Astros’ Future Uncertain

A group of Washington-area investors led by telecommunications executive William Collins III is close to completing a deal to purchase the Houston Astros and move them to RFK Stadium next spring, local officials familiar with Collins’s negotiations said.

Astros Chairman Drayton McLane has agreed to sell the club to Collins’s group, but the two sides continue to negotiate over the price after a recent tentative agreement at one price fell through, according to sources close to the situation.

“An agreement in principle has been made,” George L. Barton IV, the chairman of the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority, said. “There has been a handshake.”