Maury Brown highlights two important actions this week by MLB: approval of the Astros sale to Jim Crane, and another Dodgers bankruptcy hearing. Crickets for the A’s. Update: Now we have word that the Crane approval has been delayed pending further “due diligence.” Yeah, heard that one before.

Santa Clara is paying redevelopment ransom to the state, which will allow it to move forward with initial funding of the 49ers stadium. Field of Schemes has the big picture.

The Giants’ AA affiliate in Richmond, VA, won’t be able to get a replacement for the dated Diamond until 2015 because of a paucity of public funds. I’m crying a river for them.

It’s time for another installment of Dave Newhouse potshots and vitriol. I wonder why he rarely mentions Victory Court?

Apple’s planned space colony-styled headquarters in Cupertino is so large that you could fit a complex of four pro baseball fields in the donut hole that is its interior greenspace. My guess is that the 2.8 million square-foot campus will cost $2 billion to build, and with Cupertino only happy to rubber stamp the plans, the 2015 opening date is a real possibility. Before an A’s ballpark? Quite possibly.

Activist hacker group Anonymous broke into the myBART website and leaked a database of user information. This was in retaliation for BART shutting down cell phone service in tunnel sections to prevent protests. Now a real protest will occur today at 5 near the Civic Center station. Taking the Richmond train from Fremont yesterday, the train had to switch to the opposite due to another disabled train on the right side of the tracks or something. I’d prefer that hackers fix that.

Grantland’s Peter Richmond rips the three new New York stadia (Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, New Meadowlands Stadium) to shreds.

The Sharks are hosting an event called “Spirit of Silicon Valley: Come Out and Play” at the Fourth Street Summit Center (above the 4th St Garage) on September 6. Reps from the Sharks, Quakes, 49ers, and A’s will be on hand. (thanks steve)

Added: $200 million has been approved for various South Bay transit projects, including $40 million for the BART-to-Silicon Valley extension and $71.6 million for new carpool lanes to I-880. The latter may be more important initially, especially for weeknight games in San Jose. Only a decade ago, 880 in the stretch between Montague Expressway and 101 was only two lanes in each direction. It was expanded to three lanes each way, with over and underpasses left wide enough for eventual carpool lane additions. While it doesn’t solve the transit problem between the East and South Bay, it should make travel down the corridor a good deal easier. 

Shannon Stone, the Brownwood, Texas firefighter who died from a fall after attempting to catch a ball thrown in the stands at a Rangers-A’s game in Arlington, will get a bronze statue of himself and his son outside Rangers Ballpark.