BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : AROUND THE MAJOR LEAGUES : New Owner Confirms Astros Sale

Drayton McLane Jr., who described himself as a wholesale grocer trying to learn baseball, announced Friday that he is buying the Houston Astros, confirming John McMullen’s statement of a day earlier and ending his unpopular 14-year ownership.

“We just agreed to buy the team at 2:15 (Thursday afternoon),” McLane said, standing behind home plate at the Astrodome. “We haven’t developed any strategies yet. Now that we’ve gotten the deal done, we’ll move to get the other things taken care of.”

The sale must be approved by 75% of the National League owners and a majority of the American League club owners. McMullen said he saw no reason the deal would not go through.

“We have zero strategy right now but total enthusiasm,” McLane said.

The Chicago Cubs and the commissioner’s office agreed Friday to an expedited appeals schedule on major league baseball’s attempt to lift an injunction blocking National League realignment.

U.S. District Judge Suzanne B. Conlon on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction at the request of the Cubs, who don’t want to move from the NL East to the NL West. Commissioner Fay Vincent, who ordered realignment on July 6 over the Cubs’ veto, appealed later Thursday to the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

Under the schedule agreed to Friday, the commissioner’s office will file a brief by Aug. 7, Cub lawyer Howard J. Trienens said.

The San Francisco Giants announced Friday that their offer to draft pick Calvin Murray still stands, despite his refusal to sign a contract.

Murray, the Giants’ first pick and seventh overall in the June free agent draft, was expected to sign with the team July 18 in Philadelphia.

According to a statement released by the Giants, the junior outfielder out of Texas probably will not sign until he returns from playing with the U.S. Olympic baseball team in Barcelona.