MLB: 'No Indications' Yankees For Sale

Disclaimer: I don't know how any of this stuff really works. I can barely balance my checkbook. But I'm pretty sure that if a Major League Baseball team is interested in soliciting offers -- or even just interested in starting the process that eventually leads to the exploration of soliciting offers one day in the distant future -- they would likely check in with Major League Baseball. There was a rumor the Yankees might be for sale soon. Hal Steinbrenner denied it. And now from MLB:

Major League Baseball has received no indications from any representatives of the @Yankees or anyone else that the Club is for sale.

— MLB Public Relations (@MLB_PR) May 24, 2012

They haven't heard anything. It's not like Bud Selig was sitting around his office last year, screwing around on the Internet, when he came upon a listing for the Houston Astros on eBay. There is a process. And according to MLB, they have no indication that the New York Yankees have started that process.

Hal Steinbrenner: 'The Yankees Are Not For Sale'

Earlier Thursday, a New York Daily News report indicated that “multiple baseball and finance sources” were having “chatter” about the New York Yankees possibly being up for sale.

Yankees president Randy Levine earlier denied these rumors. Now it’s Hal Steinbrenner’s turn:

“I just learned of the Daily News story. It is pure fiction,” Steinbrenner said in a statement. “The Yankees are not for sale. I expect that the Yankees will be in my family for many years to come.”

That sounds very much like the “vote of confidence” that general managers sometimes give when field managers are on the hot seat; those are usually followed by firings of said field managers within a couple of weeks.

Hal Steinbrenner’s statement sounds pretty definitive, but you know how these things go. Denials, then more rumors, then no one talks on the record, then suddenly the thing that was so vehemently denied happens!

Will it happen that way this time? Maybe not. But you never know.

For more on the Yankees, please visit Pinstripe Alley and SB Nation New York.

Yankees Deny Rumors That Team Is For Sale

Could the New York Yankees be up for sale? A report in a New York newspaper says, "Yes."