The Texas Rangers owe Alex Rodriguez money — and he wants it back.
The Yankees' third baseman was granted a seat on a committee representing Rangers creditors whose debts are not secured by the team, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
Rodriguez, who played with the Rangers from 2001-03, is owed $24.89 million in deferred compensation. The money is left over from the 10-year, $252 million deal he signed with the team.
While Rodriguez is owed the most back pay of any Texas ballplayer, others include former Rangers pitchers Kevin Millwood ($12.9 million) and Vicente Padilla ($1.7 million). Current Texas third baseman Michael Young also is owed $3.9 million.
According to court documents, Rodriguez is part of a three-member panel alongside Essey Alley, president of Vratsinas Construction Co. in Little Rock, Ark., and Harold G. Thompson, vice president of the architecture and engineering firm RTKL Associates Inc. The committee met for the first time last Thursday and will be represented by the law firm K&L Gates LLP.
The committee represents all unsecured creditors, including vendors that provided goods or services to the team such as Clear Channel Outdoor, Rawlings Sporting Goods Co. and Melrose Pyrotechnics Inc.
The Rangers’ owners are looking to sell the club to a group led by Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan and Pittsburgh attorney Chuck Greenberg. That deal would pay much of the Rangers’ debts and would defer responsibility for paying off players over to the new owners. However, lenders to the Rangers’ owners disrupted that deal by filing involuntary Chapter 11 petitions against the team’s immediate parent companies.
Dallas attorney Joseph J. Wielebinski will sit in for Rodriguez before bankruptcy judge Michael Lynn in the Fort Worth court.
