It's unwise to doubt Chuck Greenberg or that he ultimately will get what he wants.
This is a guy, mind you, who went from owning the Curve for seven years to, incredibly, being in position to own the Texas Rangers. So it didn't matter that, in the past seven days, the sale nearly fell apart.
Greenberg was going to come out on top in this whole thing. Pretty much anyone who knew him well or had dealings with him in Altoona could have figured that out.
"I always thought we would find a way," Greenberg said by phone Thursday night from Arlington.
Some crazy court proceedings and legal entanglements put the Greenberg/Nolan Ryan ownership group in a tough spot this week. A judge ruled to have the sale go to auction, so Greenberg found himself going toe to toe in a bidding war with none other than Mark Cuban.
Amazingly to some, but not surprisingly from this viewpoint, the lawyer from Pittsburgh outclassed and outsmarted the brass billionaire NBA owner.
Greenberg's group will pay a reported $590 million for the Rangers, covering the price of the team and its massive debt. The price tag was significantly higher - because of the auction - than what he originally intended to pay.
"No one ever goes into a deal saying, 'I'm going to spend as much as I possibly can,'" Greenberg said. "You want to get the best deal you can, and we thought at several points along the path that we had a deal on terms that were significantly lower than the one that we ultimately agreed to."
In the end, it came down to financing. And it will surprise many that Greenberg had the money in place, while Cuban did not.
"They had temporary commitments and did not have final commitments," Greenberg said. "We were a sure thing."
Even with Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig backing Greenberg's group the entire way, things got messy in court with all the haggling over money.
"It's incredibly frustrating," Greenberg said. "I thought we had this thing sewn up in November and then December and then January and then April and then two weeks ago and then Tuesday. And yet, there we found ourselves at an auction with almost no apparent head start as a reward for all that we had done over 15 months."
Despite having to pay "more than we intended," Greenberg said the first-place Rangers will be in good position to operate the ballclub and afford quality players. He even talked Thursday about being able to afford prized pitcher Cliff Lee, who will be a free agent after this season.
"We have a very, very substantial group of investors, and I've said all along we had the resources to buy the team and run the ballclub the right way," Greenberg said. "Nothing has changed."
He went on to add, "It doesn't matter what deals we thought we had before. We agreed to what we agreed to, and we stand by it and we're not looking back."
Well, he will always look back a little. To his days in Altoona.
"I've said it before, and I'll say it many times again: None of this would be possible without the experience I had there," said Greenberg, who owned the Curve from 2002-08.
"The whole story line that enables me to be in this position begins with the success we had in Altoona, the goodwill that everybody had for us and the things that we did in Altoona. I will never forget that, and I will never take it for granted because I talk about it a lot."
It can only be a good thing for the Curve franchise and city of Altoona that Greenberg is now a high-profile sports figure who forever will speak kindly about our neck of the woods.
"To have a former owner taking ownership in a major league franchise means the Altoona Curve will have additional notoriety nationally in baseball circles," Curve general manager Rob Egan said.
Greenberg also owns the State College Spikes, and general manager Jason Dambach suggested that the difficult process of buying the Rangers makes the ultimate prize "even sweeter" for Greenberg.
"For all of us in the organization who have worked hand in hand with Chuck pretty much from the beginning of his time in professional baseball, this is an exciting moment," Dambach said. "Everybody is happy for him, and it's been a long and arduous process."
Or as Greenberg simply put it, "What a journey."
Cory Giger is the host of "Sports Central" from 4 to 6 p.m. daily on ESPN Radio 1430 WVAM. He can be reached at 949-7031 or cgsports12@aol.com.
