Brad Corbett, Former Texas Rangers Principal Owner, Dies at 75

Brad Corbett, the Texas Rangers’ principal owner from 1974 through 1980, has died. He was 75.

The Major League Baseball team said Corbett died on Dec. 24. It gave no details.

During Corbett’s ownership, the Rangers produced their first four winning seasons and finished second three times in the American League West. The team’s 94 victories in 1977 were the most in its history until 1999.

“The spirit in which Mr. Corbett served as owner of the Rangers will be remembered always,” the team said in a statement on its website.

Corbett moved from Long Island, New York, to Fort Worth, Texas, in 1968. He turned a $300,000 loan from the Small Business Administration into millions in the plastic-piping and chemical-tubing business, according to the Dallas Morning News.

In 1974, Corbett formed a group of local investors and bought the Rangers from Bob Short two days before the start of the season for $9.6 million and $1 million in assumed debt.

Corbett wanted to build a winner fast, and was known for trading promising young talent for veterans and for employing four managers in a span of eight games, the Morning News said.

He sold the team to a group led by oilman Eddie Chiles in 1980.

To contact the reporter on this story: Curtis Eichelberger in Wilmington, Delaware at ceichelberge@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Sillup at msillup@bloomberg.net

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Brad Corbett, Former Texas Rangers Principal Owner, Dies at 75

MLB Photos via Getty Images

Texas Rangers owner Brad Corbett, right, poses with U.S. President Gerald Ford, left, and catcher Jim Sundberg at the Rangers opening game of the season in Arlington, Texas, on April 9, 1976.

Texas Rangers owner Brad Corbett, right, poses with U.S. President Gerald Ford, left, and catcher Jim Sundberg at the Rangers opening game of the season in Arlington, Texas, on April 9, 1976. Source: MLB Photos via Getty Images