Houston Astros owner, Drayton McLane, has confirmed to Brian McTaggart of MLB.com that the sale of the team is preogressing and that Houston businessman Jim Crane is one of the three parties in the process of negotiating a sale.

“There is no agreement with anybody, and there are at least three that are far along in the process,” McLane said Friday. “Jim Crane is certainly one of them. There are several others. There is no agreement, and it’s a wide-open field. It’s a long process.”

The sale of the team has been known since November 2010 when McLane retained Allen & Co. to help him sell his franchise for $800 million.

A key figure in Allen & Co. is Steve Greenberg, son of Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg. Greenberg has been labeled as the “King of the Sports Deal.” He has previously counseled MLB commissioner Bud Selig and his family during the sale of the Milwaukee Brewers.

“We’re a lot closer to the finish line than we are to the starting line,” Greenberg said. “We’re toward the end. It’s always hard to predict when you’re going to actually close something out. Sometimes the last few points can get resolved very quickly, and sometimes they can take a month. We’re working our way through it, but I’m not prepared to say that we’re on the brink of a deal at this point.”

McLane purchased the Astros for $117 milllion in 1992 and has taken the franchise to the playoffs six times between 1997 and 2005 with its first World Series appearance in 2005.