Jeb Bush and Derek Jeter Are Actually Close to Buying the Marlins

Jeb Bush is a Wall Street-worshipping, vengeful political bully who cursed the world with Marco Rubio, birthed a comically failed charter school movement and comes from the most unbearable political family outside of Trump Tower. But compared to Jeffrey Loria, he’s basically a saint.

So most Miamians won’t need to be gently urged to “Please clap” if Bush ends up coming through on his bid to buy the Miami Marlins. He’s now reportedly one step closer in trying to snap up the Fish along with his partner, famed New York Yankee Derek Jeter.

Jeter and Bush’s team of investors have agreed in principle on a deal to buy the team, according to news broken by Bloomberg and confirmed by the Miami Herald, which reports that the price is in the range of $1.3 billion.

But before you pop the champagne and light a Loria effigy aflame in celebration, there are indications the deal is long from done.

A competing report in Forbes claims that the only reason Team Jeb and Jeter have “won” a bidding war from the team is because there was no bidding war. In fact, according to Forbes, the former Florida governor’s investment group is the only one to make a real bid for the franchise. And Jeb’s group is still scrambling to find enough investors to meet the Marlins asking price, the paper reports.

Marlins stuff all over the place. First off, a winning "bid" is not a closed "sale." As I reported, cobbling the funds together, challenge

— Maury Brown (@BizballMaury) April 25, 2017

Marlins President David Samson — who, never forget, is a well-established and polished professional liar — claims the Forbes report is wrong and that multiple other groups have also been bidding on the franchise.

Either way, all indications are that Jeb and Jeter are for real and that as of today, they’re closer to working out some kind of deal to buy the team.

If the deal comes through, it will be a bittersweet day for Miami residents. On the one hand, literally every single person in Miami-Dade County would happy to watch Loria and Samson walk slowly and directly into the ocean. But when they do sell the team, they’ll be making an obscene profit largely off the backs of taxpayers who are paying for a billion-dollar-plus boondoggle of a stadium that went directly into Loria’s equity.