As a Royals fan since only 2001, I didn’t know much about the ownership of the Royals.  I knew Ewing died and then a while later Glass bought them.  Reading Glass’s bio, I’ve learned some other interesting thing.

After Ewing died, the Royals were run by a board of directors who made all the financial decisions.  In 2000 they attempted to get a new owner.  It came down to Miles Prentice who bid $120 million and David Glass who bid $96 million.  Seems like an easy call, except David Glass (and his 3 kids, though I don’t know if they were there then) was on the Board of directors who chose the winning bid.   Despite the lower bid, Glass was awarded the team and the rest is history.

Here’s an interview with Miles Prentice back in 2000 when he thought he had the team won. (By Rany Jaz no less)

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=301

Seems like he would have been a slightly better owner than Glass.  At least his head was in the right spot.

To be fair, he was a minor league owner who was going to buy them with the help of other investors.  Apparently MLB had a problem with this.  I’m not sure the details, but it sounds like he got screwed over.

I would love to hear what anyone who was around then remembers or feels about the whole thing.  Or just links to more information about it.  Sounds like we got screwed on the deal but this was only after 5 minutes of research.