Owners Request More Time : Baseball: With negotiations possibly resuming next week, management asks union to delay free agency.

Amid the possibility that baseball’s collective-bargaining talks will resume next week, management lawyers have asked the players union to delay start of the free-agent filing period until Nov. 30 and for an immediate 45-day freeze on contract signings.

Acting commissioner Bud Selig said Tuesday night that he was hopeful the union would respond to the request today.

“It would put everything on hold for 45 days, allowing us to concentrate on what we need to do most--negotiate,” Selig said. “We obviously think it would be constructive.”

Selig said he was hopeful the sides would return to the bargaining table next week, but nothing is set.

However, a union lawyer said it is likely the talks will resume--motivated, in part, by a concept that Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos offered to the union’s executive director, Donald Fehr, during an informal discussion Sept. 24.

Under Angelos’ plan, the union would tax player salaries and add that pool to the $70 million that would be funneled to the small market clubs via the owners’ proposed revenue-sharing formula.

There would be no salary cap, but salary arbitration would be eliminated in return for earlier free agency.

Said Fehr, who is addressing the Los Angeles Bar Assn. today: “We’re open to any and all ideas, but our opposition to a cap hasn’t changed. I didn’t have an extended conversation with Angelos, so it’s difficult for me to talk about his proposal.”

Of the request to delay the start of the free-agent filing period and put a 45-day hold on contract signings (the owners also would pledge not to implement their salary-cap proposal during this period), management lawyer Chuck O’Connor said: “The idea is to stop the train before it leaves the station. We don’t want to create two different classes of players who signed under two different economic systems.”

With no World Series, the expired provisions of the current bargaining agreement call for free-agent filing to begin Oct. 15. More than 190 players are eligible, but that total might decrease as club’s exercise 1995 options.

There have been only two contract signings since the strike began Aug. 12, both by the Cincinnati Reds for two years. Outfielder Thomas Howard will get $1.35 million, and ex-Dodger infielder Lenny Harris will get $1 million.