Shepherding Future Is Item One at Meetings

Hard realities will continue to shadow the hard news during a three-day meeting of major league owners and general managers that begins at a downtown hotel today.

It’s a small re-creation of baseball’s lively winter meetings of the past, but producing more than one or two trades and/or free-agent signings is doubtful, given the many moves that have already been made.

The hard news may be limited to:

--Anticipated approval of the Walt Disney Co.’s purchase of 25% and control of the Angels during a joint meeting of American and National League owners on Thursday.

--Further discussion and a possible vote on interleague play, as it applies to which league or leagues the 1998 expansion teams, Phoenix and Tampa Bay, are placed later this year. If each league is increased to 15 teams, interleague play would seem to be a necessity or one team in each league would be idle every day.

--Ratification of the $1.7-billion national television contract.

--Continuing discussions on revenue sharing and the unresolved labor situation, along with the sale of the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals.

Hard realities?

Dodger owner Peter O’Malley raised some familiar themes as he prepared for the meetings, again assailing the absence of a full-time commissioner, the failure to reach a collective bargaining agreement with the players’ union and a general absence of leadership in marketing and other areas.

Asked if the new television contract, the generally popular reaction to the extended playoffs and the lingering euphoria over Cal Ripken Jr.’s record for consecutive games reflected an optimistic upswing for an industry jolted by the 1994 work stoppage and 1995 attendance falloff, O’Malley said:

“I remain very concerned about the length of time it takes to resolve issues and move ahead.

“We clearly need a full-time commissioner in the New York office leading the industry and restoring the public confidence in the game. The game and its fans deserve full-time professional leadership, not volunteer leadership.

“The cost and lost opportunities of the last three years is staggering and far beyond anyone’s expectations. We must establish a partnership with the players as soon as possible and grow the game internationally.”

O’Malley’s dissatisfaction with acting Commissioner Bud Selig has been chronicled, but the Dodger owner has been unable to generate support for a possible Selig ouster, and that probably will not happen during the current meetings.

Selig, the Milwaukee Brewers’ owner, maintains he will abdicate when there is a labor agreement, but his interim job has spanned 39 months, longer than three previous commissioners held office--Spike Eckert, Bart Giamatti and Fay Vincent, Selig’s predecessor.

“It’s been interesting and demanding, but I wouldn’t call it enjoyable,” Selig said.

“Nothing has happened that would prompt my wife and I to view it as anything but an interim position.”

A consensus builder who leads primarily through committees, Selig has maintained unprecedented solidarity among the owners, but the ongoing absence of a labor agreement continues to leave fans and advertisers wary, serving in some measure to destabilize the industry, although there is no hint of a 1996 stoppage.

Said Andy MacPhail, the Chicago Cubs’ president: “The situation has changed since [Kenesaw Mountain] Landis was commissioner and could tell both the owners and players what to do. The best a commissioner can do today is have influence over half that equation, and in that Bud has basically done a fine job. Don’t forget, the players went on strike, not the owners.”

The labor picture is unclear. The union has yet to respond to management’s Nov. 15 proposal that tries to restrict salaries to 50% of industry revenue through a complex payroll tax that is tied to industry revenue.

In reference to the union’s delay, a National League owner said, “No matter how much we need an agreement, some of my colleagues are still itching for a fight with the union and don’t need much to set them off.”

Labor and revenue sharing will be hot topics during the current meeting.

The general managers will be attending for the first time since the annual December winter meetings were canceled after agents commandeered the 1992 session at Louisville, disrupting business as the clubs spent more than $280 million on free agents, the wrong message at the wrong time.

While the Angels, having retained Chuck Finley and Jim Abbott and about to be revitalized under Disney, will continue their pursuit of a catcher (Joe Oliver or Benito Santiago?) and right-handed pitcher (Tim Belcher?), Dodger Vice President Fred Claire said, “I don’t think we’ll see the type of movement we used to see at the December meetings.”

Although more than 50 free agents remain, most clubs have made their major moves and will wait to see what they have in spring training, Claire said.

“I don’t sense anything dramatic happening here, but there’ll be a lot of people and I could be wrong,” he said.

Gene and Jackie Autry, bowing out as the Angels’ operating officers, will host a Wednesday night dinner for owners and general managers at their Western Heritage museum in Griffith Park.

Other Angel employees are probably suffering from a loss of appetite. About 20 of the club’s 45-50 front-office employees, including President Richard Brown, are expected to be let go soon after Disney takes over, with the marketing and sales departments hardest hit.

* Times staff writer Mike DiGiovanna contributed to this story.