Acting Commissioner Bud Selig, preparing to attend...

Acting Commissioner Bud Selig, preparing to attend Saturday night’s opening of the World Series in New York, said he has told management negotiator Randy Levine that he is willing to join Levine and union leader Donald Fehr if they believe it will help them reach a labor agreement.

Selig added, “I believe realistically that a deal can be completed shortly.”

Fehr and Levine refused comment Thursday. The framework of a labor agreement has been in place since early August, but a dissident group of owners, led by Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox, has thwarted Selig’s attempt to round up the needed 21-vote consensus. Their primary objection deals with the union’s receiving a second tax-free year in 2001, the last year of the proposal.

Fehr has said the agreement is fundamentally done and he would resist any attempt to renegotiate any part of it. Both sides believe an agreement must be completed before eligible players begin filing for free agency five days after the World Series or they would have to operate for another year under the expired rules.