BASEBALL : Vincent Keeps Up Positive Front Despite Talk of Angry Owners

The commissioner of baseball sat in the home team’s dugout at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium here Monday, watching the American and National League All-Stars take batting practice.

The afternoon heat left his shirt soaked with sweat, but his attitude seemed cool and detached.

If he is feeling the heat from owners displeased by what they perceive to be an excessive use of authority, he wasn’t showing it.

Embattled?

“How can I be embattled when there’s nothing they can do?” Vincent said.

“Judge Landis (baseball’s first commissioner) set it up that the owners can’t fire the commissioner.

“He knew that you could be Francis of Assisi, but make a decision they don’t like and they might want to fire you six months into your term.

“The commissioner can’t be fired, can’t change his authority and can’t diminish his authority during his term of office.”

He could resign, of course, and he might be asked to, but that’s an offer he would refuse, Vincent said.

“The easiest thing I could do would be to resign,” he said. “I don’t need the job. I don’t need the money. I could go to Europe. I haven’t been to London in three years.

“But that would be the wrong thing to do for baseball. It would set a bad precedent. I’m not going to be pushed out.”

Although Vincent is alleged to have angered a majority of the owners, it isn’t clear how many of the 28 are behind a possible push.

One American League owner said Monday that only the New York Mets, Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros and Texas Rangers would support Vincent’s reelection. Vincent, however, will be vacationing in Montana next week with Oakland Athletic owner Walter Haas.

“I’ve been getting calls from a lot of owners asking me not to resign,” Vincent said.

“I mean, I wonder if there is a majority (against him). If there is, it would probably change two days from now. Baseball is not a coalition that stays in shape very long.”

And no commissioner can satisfy all of his constituents all of the time.

Owners in both leagues, for example, have criticized his formula for dividing National League expansion income and drafting players, but it was only after they couldn’t come up with a formula on their own that they turned it over to him.

He has been criticized for delaying a decision regarding George Steinbrenner’s return as general partner of the New York Yankees, but it was Steinbrenner who volunteered for a lifetime ban when Vincent wanted to suspend him for only two years.

Several of his recent decisions have left owners muttering that Vincent is abusing his authority, that he has become, as the American League owner said Monday, a tyrant:

--He refused an attempt supported by 25 of the 28 clubs--only the Mets, Astros and Orioles were against it--to yield his “best interest of baseball” authority in the area of labor, citing the Major League Agreement, which does not allow the reduction of authority during a term.

The owners say that their Player Relations Committee cannot pursue a hard-line negotiating plan if faced with the possibility of a conciliatory commissioner stepping in and overturning it.

--He was said to have bullied three Yankee officials for their testimony in the Steve Howe appeal, undermined the National League constitution by ordering realignment, and overstepped his authority by arbitrarily revoking the Rules and Procedures of baseball, which establish protocol.

The owners are considering going to the National Labor Relations Board to consider Vincent’s intransigence on his labor rights.

They are not, the American League owner said, circulating a petition that will seek his resignation, but views on that are being exchanged, with Peter O’Malley of the Dodgers, Bud Selig of the Milwaukee Brewers and Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox the ringleaders.

“The man feels he’s an untouchable,” the American League owner said of Vincent. “He’s lost sight of the fact that he’s an employee.”

Vincent said again Monday that he has not decided if he will seek reelection. His term expires in March of 1994, but his status is likely to come to a head before that.

Vincent is not intimidated. He reflected on a career during which he has been an attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission and a president of Columbia Pictures, said he is used to dealing with flak and believes in a philosophy expressed by former Secretary of State Dean Acheson.

“ ‘When in doubt, do the right thing,’ ” Vincent said.

“I believe I have been. I don’t have to do this for a living. That gives me an independence of soul.”