Three years ago today, we learned that Tom Hicks, who had been given a 12/15 deadline by Bud Selig to pick the ownership group he was going to sell to, had selected the group headed up by Chuck Greenberg and Nolan Ryan.

There was much happiness, and we were pretty sure that the sale would happen relatively quickly and new ownership would be in place soon.

Yeah, that didn't happen. The sale dragged into August, and at one point, it looked like Mark Cuban and Jim Crane were going to end up the winning group, which would have not been good.

And of course, Chuck Greenberg was forced out early in 2011, which was unfortunate.

But still, Hicks is gone, and that's a good thing. And three years ago today was one of the significant steps forward in making that happen.