Season in the Balance : Baseball: Result of owners’ vote Monday may determine whether there will be a strike in the 1993.

Most years at baseball’s winter meetings, the most important announcements are the last to be made. A free-agent signing at 3 in the morning. A blockbuster trade as most general managers are checking out of the hotel.

This year, the meetings figure to work in reverse. Events later in the week may be worth noting. But the biggest news is due Monday.

The key announcement: Whether there will be a baseball season in 1993.

The 28 team owners can all but answer that question if, as expected, they reveal in Louisville, Ky., their decision whether to reopen their labor contract with the players union before next season.

For months, it has been assumed by baseball insiders that the contract would be reopened and that representatives of management and the players union would be hunkered down around a bargaining table next month.

The owners have that right -- so does the players union -- under the four-year deal reachedin 1990.

But the scouting report may have been premature. In recent weeks, the tide of sentiment among the owners appears to have shifted, suggesting that a majority opposes reopening.

Richard Ravitch, the owners’ chief negotiator, declined to say which way the owners are leaning.

“I assume a (decision) will be made in Louisville, and I assume it will be announced when it is made,” Ravitch said last week.

Team officials say as little as possible.

“Quite frankly, public discussion at this point is destructive,” said Milwaukee Brewers President Bud Selig.

“It’s a very confusing time to be in baseball management,” said Atlanta Braves President Stan Kasten. “We are confronted with all sorts of economic problems. And we have a salary system that is not working.”

What do the owners want? In baseball circles, this might be the toughest question of all time.

There are 28 major-league owners. Often, they approach labor negotiations with very different needs and priorities.

There are some things all owners agree on. They want lower costs, particularly lower player salaries. They want to explore ways to expand revenues. They’re worried about what their balance sheets will look like when the current network television contract expires after next season.

The television contract is a particular source of concern among team officials. Baseball’s current, record-breaking $1.05 billion deal with CBS and ESPN ends after the 1993 season.

The deal thrilled the owners, who divided the money equally, but has been a financial bust for the networks, who have taken heavy losses. CBS alone attributes a $500 million loss to its baseball deal.

At a meeting last month, network executives briefed the owners on what to expect when they sit down to discuss the next TV deal. The news was grimmer than team executives had expected: predicted drops in revenue to the owners of 35 to 50 percent, according to sources familiar with the meetings.

With TV money likely to shrink, it’s no coincidence that some owners are pushing hard for negotiations that might bring economic concessions from the players.

According to baseball’s bylaws, a majority of the owners would have to favor the reopener for the talks with the players union to begin. But embarking on a protracted and potentially expensive labor negotiation on the strength of a one-vote majority might be a risky proposition.

If not 15 votes, how many will the owners require of themselves to reopen the contract.

Even this is a secret.

“The 28 clubs will make that decision. And we’ll do it as a democracy,” said Selig.

No owners have announced how they will vote, but in most cases the answer is less than mysterious.

Owners said to be leading the charge to reopen are, among others, Selig, Peter O’Malley of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox.

Why are they eager to take on the players union a year earlier than necessary? In part, perhaps, because they probably have less to lose financially than other owners.

If case of a lockout, all owners would suffer some financial losses. Every canceled game means millions in lost revenue from ticket sales, concessions and parking.

But for some owners, the liability ends there. The Dodgers, for instance, have been owned by the O’Malley family for more than four decades. If any debt is owed on the team, it probably is minimal.

On the other end of the ownership spectrum are the handful of teams purchased in the past five to six years: The Seattle Mariners, Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros and the Orioles, acquired by principal owner Eli S. Jacobs in 1989.

Owners of these teams paid 10 to 12 times what might have been paid in the pre-inflation days. When Edward Bennett Williams bought the Orioles in 1979 he shelled out $12 million. Compare that with the $70 million paid by Jacobs to buy the Orioles, and a record price of $125 million paid by a group that bought the Mariners earlier this year.

To pay these prices, many owners have borrowed heavily. And they depend on selling tickets and game programs to pay back the banks.

Orioles officials declined to be interviewed for this article, citing baseball’s policy of allowing Ravitch to be a sole spokesman on labor issues.

“We are not authorized to speak about labor policy at this time,” team president Larry Lucchino said.

That said, the Orioles appear to have more to lose from a reopener and potential lockout than almost any team.

For one, the Orioles expect to sell virtually every ticket to every home game. Most teams don’t.

For the first time since 1958, the Orioles are playing host to the annual All-Star Game. A protracted lockout might wipe out the game.

Perhaps most important, the Orioles may be for sale. If there are prospective buyers of the team, no doubt they will be watching carefully tomorrow to see whether it will be the bargaining table or the playing field for baseball this year.

As baseball’s labor negotiator, Ravitch does not have lots of job security. He is, in fact, the sixth person to represent the owners in the past six negotiations.

In Ravitch, however, the owners have hired perhaps their most skillful, experienced and deft negotiator. He ran the New York City transit system. He ran for mayor of New York, losing decisively to David Dinkins in the Democratic primary. To get Ravitch, 59, the owners are paying him $750,000, $100,000 more than the salary of former commissioner Fay Vincent.

Sitting in his New York office last week, Ravitch made it clear that he is in the job for a narrow purpose: to fix the game’s financial problems.

“I was asked to come into baseball. I did not seek this,” he said.