Anheuser-Busch, Maris Family in Court Over Distributorship

Home run king Roger Maris didn’t get a mega-million-dollar contract when he helped the St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series 30 years ago.

Team owner August Busch Jr. was much more generous. He rewarded Maris with an Anheuser-Busch Inc. beer distributorship.

The three-decade partnership ended in March when Anheuser-Busch, the world’s biggest brewery, halted beer supplies to Maris Distributing Co.

“The distributor’s operating procedures were not up to the standards we require and that our customers expect,” said Mike Brooks, vice president at Anheuser-Busch’s St. Louis headquarters.

The beer company accused the distributor of selling out-of-date beer and falsifying documents. It appointed other distributors to handle the market area, which includes Gainesville and Ocala and surrounding counties.

The president of Maris Distributing, Rudy Maris, Roger’s older brother, said the allegations are false and Anheuser-Busch is illegally trying to take over the Gainesville-Ocala operations.

Maris Distributing, which was effectively shut down by the move, sued in federal court in Ocala, claiming antitrust violations and a conspiracy to take over the distributorship.

“We’re not going to sit down and take it,” Maris said during an interview in his brother’s former office, which contains a wall of photographs of the late baseball great.

Roger Maris died in 1985. Busch passed away four years later.

“Anybody who hits 33 homers and drives in 100 runs deserves a beer distributorship,” Busch said after the Cardinals defeated the Boston Red Sox in 1967. Six years earlier, Maris hit 61 home runs with the New York Yankees, breaking Babe Ruth’s season record.

After the World Series, Maris played one more season before moving to Gainesville, where he and family members ran Maris Distributing.

Until the legal flap, his widow worked for the company, as did Roger Maris Jr. and half a dozen other relatives. The distributorship grew from two small warehouses and $3 million a year in sales to about $50 million a year and 100 employees. Maris Distributing controlled 64% of the market in north central Florida, compared with Anheuser-Busch’s statewide share of 55% and its national share of 45%.

Rudy Maris says Anheuser-Busch tried twice to buy the distributorship at below-market prices. After the offers were rejected, he said, Anheuser-Busch threatened to take the distributorship.

Anheuser-Busch inspectors spent a week poring over Maris Distributing records and interviewing employees and customers in Gainesville and Ocala. Then Rudy Maris was summoned to St. Louis on Aug. 20, 1996.

The brewery cited some deficiencies and said it wanted its distributorship back, the Maris lawsuit states. Among its complaints: Metal supporting beams in a warehouse were painted red instead of white and trucks were parked on the grass at the Ocala site. The brewery also wanted the family to hire more employees. Rudy Maris said they were not needed.

On Nov. 8, Maris received a letter giving the family 60 days to correct deficiencies and said if they were not corrected, Anheuser-Busch would terminate the agreement.

Brooks said the brewery was “acting in the best interests of our customers and within our legal rights” when it took action.

Maris’ lawsuit states that at the meeting, Brooks said “it was time for Maris to get out of the business.”

Under its agreement with Anheuser-Busch, Maris can sell only to Anheuser-Busch or to someone the company approves. The family claims the arrangement violates federal antitrust laws and says it should be able to sell to whomever it wants.

The Maris family is not the only Florida distributor that has battled with the brewery. Two years ago, Anheuser-Busch attempted to terminate the franchise agreement with the Jacksonville distributor, Robert Reed. Reed sued in federal court, claiming the beer maker was trying to punish him for not lowering his prices as requested. The two sides settled mid-trial with Anheuser-Busch buying out Reed for an undisclosed amount.

The Tallahassee distributor took over the Jacksonville area, creating an opening for Susan Busch Transou, daughter of current chairman August Busch III, and her husband, Tripp, to take over that distributorship.

In Orlando, Anheuser-Busch unsuccessfully sued distributor Wayne Densch in federal court in 1991 seeking ownership of Densch’s distributorship. Densch has died and the company is battling his heirs in court for ownership.

Last year, the Tampa distributor sued in state court when Anheuser-Busch blocked its purchase of the Sarasota distributorship. The distributor lost.

Despite the activity in Florida, Jerry Steinman, publisher of Beer Marketer’s Insight, said Anheuser-Busch does not often attempt to take control of its distributorships.

He said Anheuser-Busch has about 900 distributorships and about 700 owners and has rarely changed ownership. The beer maker had annual sales of $12.6 billion last year.

“There have been a number of situations in Florida but not in the rest of the country,” Steinman said.