As it turns out, Mike Matheny needed the Cardinals managerial job a lot more than Terry Francona did.
St. Louis’s new hire lost his 17-room house in Missouri and may yet owe more than $4 million due to bad real estate deals, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Saturday.
Jack Wagman presents a very well researched and detailed account of how Matheny and his business partners suffered during the real estate downturn, costing Matheny both of his homes. Matheny currently lists his in-laws’ home as his address.
Matheny is expected to be one of the game’s lowest-paid managers, at something less than $750,000 annually, after replacing Tony La Russa, so he may remain in debt for the foreseeable future, depending on how the lawsuit goes. The Cardinals, though, knew all about these dealing when they hired him and still believed he was the right man for the job.
As for Matheny’s home, it’s currently listed online with a $2 million asking price. It has seven bedrooms, 10 baths, a practice baseball field and an indoor batting cage on 11 acres.