Owners’ Group Approves Denver, Miami : Baseball: Final hurdle is vote by all owners. AL executives angry with Vincent’s solution on expansion money.

Major league baseball’s ownership committee unanimously recommended approval of Denver and Miami as the National League’s expansion teams on Wednesday as American League anger continued to surface.

Oakland General Manager Sandy Alderson said he believed the AL should reject the $42 million it would get from expansion and not contribute players to the talent pool.

“It’s not worth it,” Alderson said. “You get $3 million and look at what you’re giving up. It takes about $2 million to develop the average major league player.”

The amount of support for Alderson’s position within the AL was not clear. Angel president Richard Brown appeared to agree with Alderson’s thinking.

“I wouldn’t want to give up three of our top 22 players for $3 million,” he said.

Expansion was to be discussed later during separate meetings of the two leagues. Deputy commissioner Stephen Greenberg said rejection of the money by the AL was “not an option.” Commissioner Fay Vincent decided on that figure last week after the leagues were unable to agree on how to handle the $190 million in expansion money.

There was a flurry of activity at Wednesday’s sessions, with most of the attention focused on the final approval of Denver and Miami, which were recommended Monday by the NL expansion committee. The final hurdle, approval by three-quarters of the NL owners and a majority of the AL owners, was not scheduled for a vote Wednesday, but baseball officials said they did not know if that would change.

St. Louis Cardinals president Fred Kuhlmann, the chairman of the eight-member ownership committee, said his group did not have any problems with the two entries. Miami’s owner would be H. Wayne Huizenga, chairman of Blockbuster Entertainment Corp. Denver would have three managing general partners: John Antonucci, chief operating officer of Superior Beverage; Mickey Monus, president of the Phar-Mor Inc. drugstore chain, and Steve Ehrhart, a lawyer from Memphis, Tenn., who would move back to his native Colorado.

“It’s great. I’m glad that they voted today and I’m glad they voted unanimously,” Huizenga said. “Hopefully the team owners will vote today or tomorrow and that would make a wonderful day for all of us here in South Florida.”

Also scheduled for a vote Wednesday was final approval of the $100 million Canadian sale of the Montreal Expos to a group headed by team president Claude Brochu.

The eight-man ownership committee also heard a report on the Houston Astros from team chairman John McMullen and Louis Sussman, a former St. Louis Cardinals official who now works for Salomon Brothers, the investment banking firm retained by the team.

There has been speculation that McMullen would want to sell to one of the losing expansion groups, but Vincent has said he will not allow teams to move except in extreme circumstances.