Baseball Realignment Takes Its First Tiny Steps

Major league baseball owners finally approved a realignment plan for 1998 on Wednesday. It was neither radical nor modified, but minimal.

In what acting Commissioner Bud Selig called a first phase with more realignment likely for 1999, the Detroit Tigers will move from the American League East to the AL Central, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays will move from the AL West to the AL East, replacing the Tigers, and an AL Central team, still to be identified, will move to the National League Central.

That team is expected to be either the Kansas City Royals or Milwaukee Brewers. Selig, who owns the Brewers and has said he would move his team if it was in baseball’s best interests, insisted several possibilities remain, but sources said the Royals have been given first option on the move and must decide by the end of the month.

If they choose to remain in the AL, the Brewers will move.

An announcement will be made after the World Series, Selig said.

The new alignment puts 16 teams in the National League (with six in the Central Division) and 14 in the American.

The AL will continue to play a balanced schedule, teams playing as many games outside their division as within, while the NL will play an unbalanced schedule--12 games against each team within their division, nine against each of the other teams in their league and the rest of the 162 games interleague.

In addition, owners extended the voting-procedure deadline for further realignment through Oct. 31, 1998. Only majority approval is needed for realignment, but any team asked to switch leagues has veto power.

The plan was approved 27-0, with the two expansion teams prohibited from voting and the San Francisco Giants abstaining.

Giants’ owner Peter Magowan had threatened legal action if the Oakland A’s had been moved into the National League, as proposed in all of the larger concepts, and is still leery that the A’s, along with the Angels and Seattle Mariners, could be moved into the NL under a procedure requiring only majority approval.

“We’ve taken care of the two most immediate concerns, moving Tampa Bay into a more agreeable geographic division and creating a 16-14 league alignment,” Selig said. “It’s important that we study additional realignment in conjunction with interleague play and the future of the designated hitter.

“We’ve conducted extensive research since this process began in January and it shows our fans want more significant realignment and so do our clubs.”

The players union, which opposes leaving the AL without a West Coast presence, will be a factor in further realignment. The union has approved interleague play only through 1998 and will approve an extension only if it agrees with the next realignment plan.

Meanwhile, the 16-14 alignment permits the playing of interleague games in several segments during the course of the season, as was done this year. In a 15-15 alignment, interleague popularity might be diluted by the necessity of playing an interleague game on a daily basis, officials said.

The 16-14 alignment, they added, also creates fewer two-game series, which drew considerable criticism from players and managers last season.