BOSTON -- The on again-off again talks between Attorney
General Thomas Reilly and baseball commissioner Bud Selig regarding
the Boston Red Sox sale are back on -- scheduled for Sunday.
Reilly, probing whether Selig's office improperly guided the
team into accepting a $660 million offer from a group led by
Florida financier John Henry, canceled a planned phone conversation
Saturday, saying baseball proposed unacceptable conditions.
"They wanted to limit the content of what could be discussed,"
Reilly spokeswoman Ann Donlan said. "Furthermore they wanted to
impose restrictions on public comment" about the conversation.
Baseball officials called back late Saturday, Donlan said, and
the sides agreed that there will be no restrictions on public
comment and no time limit. Saturday's talk was scheduled to be just
15 minutes. Donlan did not know, however, if the content of the
conversation will be limited.
"There are no limits on how the meeting is publicly
characterized afterward," Donlan said. "I'm not certain on the
scope of what will be discussed."
A phone message left by The Associated Press at baseball's New
York offices was not immediately returned.
Reilly is investigating whether charities that would benefit
from the sale were shortchanged when the team accepted Henry's
offer instead of a $750 million bid from a group headed by New York
lawyer Miles Prentice. The team claimed the Prentice offer did not
have secure financing.
Meanwhile, the team is considering a late $700 million offer
from cable television billionaire Charles Dolan.
Dolan, chairman of Cablevision Systems Corp., made the new bid
Thursday, three weeks after the Red Sox agreed to the offer from
Henry, who is in the process of selling the Florida Marlins.
The Red Sox are not bound by their agreement with Henry,
according to Dolan.
"The documents if you see them are very specific in that area
in that it basically says the Red Sox can deny bids, the Red Sox
can accept bids and then change their minds," Dolan spokeswoman
Nancy Sterling said.
The Boston Globe reported Saturday that Red Sox chief executive
John Harrington advised Dolan to send the team an "unconditional,
final and binding signed purchase and sale agreement."
Harrington runs the Jean R. Yawkey Trust, which owns a 53
percent controlling share of the Red Sox.
Any sale must be approved by major league owners.
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