[Chron] McLane agreed to sell, deal fell through

Damn. Change needs to happen here and it needs to happen at the top. Drayton needs to sell and the new owner needs to fire Tal Smith immediately.

Maybe Nolan and his group won't end up with the Rangers and they can make a deal with McLane.

Edit: I'm hoping more and more that Nolan's group's deal falls through. If this happens, he likely makes Round Rock their AAA team when the contract is up with the Astros since he owns them, too. I live 5 miles from the Dell Diamond and love going to the games. It makes it much more exciting that it's the feeder for my favorite team. No way I have anything near the excitement if they're the AAA team of the stRangers.

 

Cuban in baseball's capless system would be dangerous. He would be an intriguing owner

 

Any chance the new owner moves the team?

 

I wonder if Tilman Fertitta would have interest in buying the team. I know he is a huge Astros fan and is loaded.

 

x2........

 

Not for the next 26 years.

When Harris County built MMP, it came with a 35 year iron clad lease. If the team tries to move before that, it will come with one hell of a lawsuit.

 

The problem is that recently I saw his company, Landry's, on a list of companies that may go bankrupt in the coming years.

 

I think the era of teams giving teams sweetheart stadium deals is over. Isn't the city losing a lot of money on all its stadiums?

 

Not too surprising.

 

Wow, that would have been awesome. Tal Smith could have been shown the door.

 

So close

 

I agree, I will be disappointing if the Ryans become more aligned with the Rangers.

 

Yeah, this needs to be *over*. statim.

How quickly we forget McMullen, and the Ford Motor Credit Company... *shudder*

 

ahhhh...receivership....those were the days!!!

 

Ah, Fertitta; seems like he's been trotted out as a buyer for the last decade or so. He's never had the financial heft to buy a MLB team and that is unlikely to ever change.

The MLB owners want nothing to do with Mark Cuban; this was pretty widely reported when he was linked to the Cubs' sale. He too will never own a MLB team.

 

The Penguins wanted nothing to do with Cuban also.

 

We can only dream....

 

Some of us don't have to dream. All we have to do is remember.

McLane is far-and-away the best owner in Astros history. I don't know where he rates among other owners in the league, mind you. But he's better than Peter Angelos, better than John D. Moores (that guys sold, though, right?).

owner myths:

• the owner should invest his own personal fortune in player salaries
• the owner should subsidize players salarize from his other business ventures
• a change in ownership will guarantee more FA signings and more money spent on the farm, and thus a WS ring
• the only qualification appears to be, "that guy's loaded"

 

Maybe we could get Rush Limbaugh to buy the team. That would help us sign top free-agents.