PHOENIX -- John Henry now is an owner of three different teams. Dan Duquette is wondering whether he should sign that spring training lease. And Jeff Torborg doesn't know if he's managing the Expos or Marlins.

These are just some of the questions floating in the breeze after a historic day in the life of baseball owners meetings Wednesday. So we'll now contemplate those questions with you:

1. Now that the Red Sox sale has been approved, will Dan Duquette be fired before sunset?
Sorry, it's never that simple. Anyone who has ever bought a house knows you don't close on the house the day your offer gets accepted. So the new ownership group won't technically "own" the team for a few weeks, maybe longer.

That means what happens to the Red Sox between now and then gets tricky in many ways. Larry Lucchino, future Red Sox CEO, said Wednesday the new owners have "rights to participate in the process" of current and future Red Sox business. Whether they can actually fire anybody is another matter.

But they can sure make their feelings known. And it's clear to those who have spoken to Lucchino and John Henry that changing GMs is right at the top of their "to-do" list.

So would they make THOSE feelings known, particularly if it might make it impossible to hire someone like Billy Beane or Brian Sabean as the new GM by waiting until after spring training had begun when the closing takes place? They might well.

Or they might do this another way. They could hire a new "vice president for baseball operations" and tell Duquette that while he isn't fired, he does have to report to the new guy. The scenarios are endless.

The other thing to remember is that outgoing CEO John Harrington has no reason to battle Lucchino and Henry since they were, essentially, his hand-picked choice to buy the team, they're old friends and, most importantly, they're already on the hook to pay the bills.

2. If the Red Sox do bring in a new GM, who would it be?
Good question. Beane and Sabean are great names, but they both have jobs and contracts.

Beane could be free in a year if the A's are sold or contracted. But it would be almost impossible to imagine the A's allowing him to leave now, this close to spring training. The Giants are likely to feel the same about Sabean.

So it's possible the Red Sox could opt to go the interim-GM route for a year and wait for Beane or Sabean to become available. And fortunately, they happen to have two former GMs -- Lee Thomas (Phillies) and Mike Port (Angels) -- working as assistants to Duquette.

So one of them conceivably could keep the flame burning for a season. And since these ARE the Red Sox, whoever got the job would undoubtedly wind up going down in history as the interim GM who steered this team to its long-awaited curse-breaking World Series title -- and then lost his job.

3. How could the Marlins, Expos and Yankees screw up the Red Sox's future?
Only because Henry still owns the Marlins -- at least until Expos owner Jeffrey Loria buys them from him -- and Henry also owns one percent of the Yankees. So he won't be allowed to complete the purchase of the Red Sox until he has sold off those other teams.

But approval of the Marlins-Expos portion of this trifecta was postponed Wednesday because, according to one source, the Expos' financial house isn't quite in sale-ready order yet. That could take anywhere between a few days and a couple of weeks to finish off.

Meanwhile, the Yankees were the only team NOT to vote for the Red Sox sale (they abstained), apparently because of internal, Yankee-esque issues with Henry's plan to sell his share to one-time USA Today founder Al Neuharth. But those issues will get ironed out one of these days, too.

In the meantime, though, if any snags delay those other transactions, the transfer of Red Sox power gets tangled up in limbo of three other teams' making. Perfect.

4. Loria wants to take most of his front office -- and his manager and coaching staff -- to Florida. Will baseball really let him do that?
This part really gets tricky, too.

First off, Expos president David Samson says that despite rumors to the contrary, the idea of Loria taking Expos PLAYERS with him to Florida "was not even contemplated."

The idea of taking virtually the whole front office, on the other hand, has definitely been contemplated. In fact, according to one source, most of the Expos' front-office people were gathered Wednesday morning and told they were welcome to go to Florida with Loria -- but they needed to decide by Wednesday night.

Baseball apparently has told Loria and Henry that as long as current Marlins employees with contracts get the money they are owed, Loria is welcome to bring Expos officials with him to take their place. That could entail Henry having to pay off deposed Marlins employees AND deposed Red Sox employees at the same time. But that's a problem for his accountants, mostly.

The real intrigue, though, will involve current Expos manager Jeff Torborg and his coaching staff. Samson said Wednesday that no change involving the manager and coaches could be considered until after the two sales are approved by owners AND "after closing."

Since closing might take a while, it's possible you could see this coaching staff start spring training with the Expos -- and FINISH it with the Marlins. Seriously. Who's writing these scripts?

5. Is it even legal for an entire coaching staff to change teams?
Samson answered that question this way: "Legally, you have a contract with an entity (as opposed to a team), and that entity is your employer. And if that employer tells you where to go to work, that's where you go to work."

A check with a former Expos employee verified that his contract was never with the Montreal Expos. The contract was with Expos ownership's corporate name (Expos Partnership Ltd.). So the principle to remember, Samson said, was that "one person is not buying the Marlins," Loria's corporation is.

In other words, heck yeah, it's legal. Or at least that's his story, and he's sticking to it.

6. What other complictations does that Expos-Marlins ownership flip-flop cause?
It may be the worst-kept secret in North America that the Expos' front office will soon be the Marlins' front office. But it still makes life awkward in all kinds of ways.

For instance, this is the week players file for arbitration. Many of those players normally come to terms before arbitration salary figures are formally exchanged on Friday. But if you're an agent representing players for those two teams and you want to negotiate, whom should you call?

According to one agent, agents were told Wednesday morning that if they represent a Marlins player, they should call EXPOS general manager Larry Beinfest. Agents representing Expos players were told to await further instructions. But that was before the Marlins and Expos sales were postponed. So who knows which front office will be in charge of taking which calls tomorrow?

7. Will the Expos and Marlins switch spring-training sites?
Baseball apparently is leaving that up to Loria and Henry to work out.

Loria wants to figure out a way to move the Marlins' spring-training site from Melbourne, Fla., to Jupiter, current spring home of the Expos. While he negotiates, players for those two teams have been told not to rent spring-training apartments until all this gets figured out. If the Expos and Marlins sales don't close in the next couple of weeks, though, that switch seems impossible to pull off this year.

Then next year, if contraction takes place and the Marlins decide to move to Jupiter, some team or other has to fulfill the terms of the Marlins' lease in Melbourne. So the Orioles, who have been bouncing from site to site for a decade, are being wooed to see if they're interested in moving from Fort Lauderdale. Following all this so far?

8. Does anyone know how Major League Baseball will go about running the Expos if they're not contracted?
This is another situation with no historical precedent. Although there have been reports that MLB ran the Braves in their final season in Milwaukee, the fact is that no one has uncovered an instance in which baseball ever operated any franchise for an entire season.

So they may literally make this thing up as they go along. There were reports at one point that Frank Robinson was lined up to be Montreal's manager, Doug Melvin was queried about being GM and Lucchino was going to be the club president if he didn't wind up with the Red Sox.

Now, however, Lucchino is out. And there seems to be a feeling MLB will hire a minority (possibly Robinson) as GM. It's believed the Major League Scouting Bureau will run the draft and scouting operations for the Expos. And many of the other questions won't -- or can't -- be answered until the two sales are finalized.

9. Is there any chance baseball will pull the plug on contraction this year at these owners' meetings?
There was a rumor circulating this week that that might happen. But Bud Selig said once again Wednesday that contraction remains "a viable option."

We can't find anyone privately who thinks it's going to happen this year, of course. But what that means is that the owners are determined to stick it out at least until the arbitrator rules on the union grievance challenging contraction. That ruling might be as much as two months away. But hey, no hurry.

10. How are the labor talks going?
You can bet your copy of the Life and Times of Marvin Miller that Donald Fehr's appearance at these owners' meetings Thursday won't end with the owners showering their favorite union chief with confetti and applause.

But it's the first chance many owners have ever had to hear Fehr speak in real life and ask him questions. File that under the category of Any Dialogue is Good Dialogue.

Fehr's invitation, however, would have to go down as the ONLY sign of progress in the labor duel. At least Selig reiterated Wednesday that owners have no plans for a lockout. So it's the best guess of many observers that this season will be played without interruption as owners try to maneuver toward an impasse in negotiations, followed by an attempt to implement a new system.

When they get to that point -- and how the players would react -- is an unanswerable question for now. But at least it appears safe to stop worrying about another nuclear labor incident -- until 2003, anyway.

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.