It Comes Back Around to Selig

Baseball’s search for a commissioner, long expected to lead back to where it started, is about to complete its course.

Acting Commissioner Bud Selig hasn’t officially succumbed to widespread pressure from fellow owners and accepted the position, sources said Thursday, but he is expected to soon.

“It’s a done deal,” an American League owner said, adding that there was an attempt to bring the issue to a vote during last week’s owners’ meeting in Seattle. But three owners--Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox, Peter Magowan of the San Francisco Giants and the Tribune Co., which owns the Chicago Cubs--oppose Selig’s selection and there is a desire among other owners, and Selig, to make it unanimous.

The selection of a commissioner requires 75% approval of the 30 clubs. The next owners’ meeting is scheduled in mid-September, but several sources said Thursday that Selig could seek a vote before the All-Star break begins on July 6.

Selig, owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, acknowledged “increased pressure from many club owners” for him to take the job and said he is “agonizing about it.”

He denied a New York Times report that he has accepted the position, but his willingness to consider it is a significant change, because he has spent more than six years saying he wasn’t interested.

It’s a decision “that will have to be addressed soon because there is a greater sense of urgency,” he said.

Selig was appointed acting commissioner on Sept. 9, 1992, two days after Fay Vincent resigned under pressure. A search committee headed by owner Jerry McMorris of the Colorado Rockies was appointed about 18 months ago, but many have called it a disingenuous process--the description used by the AL owner on Thursday--designed to mask Selig’s ultimate intentions.

McMorris, reached in Denver, insisted he has not been used.

“I was asked to help identify a list of candidates and I’m ready [with that list],” he said. “I always recognized the possibility of a draft.

“It was there from the start, and my sense is it’s gotten stronger in time and that Bud has become much more receptive. I’d like the opportunity to present my candidates, but I did what I had to do. If ownership wants Bud, that’s fine. I have no problem. He’s done a good job. The only issue I would have deals with the Brewers and what he does with his club. That’s something he will need to address.”

Presumably, Selig would put the club in trust and have his daughter, Wendy Selig-Prieb, a Brewer vice president and legal counsel, operate it.

Whether he would move to the New York office is uncertain, but sources said Selig has become more amenable to accepting because of the urging and presence in New York of Paul Beeston, the former Toronto Blue Jay president and now baseball’s chief operating officer.

According to sources, Beeston and owner Carl Pohlad of the Minnesota Twins have been influential in orchestrating a draft widely endorsed by small-market clubs. They allegedly feared the possible hiring of an unfamiliar corporate executive and owed allegiance to Selig because of his successful fight for increased revenue-sharing by the big-market teams.

Selig also won the Dodgers’ allegiance by supporting Fox in its sometimes contentious battle for ownership approval, an interesting reversal, since the Dodgers would have opposed his selection if Peter O’Malley were still owner. O’Malley and Selig had a tenuous relationship, and O’Malley often said that the game needed a strong, independent commissioner in the New York office.

Reinsdorf, long perceived to be Selig’s friend and ally, apparently will vote against his appointment, sources said, because of his contention that an owner shouldn’t be commissioner.