Goodbye NL
Double switch: Jim Crane's in as new Houston Astros owner and the team'sAmerican League bound?
Jim Crane with his wife FranciPhoto by © Michelle Watson/CatchlightGroup.com
Houston is set to become an American League town.
Jim Crane has agreed to move the Houston Astros to the American League and will officially take over the team from Drayton McLane in mid-November. That's the report from longtime baseball insider Peter Gammons, one that's shaking the Houston baseball world to its core.
Less than an hour after Gammons' tweet triggered breaking news alerts all over Houston, a Crane spokesperson issued a denial. Gammons never said the deal was officially finalized, just that it's set to happen. Major League Baseball is always loath to make announcements when the playoffs are still going on.
The words of Gammons — the longtime Boston Globe writer who now works for the MLB network — carry a long track record of credibility with them.
Crane and the rest of his ownership group have been in limbo since May when a press conference to announce their pending $680 million purchase of the franchise from McLane was held at Minute Maid Park. With a Nov. 30 deadline to complete the sale looming, it was looking more and more like the sale might never go through and McLane would be stuck holding onto the team.
But a face-to-face meeting between Crane and Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig late last week seems to have changed all that. "I had a constructive, one-on-one meeting with the Commissioner of Major League Baseball Bud Selig," Crane said in a statement that he released Monday. "It was a very constructive meeting, positive in all respects, and our transaction continues to move forward."
Crane is now expected to be officially approved by MLB at the ownership meetings in November, held a few weeks after the end of the World Series.
CulutreMap was first to report back on June 11 that Crane was extremely resistant to the idea of moving the Astros from the National League. Even as questions about his past surfaced, Crane's backers insisted that it was this push to make the Astros jump to the AL that was really holding up the sale's approval. If Crane's agreed to such a move, there figures to be some type of compensation involved.
Or Selig figured that Crane's overriding desire to own a team (he's come close several times before and many see this as his last, best chance) would change his mind as the deadline came closer and closer. As Crane has said himself, the deal that his group signed a contract with McLane on did not involve a league switch.
McLane insisted back on Sept. 22 (as reported in CultureMap) that there was no Plan B. "This is going to work," McLane said. "Jim Crane and his group are going to be the owners of the Houston Astros."
A lot of people snickered at McLane's confidence then. Now, it seems he may have been right all along.
