Richard Justice is staying on top of the hiccup in the pending sale of the Astros to Jim Crane. He reported Monday that owners were delaying the vote that was originally scheduled for Thursday so they could finish background work on Crane's group.
↵This morning, he has another report from Drayton McLane saying the outgoing owner expects the sale to go through in two weeks at the latest. McLane has always been tapped into what baseball commissioner Bud Selig wants, so it was a bit puzzling that McLane was caught off-guard with the delay. One reason? He's apparently been much more involved in the Baylor football stadium planning than with running the Astros these days.
↵There's no telling what the real reasons for the delay are. My favorite theory, proposed on Baseball Think Factory and in the comments over at TCB? That this delay is giving Selig time to gather his resources for the vote after he figured out not enough owners would approve Crane. By delaying, he gets extra time to negotiate with them to vote for approval. I still don't buy that this is a chance to strong-arm Crane into moving to the American League, but I've been wrong before.
↵Either way, something will happen by the end of August. Maybe.
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