O’Malley Speaks His Mind : Baseball: Dodger president says claims that big-market teams aren’t doing enough to attain revenue-sharing package are ‘outrageous.’

Amid increasingly strained relations between baseball’s large- and smaller-revenue teams, Dodger President Peter O’Malley said Friday that he is outraged by suggestions from some of those smaller teams that the big-market teams aren’t seriously trying to negotiate a revenue-sharing formula.

“The clubs putting money into the pot have made an extraordinary effort to be creative, to reach out and satisfy the quote smaller unquote teams to the maximum extent that we can,” the normally low-key O’Malley said.

“If the smaller clubs feel we aren’t, I’m sorry about that, but we can’t be expected to pay for their mismanagement.

“For some small-market clubs to accuse us of a charade, to accuse us of just dancing around the subject, ticks me off. It’s really irritating. It’s outrageous.”

The owners will again try to resolve their differences Tuesday during a three-day meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Fans, however, might take more interest in Wednesday’s scheduled vote on a commissioner. The search committee is expected to make its recommendation to the executive council Monday night.

Harvey Schiller, executive director of the U.S. Olympic Committee, and Arnold Weber, an economist who recently retired as president of Northwestern University, are thought to be the finalists.

However, attorney Paul Kirk, the former Democratic national chairman, might not be out of the picture, and the possibility of a deadlock could result in an in-house compromise such as Stan Kasten of the Atlanta Braves or Paul Beeston or P.N.T. Widdrington of the Toronto Blue Jays.

A member of the search committee said some owners are still putting enormous pressure on Bud Selig to remain in his interim position until the most serious problems are resolved, but added that Selig’s ongoing reluctance makes it probable that a commissioner will be named.

Said O’Malley, hot about that, too: “It shouldn’t have taken a year and a half to identify a candidate. . . . We can’t continue to be led by volunteers on a part-time basis. It isn’t fair to the fans, players or front offices. As I’ve said, we need a strong, outside, independent commissioner in that New York office.”

Independent? Fay Vincent seemed to be just that when he was forced out in September of 1992. Neither Schiller nor Weber is without bedfellows among the owners. Schiller has Olympic ties to New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner. Weber appointed Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf to the Northwestern board of directors and is on the board of the Chicago Tribune Co., which owns the Cubs and TV rights to seven teams.

Twenty-one votes are needed to elect a commissioner and approve a revenue-sharing formula. One proposal at a recent meeting in Chicago failed by only one vote, but a big-market coalition of eight to 10 teams doesn’t appear to have weakened, sources said. It is made up of the Dodgers, Yankees, Blue Jays, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Colorado Rockies, St. Louis Cardinals, Baltimore Orioles, Florida Marlins and Texas Rangers.

Those teams are apparently willing to pool about $50 million for a group of smaller-revenue teams, with the middle-market clubs neither contributing nor receiving, but the smaller-market clubs are believed to want a minimum of $60 million.

“The dialogue has continued, and that’s good,” O’Malley said. “But it’s mid-January and at some point, the small-market clubs have to realize there’s only so much money to go into the pot.”

O’Malley said relations are already strained but refused to identify the clubs he had heard were questioning motives of the big market teams.

A revenue-sharing formula would ultimately be the basis for a salary-cap proposal to the players’ union.

Jackie Autry, executive vice president of the Angels, said she couldn’t question the sincerity of the big-revenue teams but added, “I really have to wonder if we’re not just spinning our wheels on this because everything I’ve read seems to indicate the union won’t accept a salary cap anyway.”