The sale of the Tucson Padres to the El Paso based MountainStar Sports Group became official Thursday morning.
The Padres, as expected, will play the 2013 season at Kino Stadium and move to El Paso in time for the '14 season.
The El Paso Times reported MountainStar bought the Padres from Jeff Moorad for "about $20 million." Officials wouldn't confirm that price Thursday.
The announcement of the sale was made Thursday at a news conference in El Paso. Pacific Coast League president Branch Rickey attended and welcomed El Paso to the PCL.
Rickey told the Times that security across the border was a concern at first but eventually became a non-issue.
The team will likely lose its "Padres" nickname and shift to something unique to El Paso. Residents will be involved in picking the team's name and colors.
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Girardi's father dies
NEW YORK - The father of Yankees manager Joe Girardi died Saturday.
Jerry Girardi, 81, had suffered from Alzheimer's disease since the 1990s and died in Metamora, Ill.
Joe Girardi, who learned of the news Saturday on the team bus, did not disclose his dad's death to his players for five days, preferring not to talk about it and not wanting to distract his team.
"I had tears in my eyes on the bus, so I put some sunglasses on," the manager said Thursday.
Girardi said he did "probably what a lot of men do when they go through difficult and sad times; we try to stay busy."
Inside pitch
• On Wednesday, Cardinals right-handed pitcher Chris Carpenter became only the second starting pitcher in baseball history to win a postseason game after not having any wins during the regular season, according to STATS LLC.
• Teams that lose the first two games in a best-of-five series are 7-59 all-time.
• Athletics owner Lew Wolff says the team will remove the tarps covering more than 11,000 seats from part of the upper deck at the Coliseum if the team advances to the ALCS.
Daniel Berk
