BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : Labor Negotiations Ready to Resume

Baseball’s labor negotiations are likely to resume either tonight or Wednesday morning, with management negotiator Randy Levine and union leader Donald Fehr expected to reach an agreement this week that would be voted on by owners at their fall meeting in Seattle on Sept. 10-12.

Management sources said acting commissioner Bud Selig has basically cleared Levine to resume talks that have been on hold while Selig gathers support for the proposed agreement among owners.

The resumption of talks, the sources said, would seem to indicate that Selig has the 21 votes necessary to ratify an agreement (he has never put an issue to vote if he knew it was going to be defeated) and that Levine has been cleared to offer the players service time for the 75 regular-season days they were on strike in exchange for union concessions on arbitration, litigation stemming from the strike and the structure of the second, tax-free year at the end of a six-year agreement.