Sources close to the situation keep repeating that Crane's approval is "50-50". I don't believe it. He's in. Has now met with his ownership board. Expect Crane to be approved as part of the Nov 15-16 owners meetings in Milwaukee.

Now, whether he gets compensation for agreeing to move the Astros to the AL is another question, all together. If I'm an owner, or Selig, I don't compensate. The Rangers TV deal shows every reason why he doesn't need it. But, either way, expect expanded playoffs in 2013.

i sincerely hope that both crane and selig rot in the worst kind of hell possible for all eternity

and that is putting it mildly with G rated language

time to pick out a new team seeing as how there won't be a baseball team in houston any more - probably not ever again in what is left of my lifetime

If I'm an owner, or Selig, I don't compensate. The Rangers TV deal shows every reason why he doesn't need it. But, either way, expect expanded playoffs in 2013.

Oh sweet, sweet Maury, I thought you had been covering the finances of baseball long enough to know that the asking of money has nothing to do with "need."

time to pick out a new team

Felt the same way when my team was taken away...
Brewers are fun to watch, as are the Pirates. Can't root for the Nats personally for obvious reasons, but they're worth a look too...

spos

yeah - i really felt for all the spos fans. john brattain was extremely bitter and i know how he felt. i almsot wrote "feels"

like you i can't/won't root for the new whtsis crappos using my old team's name. actually i really REALLY hope they re-name the team because the old one os dead. maybe they could call them The Debtors. if "Teh Sukc" is vetoes by buddy boy

i am thinking bout pirates, brewers, braves. i'd go to the cards (familyyyyyy tradition) but i can't bring myself to root for TLR

It's going to be interesting to see how all of this is spun by the various parties if Jim Crane is approved, especially if the Astros switch leagues as part of the approval. The fans aren't going to care if Crane and his partners got compensation, so there's no upside there from a p.r. standpoint. Meanwhile, MLB apparently kept leaking that it was Crane's character that caused the delayed approval vote, but either Crane's background/character always preempted approval or the character issues were a sham and it was always about leveraging Crane for realignment. No one goes from questionable character to approvable character in the span of one or two meetings (or even one or two months).

Anyway, for a deal expected to be "boring" and "routine," it's turned out to be anything but.

the astros are most certainly going to lose most of their die hard fans, me included. crane having very little money, stating that he is not going to spend money on the ML team was bad enough but throwing the team into the garbage pit of the fake league was the last straw.

buddy boy is completely destroying baseball - in 2013 the destruction of the national league will be complete because we will no longer be able to avoid for even 5 of the 6 months the evil destructive thing that is the DH

i honestly don;t know whether or not can even be beothered to keep any interest in what is left of what was once a great game

the astros are most certainly going to lose most of their die hard fans, me included.

It's obvious Crane is hellbent on buying an MLB team, but it's very interesting to me that he's been able to hold all of his investors/partners together on a deal that looks a lot worse than it did in May, before the 106 losses and the realignment talk.

I could see one or two billionaires plowing ahead, the p.r. be damned, but this deal involves a group of 30 or 40 Houstonians. Most of them probably thought they were doing a simple business deal, with the possible upside of being seen as local heroes for buying the downtrodden 'Stros from Drayton McLane, who apparently has wanted to sell the team since 2008. I can't imagine any of them had foreseen the vitriol the A.L. switch seems to be kicking up. I bet today's investor meeting (from the link in #1) was very interesting.

i really REALLY hope they re-name the team

The Dis-Astros!!

I know, it's not original.

The Gastros -- the team that makes you feel nauseous!

The Lastros

The Pastros

The Wastros

Or, keeping with the astronomical theme, the Black Holes

(I'm home sick, I'll blame the cold medicine)

Is Jim Crane's business plan that he's not Frank McCourt?

I can't believe MLB is attempting to find a new owner more loathsome than Donald Sterling. That deal worked out real well for the NBA.

jow

the other 40 something investors don't give a shtt or they would have gotten shut of the deal. they want to make money and they don't care how it is done. they just look around and see that plenty of teams lose around 100 games every year for 2 decades and make millions/year offn the MLBAM/revenue sharing
't know a baseball from a softball - heck, they don't even know what an inning is or how many players on the field
nobody know the names of minority investors, especially people who toss in 10-15 mill - pocket change. nobody is going to try to do anything to them - no boycotting, no twittering, no nothing.

they are smart enough to know that there won't be any aactual FANS left, just the people/kids in the groups that pam gets in and they don't know how many players on the field. or why theres different points given for a home run

the investors meeting went like this - like dude, what's our share from you selling your soul + this team to the devil?

walt

i would prefer that the new name didn't have anything with the word astros in it. that team will be dead and gone. whatever

tripon,

you almost got it - only difference between jim crane and frank mccourt is that crane won't own the stadium or parking lots or tckets. and there won't be a huge fan base who like, you know, cares. and since the astros aren't a "crown jewel" and bud is ALREADY throwing them away, bud won't care what happens to the astros unless crane makes some of his racist comments live - now THAT would do something

count on the astros losing 90+ games a year for decades. count on nobody caring

juangone

it's like this - bud wants to destroy the 2 leagues andmake everything into generic "mlb" - so he neded a patsy. he has to do this with a team that doesn't have many fans. he's got a creep who is purchasing a dying team with imaginary money that supposely inflating the value of other franchises - if you pay more than twice what some item is worth, how it makes similar things woth more i don't get but then again i wasn't never real too good at math

there won't be many people despising jim crane and even if there are the national media doesn't care and houston is a nothing city in the middle of nowheres so it won't matter

it really IS that simple

the other 40 something investors don't give a shtt or they would have gotten shut of the deal. they want to make money and they don't care how it is done. they just look around and see that plenty of teams lose around 100 games every year for 2 decades and make millions/year offn the MLBAM/revenue sharing

Everyone who buys a sports team wants to make money, but most prefer to at least have a neutral reputation while doing so. Given that minority shares in pro sports teams are mostly for vanity anyway — great seats, but little or no operational input — it's hard to imagine people parking millions of dollars in a sports team just to be hated on Day 1. It would be one thing if it was one or two owners splitting a hypothetical $10 million in profits every year, but the Crane group would be splitting any profits 35 or 40 different ways (and/or servicing debt).

I'm not doubting your general point. I just think it will be remarkable if all 35 or 40 people who thought they were doing Deal A end up staying on board with Deal B, which seems to have substantial local opposition.

i honestly don;t know whether or not can even be beothered to keep any interest in what is left of what was once a great game

You can always take up art or something.

It's going to be hilarious if the Astros end up turning around under Crane and becoming successful.

i am thinking bout pirates, brewers, braves. i'd go to the cards (familyyyyyy tradition) but i can't bring myself to root for TLR

Come to the North Side, Lisa. We have a relatively new owner, a new GM...it's going to be fun up here, I promise!

You can always take up art or something.

Nice.

It's going to be hilarious if the Astros end up turning around under Crane and becoming successful.
They can't get worse. It's amazing what they've "accomplished" down there.

This doesn't "mean" much, but it's interesting. From a recent flipflopflyball graphic - here are the bottom five organizational records in baseball this year:
ATL .485
BAL .476
SEA .473
MIN .472
HOU .398

Anyway, I say stick with the Astros. If you can handle fake grass, you can handle the DH and new rivalries. (easy for me to say, I know)
Put another way, once you leave - you can't really come back (should you later change your mind). Or, at least, not in the same way.

We'd love to have you in the Atlanta contingent, but - if I were picking from scratch - I'd probably take Pittsburgh 1st, Milwaukee (my actual 2nd favorite team) 2nd. The Pirates have a good fanbase in the blogosphere and you'll be getting in on the ground floor (sub-basement?) of a decent team. And some of the merch looks nice (if you're into that sort of thing).

I am a Ranger fan who is sick of Houston getting all the press in Texas for MLB coverage. I look upon the potential demise of the Astros with great anticipation. Anything that hurts them helps my boys.

Moving them to the AL West to be Texas' full-time punching bag??!?! Priceless.

I know some good people who are dying because the Astros stink. And it's a shame that has to happen. But I am scooting over so there will be more room on the Rangers bandwagon.

Not only is our owner a good guy. But if Robin Ventura gives him any grief at the managment meetings, we know how that will end. Do you Astros fans want me to send Nolan down to kick Crane's @$$?

Oh, and when Crane was rumored as a potential buyer for the Rangers a while back, it scared the bejeebers out of us.

Today's Astros coverage is all over the map. Maury Brown has moved strongly into the approval camp ("Jim Crane will be approved to purchase the Astros. Here's why"), while Phil Rogers says "the sale of the team to Jim Crane appears off the track over his controversial history."

Meanwhile, Steve Campbell of the Houston Chronicle checks in with an interesting and down-the-middle analysis of the deal.

So, either Crane will be approved, or he won't be approved, or he might not want to be approved. Got it?

Didn't Ed Wade promise that the Astros weren't that far away? How big of a ####### liar was he?

Why not call them the Colts?

[edit: On second thought, put 'em all in the everglades & name them after Pogo characters. The Nats become the Alberts, The Marlins become the Hepzibahs, the Astros, The A's... all of them.]