The official announcement has yet to come, but the owners of the Binghamton Mets (Class AA; Eastern League) and Main Street Baseball have settled their legal dispute, days before the two sides were scheduled for mediation.
The exact outcome of the settlement has not been released, but an announcement is expected in coming weeks.
Main Street Baseball had sued the B-Mets ownership over an agreement to buy the team. Main Street Baseball and Clark Minker, who own the Wilmington Blue Rocks (High Class A; Carolina League) agreed to buy the B-Mets for $8.5 million, setting in motion a franchise shift that would see the Texas Rangers buy the Blue Rocks franchise for $12.5 million and move the team (temporarily, we hear) to Kinston, N.C., with an upgrade in 2016 for Frawley Stadium. (The sale of the Blue Rocks franchise is contingent on the purchase of the B-Mets.) After the B-Mets owners deciding not to follow through on the purchase agreement and letting a Letter of Intent expire, Main Street Baseball and Minker sued, saying they had fulfilled all the terms of the LOI and made a $100,000 deposit on the purchase of the team. Two days after the LOI expired the B-Mets announced the sale to another party, who would keep the B-Mets in town.
As noted, the outcome of the settlement has not been announced. One important thing: U.S. District Court Judge David Hurd ruled earlier that a decision by B-Mets owners to not sell the team to Main Street Baseball raises “serious questions going to the issue of good faith negotiations.” Hurd had earlier issued a permanent injunction against the B-Mets ownership, ruling they couldn’t sell the team to anyone but Main Street Baseball. Given Hurd’s earlier rulings, a conclusion about the settlement may not be hard to reach.
The news about the settlement came via a filing in Hurd’s court.
RELATED STORIES: B-Mets, Main Street headed to mediation; Judge: B-Mets can’t be sold to anyone but Main Street; B-Mets court case scheduled for this week; TRO prohibiting B-Mets sale extended; B-Mets, Main Street Baseball back in court this week; B-Mets sued over aborted sale of team