Ted Lerner, the 97-year-old owner of the 2019 World Series champion Washington Nationals, has passed away. The team’s spokesperson, Jennifer Mastin Giglio, stated that Lerner passed away on Sunday from complications related to pneumonia at his residence in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Lerner is survived by his wife, Annette Lerner, their three children, nine grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
Who is Annette Lerner?
Annette Lerner was Ted Lerner’s life companion and the mother of his three children. While her professional details are unrecorded, she was always regarded as a supportive wife and the driving force for Ted Lerner’s success.
By borrowing money from his beloved Annette, Ted Lener was able to establish his empire. In 1952, when Ted was 26 years old, he borrowed $250 from his wife Annette to start a real estate business that promoted homes for builders. That represented the billionaire’s breakthrough at the age of 97.
Ted and Annette tied the knot in 1951. Today, she and her husband Ted are active supporters of numerous philanthropic projects. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Food and Friends, Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, and Hadley’s Park are just a handful of the organizations to which they collectively donate money.
Lerner, a real estate magnate, was born in 1925, a year after the Washington Senators won the World Series, the city’s last until 2019. As a young fan, he worked as an usher at Griffith Stadium since he could hardly rarely afford to purchase his own tickets.
In 1952, he founded Lerner Enterprises, which has since grown to become the largest private real estate developer in the Washington, D.C., region, having constructed more than 20,000 homes.
The Nationals were purchased by Lerner for $450 million in 2006, almost entirely with his own funds, and miraculously, in 2019, the franchise’s first World Series title was won by them.
