Owners One Vote Shy of Accord : Baseball: But they get closer to revenue-sharing agreement in balloting at meeting in Chicago.

Major league baseball owners failed again Thursday to agree on a revenue-sharing formula but will continue deliberations at another meeting in Florida on Jan. 17.

The 28 owners were one vote short of the required 21 on one of the four votes taken during the Thursday meeting in Chicago, meaning eight high-revenue clubs remain united for financial or philosophical reasons against the plan.

That’s a shift of two from August, when 10 high-revenue clubs thwarted an agreement during a meeting in Wisconsin. They were the Dodgers, New York Yankees and Mets, Baltimore Orioles, Texas Rangers, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, Florida Marlins, Colorado Rockies and St. Louis Cardinals.

The Marlins and Rangers joined the lower-revenue coalition on the 20-8 vote. It is hazy as to how much money would be shared under that proposal, but the money would come only from ticket and broadcasting revenue. A proposal offered by the higher-revenue clubs, which they said tripled the amount of money now being shared and called for it to come from all sources, was defeated, 17-11.

In one form or another, all 28 clubs supported revenue sharing during the four votes, which interim Commissioner Bud Selig interpreted as progress, but it may be difficult to breach the coalition of eight high-revenue clubs.

“The fact that we’re going to discuss it again in 10 days is good, but it could still go either way,” President Peter O’Malley of the high-revenue Dodgers said.

“I was pleasantly surprised with the movement and the amount of money put on the table by the big-market clubs for the small-market clubs today, but this is not just a debate about money. There are a lot of philosophical issues.”

O’Malley has said he would not support any plan that did not include a timetable for ending revenue sharing, did not provide for the sharing of revenue from all sources and did not ensure that the welfare clubs would be managed aggressively and competitively.

The clubs voted in December of 1992 to reopen collective bargaining with the players’ union a year early, but they have yet to meet with the union because of their inability to agree on a formula that would be the foundation for a salary-cap proposal.

Referring to those long-delayed negotiations, Richard Ravitch, president of the owners’ Player Relations Committee, said he had hoped to have an agreement Thursday because “it would be nice to get on to the main event.”

Thursday’s votes, at least, indicated there may be agreement now on which clubs fit into which categories. Angel executive Jackie Autry, for instance, said her club can’t be classified as large market simply because it’s in a large market. She said the Angels have the seventh-smallest revenue in baseball, criticized her Anaheim Stadium lease and said: “If we were forced (by a new formula) to increase our payroll by $7 or $8 million, we couldn’t do it. We’d have to file for bankruptcy. We can’t be competitive with the humongous revenue” generated in new stadiums.