Major League Baseball

Investors in Washington, Denver and three cities in Florida are, with some reservations, ready to spend up to $140 million to acquire and establish a Major League Baseball expansion franchise. But in Buffalo, Robert Rich Jr. and his group of investors have a lot of questions. And unless they hear the right answers when the National League Expansion Committee comes to visit next month, Rich said the field in baseball's expansion race will narrow by one contestant.

The Dodgers' new owners could reap hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits from the confidential terms of a U.S. Bankruptcy Court settlement between former owner Frank McCourt and Major League Baseball. The terms can be enforced for up to 40 years, with final authority over distribution of the Dodgers' television revenue granted to the court rather than to MLB, according to two people familiar with the sale process but not authorized to discuss it. As a result, the Dodgers' new owners could retain millions each year that otherwise would be shared with other teams.

When Don Baylor, a coach for the Milwaukee Brewers and a veteran of 19 major-league baseball seasons, travels around the American League, he makes it a point to look into the opposition dugout. He also studies the fans in the stands. What he sees -- or doesn't see -- disturbs him. "There's not that many black faces on the field, and there sure as hell aren't many out in the crowd," Baylor said in a recent interview.

The Angels already are playing catch-up against the division-rival Texas Rangers, trailing the defending two-time American League champions by seven games through Sunday in the AL West. And they'll be way behind the Rangers again in June when it's time for Major League Baseball's annual amateur draft. Because of losses in compensation picks that came with the team's off-season free-agent signings of first baseman Albert Pujols and pitcher C.J. Wilson, the Angels' first pick will be in the third round, No. 114 overall.

Reporting from Milwaukee — Houston will be pushed from the National League Central to the American League West in 2013, a move Major League Baseball announced Thursday in conjunction with its unanimous approval of Jim Crane as the Astros' new owner. Also coming soon, perhaps as early as next season, is a second wild-card team to each league, meaning 10 of 30 teams would make the playoffs. Commissioner Bud Selig, acting on the advice of a special committee for on-field matters, said the two wild-card teams from each league probably will play a one-game playoff to advance to the postseason with the three division winners.

In major league clubhouses, behind batting cages, on the diamonds and in the grandstands, even in Washington, it seems everyone is talking about baseball and steroids. Everyone that is but Barry Bonds, one of six major league players reported to have received a new designer steroid from a Burlingame, Calif., supplement company, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO).

Average attendance is down for 27 of the 30 big league teams entering the weekend, continuing a trend that has seen ticket sales decline every season since 2007. Business is certain to grow when schools let out and the weather improves, but that may not help much in places such as Toronto, Baltimore and Cleveland, where clubs long have been drawing record-low crowds. Besides, even Sun Belt teams are struggling. The Florida Marlins played nine of their first 17 home games in front of crowds of less than 14,000, and Tampa Bay, with the best record in the majors, has drawn two home crowds of less than 11,000.

The champagne flowed easily, and so did the toasts. The San Francisco Giants had just won the World Series, and the shouts came from all corners of the clubhouse. To Willie Mays! To Tim Lincecum! To Aubrey Huff's rally thong! And this, from around a corner, from Giants executive Tony Siegle: "So much for 'Moneyball.' " The book that polarized an industry hits the big screen next week, with Brad Pitt starring as Billy Beane, the maverick general manager of the Oakland Athletics.

So who are you going to believe, the umpire or your lying eyes? This baseball postseason has been a real eye-opener for television viewers who, time and again, have seen a home-plate umpire make a call on a pitch only to be contradicted by a computer-generated graphic. Balls are strikes and strikes are balls. Do we need an optometrist to stand behind the ump? It's called Fox Trax on Fox broadcasts and Pitchtrax on TBS games, but the look is the same.

When you think of dangerous sports, perhaps football, hockey or snowmobiling comes to mind. But maybe you should be thinking baseball, according to a study presented Sunday at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's annual meeting in Providence, R.I. Compiled by a team from the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, the study analyzed data from the disabled lists of major league teams for the 2002 through 2008 seasons....

With ownership of the Dodgers set to change hands in 11 days, Commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday that Major League Baseball is working to learn more about the sale but is not trying to stop it. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court approved the sale last week, despite complaints from MLB attorney Thomas Lauria that the league had not gotten a fair opportunity to review the transaction. Attorneys from MLB and Guggenheim Baseball, the new ownership group fronted by Magic Johnson and incoming team President Stan Kasten, have met with a court-appointed mediator this week in an effort to resolve the league's concerns.

With ownership of the Dodgers set to change hands on April 30, Commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday that Major League Baseball is working to learn more about the sale but is not trying to stop it. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court approved the sale last week, despite complaints from MLB attorney Thomas Lauria that the league had not gotten a fair opportunity to review the transaction. Attorneys from MLB and Guggenheim Baseball, the new ownership group led by financier Mark Walter and fronted by Magic Johnson and incoming team President Stan Kasten , have met with the court-appointed mediator this week in an effort to resolve the league's concerns.

WILMINGTON, Del. - The sale of the Dodgers to a group fronted by Lakers icon Magic Johnson was approved in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Friday, despite strong objections from Major League Baseball. In six hours of tense and contentious arguments, MLB tried to re-assert control over the Dodgers, saying the Commissioner Bud Selig should have control moving forward - just as he would over any other team. The Dodgers argued many of those decisions still belonged with the court under terms of a settlement reached earlier between MLB and outgoing owner Frank McCourt when he agreed to sell.

WILMINGTON, Del. - The sale of the Dodgers to a group fronted by Magic Johnson was approved by a federal bankruptcy judge on Friday, but not before a tense and acrimonious evening court session in which Major League Baseball failed to get a second chance to review the transaction. The sale is set to close April 30. If the deal closes as scheduled, the Dodgers would play their first home game under the new ownership of Guggenheim Baseball on May 7, against the rival San Francisco Giants.

The Angels and Minnesota Twins played a three-game series this week in Minneapolis over a span of four days. And there wasn't a rainout. The games were scheduled on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday for what might be called weather insurance; for teams located east of the Rocky Mountains, Major League Baseball tries to build in off days after home openers just in case the first game is postponed because of rain. That insurance date is just one square in the Rubik's Cube that is MLB's annual schedule, a mosaic of dates and locations spelling out where each of the sport's 30 teams plays its 162 games — 81 at home and 81 on the road.

Neither Major League Baseball nor Fox Sports plans to try to stop the sale of the Dodgers, virtually ensuring that the deal will receive court approval Friday. MLB and Fox, the Dodgers' two most formidable combatants in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, expressed relatively minor concerns Tuesday, the deadline for parties to object to the sale. Frank McCourt, the Dodgers' outgoing owner, agreed last month to sell the team to Guggenheim Baseball Management for $2.15 billion. MLB has been frustrated by what it considers a lack of information about that transaction — and a separate one in which McCourt and Guggenheim will jointly own the Dodger Stadium parking lots.

The Angels and Minnesota Twins played a three-game series this week in Minneapolis over a span of four days. And there wasn't a rainout. The games were scheduled on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday for what might be called weather insurance; for teams located east of the Rocky Mountains, Major League Baseball tries to build in off days after home openers just in case the first game is postponed because of rain. That insurance date is just one square in the Rubik's Cube that is MLB's annual schedule, a mosaic of dates and locations spelling out where each of the sport's 30 teams plays its 162 games — 81 at home and 81 on the road.

When Juan Marichal came to this country to play baseball more than half a century ago, he remembers being a lonely, frightened teenager. "It was a very difficult time," he said Friday. "When you come [to] a country where you didn't know the language, you didn't know the culture . . . it's tough, especially at that age." At the time, only one Dominican player had reached the major leagues -- and he was discovered on a playground in New York City.

SAN DIEGO — Frank McCourt and Magic Johnson sat next to each other Thursday, the outgoing owner and the most famous of the incoming owners watching the Dodgers play on opening day. For McCourt and for Johnson, the work in the Dodgers sale is done. For the attorneys responsible for turning a winning bid into contractual agreements that satisfy the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, the race is on. The terms of the sale are scheduled to be filed in court Friday, the first of several steps required before April 30, when the deal is set to close.

The Dodgers should not be allowed to emerge from bankruptcy until they settle $8.3 million in bills from Major League Baseball, attorneys for the league argued in a court filing Tuesday. The issue is not likely to delay the sale of the Dodgers, which the U.S. Bankruptcy Court is expected to approve  April 13. Frank McCourt agreed last week to sell the team to Guggenheim Baseball Partners, a group fronted by Magic Johnson and incoming team President Stan Kasten, for $2.15 billion, a world record for a sports franchise.