With MLB owners meeting in Chicago, Bud Selig and his exclusive club had a special dinner Wednesday evening to welcome the new buyers of the Cubs, the Ricketts family. Not every wealthy person from Omaha, Nebraska is apparently riding Warren Buffett’s coattails as this clan made their money from TD Ameritrade.

As one ownership group came into MLB, the Cardinals lost one of their 14-member group. Chicagoan Nick Kladis had a dinner appointment with Cardinals Chairman and CEO Bill DeWitt Jr. on Tuesday night but did not show. The 81-year-old had passed away on Monday, according to a report from the Chicago Tribune.

Kladis was a former basketball star at Loyola who later made his fortune in the retail food industry. He was a former shareholder and board member of the Chicago White Sox in the Bill Veeck era and is a member of the Loyola and Chicagoland Sports Halls of Fame.

At this point, there is no word as to what will happen to Kladis’ ownership stake in the Cardinals. The list of investors in the club had already dropped from 15 with the recent sale of Lee Enterprises’ 2.7 percent share.

Late last year, the cash-strapped parent company of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Lee Enterprises of Davenport, Iowa, sold their ownership stake in Cardinals, apparently to the majority ownership group led by DeWitt Jr. The media company had assumed their share of the club via their 2005 purchase of Pulitzer Inc, then-owner of the newspaper.

Following are the investors in the Cardinals. Snippets about their backgrounds come from a 2005 article from the St. Louis Business Journal and other sources:

DeWitt Jr. – Co-chairman of the investment firm Reynolds, DeWitt & Co. Broad investments include oil, fast food, banking, insurance, broadcasting, cable and bottling companies. Appointed to Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). Former member of the ownership groups of the Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles.

Donna DeWitt Lambert – DeWitt’s sister. Former director of Mississippi Valley Bancshares, holding company of Southwest Bank.

Stephen F. Brauer – U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, 2001-2003 and Chairman and chief executive of Hunter Engineering Co. of St. Louis.

Michael E. Pulitzer – Former chairman of Pulitzer Inc., owner of media properties including the Post-Dispatch, which were acquired by Lee Enterprises in 2005.

Mrs. Richard H. Sutphin – Widow of an executive with the Reynolds, DeWitt Securities Co. subsidiary.

Frederick O. Hanser (Vice Chairman) – Attorney with Armstrong Teasdale LLP. Childhood friend of DeWitt Jr.

G. Watts Humphrey, Jr. – Board member and investor in Churchill Downs Inc. Pittsburgh resident owns investment firm G.W.H. Holdings Inc.

Michael McDonnell – Heads privately held Rock Island Corp., a holding company for hardware and building products distributors and is from Memphis.

Dudley S. Taft – From Cincinnati. Former head of Taft Broadcasting Co., sold in 1987 for $1.5 billion.

Andrew N. Baur (Secretary/Treasurer) – Chairman of Southwest Bank of St. Louis. Childhood friend of DeWitt Jr.

Nick D. Kladis – see above

David C. Pratt – Founder of United Industries Inc. of St. Louis. Sold 90 percent of the firm in 1999 to Boston-based Thomas H. Lee Co. for $620 million.

Mercer Reynolds – DeWitt’s longtime friend and investment partner. U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein (2001-2003) with past ties to Bush-Cheney campaign finance committees.

John K. Wallace, Jr. – Owned charcoal manufacturer Imperial Products Corp., which he sold in 1991. Owned a diversified holding company called The Regency Group in Clayton.

Other founding owners Robert Castellini and brothers W. Joseph Williams Jr. and Thomas Williams sold their stake in the Cardinals back to the other investors when the three purchased controlling interest in the Cincinnati Reds prior to the 2006 season. Castellini’s share in the Cardinals was reportedly around ten percent.

Thursday’s official confirmation that the St. Louis Cardinals organization has formally signed 16-year-old Dominican outfielder Wagner Mateo (pictured) for a reported $3.1 million signing bonus comes on top of last Saturday’s trade for Major League infielder/outfielder Mark DeRosa.

Mateo’s deal is almost three times the organization’s largest previous bonus paid to a Latin American amateur, the $1.1 million reportedly given to last July 2^nd’s big signing, third baseman Roberto De La Cruz, also from the Dominican Republic.

Putting aside the risks of doling out that much money to kid of just 16 years of age, one cannot dispute the Cardinals’ willingness to make such a significant financial commitment to someone they believe can grow into being an impact Major Leaguer down the road.

In securing the services of DeRosa, a free agent following this season, the Cardinals took on a half-season’s worth of his salary, approximately $2.8 million. The aggressive move was made a month earlier than the trade deadline and put the Cardinals’ National League Central opponents on the defensive – a marked change from 2008, when the shoe was on the other foot.

This total of about $6 million ($3.1 for Mateo and $2.8 for DeRosa) does not represent expenditures that the organization was required to make. They were clearly carried out with a balanced view toward the present (DeRosa) and the future (Mateo).

In the DeRosa deal, the Cardinals also gave up two of their “precious Faberge eggs”, reliever Chris Perez and a player to be named later, rumored to be among a list of players that include pitchers Jess Todd (our Scout.com fourth-ranked Cardinals prospect) and Francisco Samuel (19^th on the same list).

So, I have read all the criticism and the childish name-calling for months. Where are the columns now that give credit where credit is due to the ownership group for dealing and spending to improve and invest?

Here is one.

I admit that I was among the skeptics when club officials said over the winter that they would be keeping some of their powder dry – in other words, not immediately spending all of their expense budget in this tough economy while holding back until during the season.

It was easy to assume this was a hollow promise designed to soften the blow of a reduced Major League player budget compared to 2008. Some critics chose to ignore both the eroding economy as well as a significant trend all across MLB to cut player expenditures, as if the Cardinals were isolated and insulated from the rest of the world.

So far, the organization has lived up to its word.

Yet if the club continues to flail on the field, these expenditures will quickly be forgotten amid the pleas to spend more via acquiring other Major Leaguers for the final two or three months.

Though in an ideal world, we would all probably like to see the Cardinals commit more and more, it is time to admit that they have followed through in a tangible manner and not let their positive moves this week be taken for granted.