Astros’ Move Is to Stay Put : Baseball: Owner McLane says he will not sell team now or move it for the 1996 season, putting plans to bring a team to Washington on hold again.

Houston Astros Chairman Drayton McLane made it official Friday, announcing that he will not sell his financially strapped baseball team now and will keep the Astros in Houston for the 1996 season. But McLane made no commitments beyond that, and Northern Virginia telecommunications executive William L. Collins III said he is optimistic that he will have the Astros -- or another major league club -- playing in Washington in 1997.

Collins, after delivering his concession speech to wrap up his near-miss bid to have the Astros playing in RFK Stadium next spring, said his discussions with McLane began at the All-Star Game in July. The two had eight or so face-to-face meetings and the basics of a deal in place last month, Collins said. He indicated that he would have purchased the Astros for between $150 million and $160 million, and he said McLane would have remained a part-owner even if the franchise had moved to D.C.

“We certainly had a willing buyer,” Collins said during an afternoon news conference at the Sheraton Premiere at Tysons Corner. “I believe we had a willing seller. However, Drayton McLane ran into difficulties in trying to comply with Major League Baseball’s relocation procedures and guidelines.

”. . . There is no other way to characterize this except to say that our efforts to return the national pastime back to the national capital area have been sidetracked. Hopefully, it’s only a temporary setback.”

McLane backed off because, according to Collins and other people familiar with the pair’s discussions, he believed he did not have the necessary votes among baseball’s team owners to approve relocation. Collins said he received that news from McLane during a meeting on Wednesday in Atlanta, and he indicated he is hopeful that McLane will file an application in the coming months to have Major League Baseball formally consider a relocation by the Astros in time for the ’97 season.

The baseball owners, because of their longstanding exemption from federal antitrust laws, have absolute power to control franchise shifts. Collins said that if baseball did not have an antitrust exemption, he believes he would have been announcing that he had acquired a team. For the Astros to move to Washington, eight of the 14 American League clubs and 11 of the 14 National League teams would have had to approve the move. No major league club has been permitted to move since the Senators left Washington after the 1971 season and became the Texas Rangers.

Earlier in the day, McLane said at a news conference in Houston: “We are committed to stay in Houston . . . through the 1996 season.”

But McLane added: “If we can’t achieve financial success and we can’t continue to move forward, then the team needs to go somewhere where it can be supported and can be appreciated and where the fans are very excited about it.”

McLane and Collins painted different pictures about their negotiations. McLane called his talks with Collins “preliminary discussions.” He said the Astros’ potential move “was never presented to the ownership of baseball to be approved,” although “we had begun to prepare the paperwork to do so, and we had discussions with Major League Baseball officials.”

Collins indicated that the Astros did apply to baseball to have a relocation for the ’96 season considered. He said he hopes the Astros resubmit that application for the ’97 season sometime this winter -- which, he said, would keep the parties from facing a similar deadline crunch at this time next year.

“I hope Drayton would refile that relocation request,” Collins said. “. . . The process takes six to nine months. We know that now. . . . This franchise has been a real losing proposition. I don’t think Houston is a baseball town. It never has been.”

Acting commissioner Bud Selig expressed satisfaction that the Astros will remain in Houston. McLane is “a native Texan, and he’s going to do everything he can to make it work in Houston,” Selig, the owner of the Brewers, said from Milwaukee.

Collins said he expects that he will have to start over in negotiations with McLane if he wants to buy the Astros in time for the ’97 season. He didn’t rule out pursuing other struggling franchises.