More on the Swing Sale

If you are still interested in the sale of the baseball team in Davenport after the article from the Des Moines Register from a few days ago, there is more in the Quad Cities Times.

The Quad-Cities River Bandits’ season has just begun, but the team’s new ownership already has picked up a major financial victory.

An arbitration hearing in Davenport during the first week in March determined that $400,000 worth of disputed bills between the former and current owners were the responsibility of Seventh Inning Stretch, the Kevin Krause-led organization that sold the team to MainStreet Iowa for $6.8 million.

Dave Heller, managing partner of MainStreet Iowa, said the disputed dollars primarily involved operational expenses incurred during the 2007 season.

“Closing the deal proved to be anything but easy,’’ he said. “The bookkeeping and accounting (of the previous ownership) were horrific.

“There were a number of unpaid bills involved, and since then there have been others that we have simply taken care of to move forward.’’

The whole thing is an interesting inside baseball look, by all means go and read it. But, the takeaway quote for me is:

“Not only is it a new season, we have a new name, new ownership and a new way of doing business where we put the fans and our corporate partners first,’’ Heller said. “We can’t undo everything the previous ownership did. All we can do is make certain from this point forward that we do things the right way."