BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : AROUND THE MAJOR LEAGUES : Selig Says No to Gooden Return in ’95

Dwight Gooden will have to wait until next year to return to baseball.

Bud Selig, baseball’s acting commissioner, has rejected Gooden’s request to shorten his one-year suspension for violating his drug after-care program, the Cy Young Award winner said Friday in the Record of Bergen County, N.J.

“He [Selig] said that with only six weeks left in the season, it was better for me to keep working on my after-care program,” Gooden said in an interview from his home in St. Petersburg, Fla. “I know it was a tough decision for him, but that means I’ll just keep working even harder to make it back next year.”

Last week, Gooden wrote to Selig and asked him to come to Florida to look at his rehabilitation program. The former Met starter also was considering filing a grievance, but decided against it when team owners fired arbitrator George Nicolau.

Gooden, a free agent, was not expected to return to the majors this season, especially after missing four drug tests.

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Phil Rizzuto, a Yankee broadcaster for 39 years, a member of the Hall of Fame and perhaps the most popular announcer in New York, said he has quit his job.

Rizzuto decided to resign after he missed the funeral of Mickey Mantle in Texas on Tuesday. At the behest of station executives at WPIX-TV, Rizzuto stayed in Boston and broadcast the Yankee-Red Sox game.

He left the booth after five innings, too distraught to continue, and left the stadium.

“After I saw the funeral on television, I said, this is terrible. I’ll never be able to make up for that,” said Rizzuto, 76. “If I had a little more get-up-and-go, I would have just gone on down to the funeral and let the chips fall where they may.

“I think I’ve definitely made up my mind, even though everybody keeps telling me I can’t do this.”

WPIX executives asked Rizzuto to reconsider his decision, “and he said he would,” Michael Eigner, station vice president, said.

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The Oakland Athletics put catcher Terry Steinbach on the 15-day disabled list because of a sore lower back and activated relief pitcher Don Wengert from the disabled list.