Craig Calcaterra and I both brought out our jump to conclusion mats about MLB’s new investigation of Jim Crane’s past, thinking that it was likely that the war profiteering charges spurred the effort. Not so fast, says Maury Brown: there were other charges that were leveled by just one source that could be the underlying cause of the investigation:
It’s possible, but I suspect it’s something else.
In my interviews with MLB, I brought up an aspect that I had from a single source, but could not confirm. I ran it by league executives to see what they had to say.
The response was surprise. In subsequent conversation, they could not corroborate what I had been hearing after doing further investigation after I broached the subject.
It’s possible that this is what Rogers is referring to – MLB looking into the matter, not finding anything, or they could be looking further to make absolutely sure it is nothing of concern. As of publication, multiple attempts to reach out to MLB on the subject have gone unanswered. And, it should be noted that when the topic was mentioend to a representative of Mr. Crane, the reply was, “There is nothing known of, nor considered about it.”
On what the matter is, it should be noted that is not some insidious issue. It does center on business and very clear rules that baseball has around the type of business.
Oh no! Jim Crane bet on baseball!
We’ll bring you more on this story as we get it, but it doesn’t seem like the new charges are too serious. It does bring yet another shady hand of the Crane industry to the forefront though, and while I’m sure Astros fans are tired of hearing about it at this point, the fact that there is always more to this story has to give them reason for pause when considering just how much they really want Crane owning the team.
Maybe Drayton McLane wasn’t really so bad.