Commissioner to Expand Office at Newport Beach

Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth said Wednesday he will considerably expand his organization’s Newport Beach office in the near future, adding security and marketing representatives and making it more of an alternative center to the New York headquarters.

Ueberroth, who kept the Laguna Beach home he used during his Olympic years when he moved to New York last fall to take the commissioner’s job, said he will be spending some of his time in the Newport Beach office.

“I’m going to try to be more of a bi-coastal commissioner,” he said.

But while he said he will beef up the Newport office, he gave no indication that any function or personnel would be transferred permanently out of New York. He said he had been impressed in recent months with how many important personalities and institutions are in New York.

Ueberroth said the commissioner’s 80-member scouting bureau has been headquartered in Orange County under the direction of Jim Wilson for some time.

Ueberroth said, “The benefit to baseball is that not just the commissioner but other key people will have a chance to be periodically on the West Coast.

“And equally important, by flying them back and forth, they will have more of an opportunity to stop in midway points, such as Kansas City, for visits. After all, this is a national pastime, and this setup will provide an opportunity for our staff to become more nationally oriented.”

Newport Beach city manager Bob Wynn said the expansion will mean more national recognition for his city.

“We have many famous national headquarters now,” Wynn said, “and this would be another one that would be welcomed. It shows Mr. Ueberroth has good taste.

“Certainly, the area--with L.A., Anaheim and San Diego having teams--is very supportive of the game.”

Tim Mead, a spokesman for the Angels, said Ueberroth’s West Coast office “will be good for Orange County.

“He’ll have meetings here, do West Coast work. Stories about his decisions will carry an Orange County dateline. It will lend that much more credit to the area.

“Hopefully, he’ll be able to attend a few more ballgames. It will be nice to introduce the commissioner of baseball at some of the home games.

“I think he’ll be a very active commissioner and this should help cut down on his traveling. The fans of Orange County will prosper by knowing who the baseball commissioner is.”

Ueberroth, a California resident since his youth, is maintaining his voting residency in the state. When he sold his home in Encino after gaining the baseball job, he said he had shifted his registration to Orange County.

Presently, four persons from the Los Angeles Olympic operation have gone to work for Ueberroth in New York. They are Joel Rubenstein, former chief of protocol, and Charlie Bear, a personnel officer at the committee, both working in the commissioner’s baseball promotion bureau; Lucie Gikovich, a former LAOOC administrative assistant working in that same capacity for Ueberroth in New York, and Nancy Yasoian, a former LAOOC secretary, working as Ueberroth’s personal secretary.

Also contributing to this story was Times Staff Writer Mike Penner