When confronted with the seamy details of the land grab, Bush professed ignorance. But Schieffer, the team’s former president, has testified that he kept Bush aware of the land transfers. In October 1990, Bush also let this slip to a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “The idea of making a land play, absolutely, to plunk the field down in the middle of a big piece of land, that’s kind of always been the strategy.”
http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/pearly/htmls/bush-sec5.html

It was a strategy that would have an enormous payoff for Bush personally.

After he became governor of Texas, Bush put his all of his assets into a blind trust, with one notable exception: his stake in the Rangers. Schieffer kept Bush apprised of the owner’s efforts to sell the team to Thomas O. Hicks, the chairman of Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst, Inc., a firm that specializes in leveraged buyouts and until recently owned AMFM, Inc., the nation’s largest chain of radio stations. Hicks and employees of his companies are Bush’s No. 4 career patron, having given him at least $290,400.