The Boston Globe's Nick Cafardo has an article on realignment, and it's looking inevitable that the Astros aren't going to get what they want - simply to stay in the same league they've been in for XX years (XX if you count next season, which would likely be the last NL season for the Astros, according to Cafardo).
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Cafardo:
But the consensus among owners appears to be that the Astros would need to move from the NL Central to the AL West. The Astros are opposed to this, believing moving into a different time zone would wreak havoc with their TV broadcasts, and also not fully buying into the notion that they have a natural rivalry with the Rangers.
One Astros Official:
“We have no more of a rivalry with the Rangers than we do with the Cardinals or the Reds or the Cubs."
Agreed.
Now here's an interesting point on Jim Crane's involvement:
The new regime - the Jim Crane ownership that is getting set to take over the team from Drayton McLane - likely would not want to rock the boat in its inaugural season and may go along with the proposal simply to keep the peace.
It makes sense for Crane to simply go along, knowing what every writer seems to know - that the other 29 owners kind of hate him. But I, as a fan of a team that seems to have no spine (see: Series, Boston Red Sox at Minute Maid Park), would love to see Crane embrace this oppositional view and go in and yell and scream, and throw a dead rabbit on the table, fax copies of his butt cheeks to the owners - and Selig - and make a huge fuss. If Jim Crane became an older, less-coked up version of Mark Cuban (even equally coked-up would be fine with me), I would clap with glee.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
