Whipped Cream Difficulties

Grantland has an interesting piece up: “Rock Bottom in H-Town”, about the decline and fall of the Houston Astros.

I commend the entire article to your attention, but this portion jumped out at me:

[Drayton McLane, the current owner] has an agreement in place with billionaire Jim Crane for $680 million, roughly six times what McLane paid in 1992. The sale is being held up by the commissioner’s office, which is trying to leverage the owner approval process into convincing Crane to support a realignment plan that would move the Astros to the AL West.

Really? That is what’s holding up the sale? Because if you’ve been reading the coverage in the team’s hometown newspaper, you’d get the impression that the sale is being held up because MLB has issues with Crane. Take this Richard Justice column from today’s paper:

Crane’s $680-million purchase was sailing toward approval when Commissioner Bud Selig put the brakes on the deal. Crane brought so much unseemly baggage to the table—especially 200 EEOC complaints that were found to have merit and four separate charges of profiteering on the Iraq war—that baseball reached a point where it simply couldn’t get comfortable with him.

So if the real issue is that Selig is putting pressure on Crane to support realignment, why hasn’t there been more reporting of this by Justice or the rest of the HouChron sports staff? The only time I’ve seen this mentioned is by Crane, in an interview with the HouChron, and the extent of his mention is this:

Crane suspects that Major League Baseball is holding up final approval to pressure him into agreeing to move the Astros from the National League to the American League. He says he would consider a move, but it’s more complicated than simply saying yes.

“We signed an agreement in May, and that agreement hinges off all the economics that were presented to us,” he said. “We’re paying a very handsome sum for the team, and that was based off the deal that was presented to us. That was a signed contract, and we will honor that contract. If that changes, we’ve told baseball that if they want us to move to the American League we’d certainly consider that, but we have to understand all the ramifications of that. That includes travel, that includes paying for a designated hitter that we don’t have to pay for. That includes our TV contract.”

Significant to me is that:

1. Crane is speculating. “Crane suspects…”
2. Crane doesn’t rule out a move; he just says that the Astros need to consider all the economic ramifications. (And wouldn’t the owners have to approve moving a team from the NL to the AL?)

And if Selig is putting pressure on Crane, and Crane says “Screw it” and takes his offer and money off the table, who is going to step up and buy the Astros? And if Selig drives away a potential buyer for the team, is that good for the Astros? Or MLB?