Over at Forbes, our friend Maury Brown lays out the Jim Crane dossier, as he Mr. Crane prepares to take over the Astros.
It’s a good read, containing many of the things we’ve talked about before. For example, the old deal with Drayton McLane that fell through. His dalliance with the Rangers last year. The matter of the multiple discrimination complaints against his company.
Add two new ones to the list that I hadn’t heard of: claims that Crane had breached fiduciary duties in his business dealings in the past and the fact that his company was accused of war profiteering in Iraq. The former of which is a bit troubling, the latter of which is fun in a George Bluth-from-Arrested Development sort of way (and troubling too, but I wanted to get the Bluth reference in there).
Ultimately I’m sure none of these things will stand in the way of Crane being approved by Major League Baseball, because I’m sure they are things that were known by baseball before the transaction ever got this far (or before the last two aborted ones for the Astros and Rangers did). And I’m guessing at least a couple of those things (discrimination claims and fiduciary duty breaches) are things many of the current MLB ownership club have on their rap sheet, because that’s just how big money business, unfortunately, rolls in this great land of ours.
But it’s good to know team owners. Would that we knew Frank McCourt this well before he entered our lives.