 2004 after 86 years of futility, then why can't the Texas Rangers do the same with the Curse of the Washington Senators that's been hovering over his team since it moved from D.C. to Arlington in 1972?

Despite the recent demise of the Republican Party nationally, its candidates still hold all the statewide offices in Texas, and that unified record should stay the same in 2010. The outcome of the Perry-Hutchison face-off will answer the question in the front of most political analysts’ minds these days: Do the majority of today’s Republicans favor the far-right conservative Perry approach or the more mainstream Hutchison perspective?

Experts anticipate in next year’s Republican primary that only 700,000 Texans will vote, while the two gubernatorial candidates are expected to spend, combined, $60 million on the race. Do the math. That comes to $86 per vote as the cost of what it takes to do business in Texas politics these days.