It's still too early to tell, but this week there have been enough reports seemingly suggesting that Jim Crane may not end up as the newest owner of the Houston Astros.
First, Richard Justice brought the noise in a blog post about this, bringing up some really brutal points. I'm not sure how many other baseball writers are as tied into Bud Selig as Justice is, so when he says things like Bud told Drayton McLane not to hold that press conference announcing the sale, I believe it.
Drayton did it anyway, which started this topsy-turvy summer. We found out this week that Drayton thought his buddy Bud (who liked him b/c Drayton never spent more than he should on the draft) would just push that sale through if it were announced. We also found out, that despite all the growingly dire news coming out of MLB, Drayton thinks the sale is still going through in the next week or so.
All indications are that this is not nearly the case.
What's more shocking, considering Crane has been involved in three different bids to buy major league baseball teams since 2008, MLB owners were surprised by the allegations that surfaced about his past business practices. In fact, Maury Brown says in this post that MLB officials didn't start vetting Crane for these things until after his investigative piece for Forbes exposed many of them.
He's right in that every media outlet fell down on Crane's background. But, it's very, very sad that MLB also didn't know who it was getting in bed with. I also agree with his assertion that Frank McCourt has scared more than Bud Selig off of sketchy owners. Crane's chances plummeted more and more with every crazy story coming out of the Dodgers.
Will Crane still be approved? There are reports out now that it may not happen until November, if at all. Meanwhile, Drayton has checked out of running the team, leaving Tal Smith and Ed Wade in charge. Are you as filled with confidence as I am?