Harvey Schiller interested in Houston Astros

Jacques Rogge with Harvey Schiller (r) at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 8/23/08

• "The out-of-town investment firm leading the effort to buy the Astros is Great Court Capital of New York, a person familiar with the negotiations confirmed today. Astros owner Drayton McLane has granted exclusive negotiating rights to purchase the team to a group that also includes

former United States Olympic Committee chief Harvey Schiller.

Schiller recently was part of a group that briefly pursued the Texas Rangers. People with ties to the industry are skeptical that he will be able to find enough investors to satisfy McLane's asking price, believed to be around $650 million."...Houston Chronicle, 1/12/10, photo MLB.com****

• From MLB.com, 8/23/08, Article describes Schiller leading MLB effort to get back to the Olympics. The Olympics says give us top talent or no deal, which means forcing players like Roy Halladay, John Lackey, Frankie Rodriguez, Cliff Lee, and Hanley Ramirez to take salary from a team but then not play for them. To play for a group of international sponsors and an MLB slush fund. Essentially, giving up a season. But sure, fine. Don't forget they have to play in the Japan World Series and the World Baseball Classic too. And don't forget to buy millions of carbon offsets for all this--now proven to be well entrenched in organized crime (posted on this blog).And if you say one word you are a selfish, cruel, non-compassionate person.

8/23/08: "MLB President Bob DuPuy said at last week's Owners' Meetings that MLB is completely behind the movement to return baseball to the program for 2016, and indeed various people from MLB (and Gene Orza of the Players Association) have been at Wukesong Sports Complex and

• working with Schiller behind the scenes to work toward that end. Schiller said this week that MLB players will be part of the proposal in some capacity, mentioning one scenario whereby Major Leaguers could participate in the medal round and Minor Leaguers in the preliminaries.

Jimmie Lee Solomon, executive vice president of MLB, told MLB.com during Friday night's game against Cuba that it is way too early to speculate on how Major Leaguers might be used.

• "There is no proposal right now that I know of," Solomon said. "We're going to do all we can to support Dr. Schiller. Of course, we are very supportive of the Olympic movement, and we are interested in helping Dr. Schiller in every way possible. But specifics right now are not appropriate.

"We're going to do our best. We think baseball deserves to be on the Olympic stage. We'll do absolutely our very best, but how we go about that remains to be seen.""...

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