Lerner group will own Nats

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An investment group led by the family of local real estate developer Ted Lerner will be named today as the new owner of the Washington Nationals, according to several sources familiar with the matter.

The announcement will end months of rumor and speculation about the future of the Nationals, and a four-year saga that began when Major League Baseball purchased the franchise, then known as the Montreal Expos, in 2002.

The Lerner group beat out a team led by local businessmen Fred Malek and Jeffrey Zients, as well as a group of local investors led by Indianapolis communications executive Jeff Smulyan. Former Atlanta Braves president Stan Kasten is also a member of the Lerner group, and is expected to serve as president of the Nationals.

The specific time and place of the announcement was unclear as of last night, but its believed that baseball commissioner Bud Selig will announce the decision via conference call, and the Lerner group will follow with a press conference.

News of the decision was being kept under tight wraps. Losing groups had not yet been told of the decision as of late last night, and members of the D.C. Council and D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams said yesterday they were not aware of any selection.

The D.C. Council yesterday shot down a measure that would have lent official support to the Malek/Zients and Smulyan groups.

By a vote of 10-3, the council rejected a resolution by council members Vincent Orange, Ward 5 Democrat and Marion Barry, Ward 8 Democrat, who sought to convince baseball to select either one of those two teams on the grounds that they had the strongest local and minority investors.

But most council members opposed the resolution yesterday, calling it a "joke" and "feel-good measure," because it is non-binding.

Orange said he believed the council had a chance to influence Selig to have a last-second change of heart.

"Hopefully at the end of the day, [MLB] will have a different outlook," Orange said. "Selig's stated goal was to bring more minorities in the front office and the decision-making process. The Malek/Zients group and the Smulyan group present that."