Teams Prepare for Replacements : Baseball: Committee discusses contingencies for playing in ’95.

The plan to play the 1995 baseball season with replacement players, providing the union remains on strike, moved a step forward during a conference call Wednesday among members of management’s recently formed operations committee.

“We’re gearing up to play the 1995 season and we’re looking at contingency plans that will allow us to open the season on time,” said Bob Graziano, the Dodgers’ vice president of finance and a committee member.

“It’s the committee’s responsibility to come up with a plan, but there’s a misconception out there that we’ve been at it for some time.

“The truth is, we’re still in preliminary discussion because the focus has been on a bargaining settlement, and that’s still the goal.”

While the operations committee met by phone Wednesday, Donald Fehr, the union’s executive director, discussed the aborted negotiations with Labor Secretary Robert Reich in Washington; five bills pertaining to repeal of the game’s antitrust exemption were introduced in Congress on the first day of the new session, and union officials said they would ask players to maintain a signing moratorium until Fehr and staff have completed a seven-city series of meetings with players and agents beginning Friday.

Meanwhile, some clubs are known to have already prepared a list of potential replacement players, focusing on released free agents and career minor leaguers.

“I think that’s probably the direction we’re headed,” Philadelphia Phillie President Bill Giles said of the replacement concept.

“The committee has put in a lot of work. I was opposed to it initially, but we’ve played around with it (as a club) the last few days and the more we’ve gotten into it, the more fun I think it could be.”

There are three current or former general managers on the committee--Dave Dombrowski of the Florida Marlins, Sandy Alderson of the Oakland Athletics and Andy MacPhail of the Chicago Cubs--but five more general managers, among them Fred Claire of the Dodgers, will participate when the committee meets by phone again today.

“The goal is still a settlement, but the reality is that we need an alternative if we’re going to be playing baseball in 1995, and the plan is to play in ‘95,” Claire said.

It is uncertain how the committee will circumvent an Ontario law that would prevent the Toronto Blue Jays from using replacement players and the firm opposition of Baltimore Oriole owner Peter Angelos, who has said he will not field a replacement team.