Vincent Orders a Realignment of NL : Baseball: He rules it in best interest of baseball to move St. Louis and Chicago to the West, Atlanta and Cincinnati to the East.

Commissioner Fay Vincent, citing his authority to act in the best interests of baseball, overrode the objection of the Chicago Cubs on Monday and ordered National League realignment in 1993, when the Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins begin play.

League President Bill White immediately announced that he was “very disappointed with the commissioner’s extraordinary decision to override the National League’s constitution,” and the Cubs called it a bad decision that forces them to consider alternatives.

They are barred from suing the commissioner by the same Major League Agreement that gives Vincent the authority to act in baseball’s best interests.

“I don’t know if there will be a lawsuit,” Vincent said. “I think it’s a possibility, but if I didn’t think this was legally sound and legitimate, I wouldn’t have done it.”

In the first realignment since the creation of divisional play in 1969, the Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals will go to the West with the Rockies, Dodgers, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants and Houston Astros. The Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds will move to the East with the Marlins, New York Mets, Pittsburgh Pirates, Montreal Expos and Philadelphia Phillies.

The decision seems to shift the league’s balance of power to the East, since the Reds and Braves are possibly the two best teams. Dodger Vice President Fred Claire, however, was not doing cartwheels over their departure from the West.

“I think you have to look at realignment in the long term, not what it impacts for one or two years,” he said. “Consistency and continuity are so difficult to maintain now that the competitive aspect (of realignment) is not that big a factor.

“I mean, yes, you would have to acknowledge that Atlanta and Cincinnati are very strong teams and very good organizations, but the Cubs and Cardinals are, too. And who’s to say that in another few years there won’t be three leagues geographically aligned?”

The Dodgers favored realignment but are one of four clubs--the Cubs, Cardinals and Mets were the others--who opposed Vincent’s intervention, believing he lacked the authority and that the sanctity of a league vote taken on March 4 should be upheld.

The realignment issue received the required 75% support in a 10-2 vote on that date, but the issue also requires all of the involved teams to support it, and the Cubs didn’t because of their contention that a move to the West would result in a greater number of later starting times on their cable network, reducing revenue. The Mets also voted against realignment, but only to show support for the Cubs’ right to vote it down.

Vincent said he became involved only because several National League owners--sources put the number at eight--asked him to, believing realignment made economic and geographical sense.

“It was an extraordinarily difficult decision,” he said. “I went back and forth several times, but I was very uncomfortable leaving the alignment as it is, considering 10 or 11 National League clubs favored realignment. I know that four or five of those same clubs opposed my intervention, but I didn’t consider this a political exercise. I had to look at the overall support for realignment.”

In his eight-page decision, Vincent wrote that the league’s stringent voting requirements had thwarted the majority preference and the best interests of baseball. He wrote that the proposed realignment would relieve the geographical incongruity of two Eastern time zone teams, the Reds and Braves, playing in the West. He wrote that it would allow for a natural rivalry between the Braves and Marlins, preserve the traditional rivalry between the Cubs and Cardinals and make for easier and less costly travel.

On the issue of Cub telecasts, he wrote: “I believe that my concern should properly be for the scheduling of local telecasts of all 14 National League teams.”

He also cited precedent and wrote that he had indisputable authority to intervene.

White, the league president, didn’t dispute that authority in his statement, but he expressed disappointment and said: “By this act, the commissioner has jeopardized a long-standing working document which has governed the National League for decades. Although we worked to attain realignment, we did so within the guidelines of the constitution.”

Said a statement from the Cubs: “We believe the commissioner’s decision is wrong, bad for baseball, and especially bad for baseball fans here in the Chicago area. We are currently considering the alternatives available to us.”

As a steppingstone to a possible lawsuit, an attorney close to the Cub organization said the club might pursue a restraining order that would delay the adoption of a 1993 schedule long enough that realignment would have to be put off for a year, at least, while other legal avenues are pursued.

The Reds and Braves, who will benefit by more prime-time starts on their own cable network, applauded realignment. Atlanta President Stan Kasten said it was 20 years overdue. But Cardinal Vice Chairman Fred Kuhlmann criticized the decision, saying there is no great good in it from his team’s standpoint and that it should have remained a league matter rather than being “dictated by the commissioner.”

The commissioner has exerted his power in a recent series of issues and events, knowing, as he has said, that he can’t satisfy all of his constituents all of the time.

The Dodgers are among the clubs known to be concerned by his latest action. Club President Peter O’Malley did not return messages left at his Dodger Stadium office Monday, but he has been helping the Cubs research alternatives. The New York Times reported that he might be willing to join the Cubs in a lawsuit attempting to block Vincent’s move, but that could not be verified.

“I just hope the commissioner has authority for whatever he’s contemplating,” O’Malley had told the Los Angeles Times on Friday.

In a comparably volatile issue related to realignment, Vincent said he would not get involved in the National League’s consideration of a 1993 scheduling format. The ’93 draft was supposed to be presented to the Major League Players Assn. for approval on July 1, but the league received an extension to Aug. 1.

The 14 American League teams play 13 games against each team within their division and 12 against each team in the other division, meaning a team plays 84 games outside its division and 78 within. The National League’s adoption of a similar format would force the Cubs to play only a few more games than they now do on the West Coast.