Athletes - Jeffrey Loria

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	Athletes - Jeffrey Loria

Jeffrey H. Loria is an art dealer and an owner of professional baseball teams.

A 1957 graduate of New York's Stuyvesant High School, Loria spent many years as an art dealer, first for Sears and then for his own firm. He also authored two books: 1965's Collecting Original Art and 1969's What's It All About, Charlie Brown? (co-written with Pat K. Lynch).

His first baseball venture came in 1989, when he purchased the minor league Oklahoma City 89ers. During the 1990s he attempted to purchase several Major League teams, notably the Baltimore Orioles. He finally succeeded by purchasing 24% of the Montreal Expos in 1999 and became their Managing Partner. Loria orchestrated a series of controversial cash calls that diluted the share of the other owners and increased his own to 94%.

Then, in an orchestrated move with Bud Selig and John Henry (owner of the Florida Marlins at the time), Henry bid for the Boston Red Sox, sold the Florida Marlins to Loria, who promptly sold the Expos to MLB. This transaction prompted a RICO lawsuit by minority shareholders of the Expos. The suit accused Loria and his staff of conduct "that effectively destroyed the economic viability of baseball in Montreal (that) included removing the Expos from local television, subverting well-developed plans for a new baseball stadium in downtown Montreal, purposefully alienating Expos' sponsors and investors, abandoning agreed-upon financial plans for the franchise, and undermining a planned recapitalization of the franchise that would have added new Canadian partners." The Expos were ultimately transferred to Washington and became the Washington Nationals. Marlins team president David Samson, Loria's son-in-law, mentioned during the 2005 offseason that the Marlins were exploring attempts to relocate.

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