What sale of the Sounds means

Right now? That they are staying put.

Steve Posner remembers idolizing the minor-league baseball players he watched when he was a boy growing up in Buffalo, N.Y. Then he sold hot dogs and soft drinks at Shea and Yankee stadiums as a teenager in New York City.

Some 40 years later, Posner and two associates are poised to own the Nashville Sounds — and planning to give fans here a better experience at run-down Greer Stadium before setting their sights on a new ballpark. They said they had no intention of leaving Nashville.

"Until we convince the people of Nashville that we're serious and we want them back, we have to focus on Greer," Frank Ward, one of Posner's partners, said Thursday.

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With approval from baseball authorities still 60 to 120 days away and a new season set to start in April, the prospective buyers said they will start negotiating soon with Metro Nashville to extend the Sounds' Greer Stadium lease, which expires Dec. 31.

Mayor Karl Dean, who lost faith in Gordon when the Sounds failed to complete a downtown stadium deal with the city last year, met with Honzawa, Posner and Ward on Thursday and came away feeling positive, he said in a statement.

"I was excited to hear that they have plans to invest in our city and our baseball team, and I'm pleased that they are willing to improve Greer Stadium and make it a facility that Sounds fans can enjoy," the mayor said. "I look forward to a long partnership with this group and to having baseball in Nashville next year."

The Sounds are the Triple A affiliates of the Milwaukee Brewers.