Indians, Royals Plan To Extend Agreement

Spokane Indians owner Bobby Brett would like to continue his team’s partnership with the Kansas City Royals, and it appears the Royals feel the same way.

Bob Hegman, the Kansas City organization’s director of minor league operations, said Thursday he plans to stay with Spokane.

The Indians’ four-year working agreement with the Royals expires after this season, but Brett said he’s had initial talks with Hegman about renewing it.

“My plans are to stay with the Royals,” Brett said. “And they’d like to renew.”

He said he hopes to have a contract negotiated within 30 days.

There has been no discussion about the length of any new agreement, Hegman said.

“Spokane is the best franchise in the Northwest League,” Hegman said. “The fans have been outstanding to us. Obviously the condition of the playing field (Seafirst Stadium) is fantastic. And we like the efficiency of the front office. I have no complaints.

“There’s nowhere I’d rather go.”

Brett, who also owns the Spokane Chiefs hockey team and the Spokane Shadow soccer franchise, is the brother of former Royals third baseman George Brett, Kansas City’s vice president of baseball operations.

Along with his three brothers and their partners, Bobby Brett put in a bid to buy the Royals, but the partnership did not meet the minimum asking price of $75 million, he said. Brett did not disclose the amount of the bid.

“We looked at the Royals long and hard and made the offer we thought it was worth,” he said. “We always knew we were a long shot, but we felt because we were in the sports business, we would like to own the Royals. But you have to feel comfortable with the price. We have no hard feelings.”

Miles Prentice, a New York lawyer who owns a minor league baseball and hockey team in Texas, has submitted the highest bid, but needs more local ownership, the Associated Press reported. Prentice lacks the 50 percent local ownership required by the Royals’ articles of incorporation.

In a briefing Thursday at Kauffman Stadium, Royals president Mike Herman would not answer questions about whether the Brett bid and one by Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt, had been rejected. But Herman made it clear that Prentice’s bid was superior and that negotiations with Prentice would continue, the AP reported.

The Royals have been in the hands of a board of directors since the death of founder Ewing Kauffman in 1993. Under Kauffman’s succession plan, all proceeds from the team’s sale will go to local charities.