WASHINGTON (JTA) — Ted Lerner, who died Sunday at age 97, was as much a famous workaholic as he was shy.
So it was a big deal when Washington Magazine did an interview with him in 2007, the year he assumed ownership of the Nationals, the first baseball team in Washington DC since 1971.
In the interview, Lerner describes his 18-hour days building a real estate empire of malls and other developments that shaped DC and its suburbs. He also mentioned two things that could distract him from his work: a ball game and Jewish holidays.
“I just worked,” he said. “I flew for Jewish holidays and a [football] game or two But he said his true love was baseball, a sport that brought him back to the days of his youth.
“In Washington in the 1930s, that was all there was – baseball,” he said.
He recalled that as a teenager, he would aim to sell enough Saturday Night Evening Post to buy a streetcar to Senator Griffith Stadium (price: 3 cents) and the cheapest ticket (25 cents).
He managed to get a gig as a teenage usher to watch the 1937 All-Star Game at the stadium—”when Dizzy Dean was hit on the leg by a line drive,” he told the magazine. “He was never the same after that.” (The injury effectively ended the veteran pitcher’s career.)
When Major League Baseball decided in 2004 that the Montreal Expos’ new home would be in Washington, he held meetings with the team’s management for himself and his successors. His son and two daughters, and his wives, were his sacred inner circle.
Anthony Rendon of the Washington Nationals hits a home run against the Houston Astros during the seventh inning of Game 7 of the Baseball World Series on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019, in Houston. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Lerner did not hoax at the Major League Baseball confab and did not run a promotional campaign. But his seriousness led him to beat out seven other bids for nationals.
The payoff for that decision came in 2015, when the team built the stadium they built to host Washington’s first All-Star Game since 1969. In the margin
One aspect of Lerner’s job was never being used to speaking in public. His high school yearbook dubbed him “Silent Ted”.
Along with baseball, Lerner made a name for himself by turning Northern Virginia into a haven for shopping. The massive mall complex he built across from the dairy farms, Tyson’s Corner, gained international fame.
Lerner died of complications from pneumonia at his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He was born and raised in Washington DC to Orthodox Jewish parents. His father came from British Mandated Palestine, and his mother came from Lithuania. His extensive charitable donations included donations to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and his synagogue, Oher Kodesh.
“I never dreamed of owning a baseball team,” he said in 2015 while receiving the Urban Land Institute Washington’s Lifetime Achievement Award, when he compared his style with another well-known real estate developer.
“And I could never have imagined in my life that I would build over 20 million square feet of commercial and residential space, and very few people would know my name,” he said. “I think I have a different approach to real estate development than Donald Trump. And I’m okay with that.
After he bought National, the team continued to grow its local fan base but it took several years for the team to become a contender. General manager Jim Bowden explained the strategy to Sports Illustrated in 2012.
“The Learners made it clear: We’re in no rush,” Bowden said. “We want to build it just like we build our buildings from the bottom up. We don’t build penthouses first.
Yan Gomes and Daniel Hudson of the Washington Nationals celebrate after Game 7 of the Baseball World Series against the Houston Astros Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019, in Houston. The Nationals won 6–2 to win the series. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
The strategy paid off. Lerner, age 93, handed control of the team over to his son Mark in 2018, a year after the Nationals won the World Series.
Mark Lerner told the New York Times at the time, “There were generations of baseball fans who grew up in D.C. without a team.” “Now he has one, and won a World Series. To put it in context, my father was born a year after he won the last World Series. Says it all.
In addition to Mark and his wife, Annette, Lerner is survived by his daughters, Debra Lerner Cohen and Marla Lerner Tenenbaum, nine grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. His family still owns the team.
