As much as I love the Astros, I've never been a Jim Crane fan. When he was in the process of buying the Astros, I heard from several clients some not so great stories about business interactions with him. If you remember when McLane sold him the team, Crane's purchase was held up longer than usual while MLB investigated EEOC complaints. Crane eventually got approved after playing the "but I have black friends" card by showing off he was golfing buddies with Obama and getting a prominent member of the black community to write a letter supporting him.
The firing of Luhnow combined with the demotion of Reid Ryan in favor of his son feels like Crane's attempt to Jerry Jones the team.
From the Chronicle's 2000 article on the EEOC settlement:
Quote:
Crane told his subordinates not to hire blacks because "once you hire blacks, you can never fire them." On other occasions, Crane explained the reason he wanted to keep blacks out of the company was that his top managers are bigoted and they would mistreat the minorities, "giving them no choice but to sue Eagle."
Witnesses also said Crane did not permit the company to advertise job openings because he did not want to create a paper trail of unhired qualified minorities.
To discourage blacks and women from applying, Eagle managers refused to let female and minority applicants enter its secured facilities to fill out job applications. Eagle disagreed with that assessment.
Crane also warned managers not to hire women of child-bearing age because their productivity would be low. And top company officers told employees that women aren't suitable for management positions because male managers won't work with a woman.
