Richmond Baseball Club's Sunday deadline to meet the $15.4 million sale price of the Double-A Connecticut Defenders is expected to pass without a deal because RBC doesn't have the funds needed, officials confirmed today.
That situation does not discount the possibility of a Richmond group, with significant assistance from an outside group, buying the Defenders or a different Double-A franchise from the Eastern League.
Minor League Baseball has assured Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones that there will be an Eastern League team here next season. It would play at The Diamond until a new ballpark is built.
Reid and Reese Ryan, of Texas-based Ryan-Sanders Baseball, visited Richmond today and will remain in town tomorrow. The sons of Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan are determining whether the Richmond market is a place in which their group wants to invest as a majority owner, probably with RBC as minority/operating partner.
Ryan-Sanders Baseball owns and operates two minor-league franchises and also has designed and built two highly successful minor-league ballparks in Texas, one reason the firm is looked on favorably by Minor League Baseball in Richmond's situation.
For details on Richmond's baseball situation, see tomorrow's Richmond Times-Dispatch.
-- John O'Connor
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