Selig Discounts Discussion on Contraction

The buzzword in baseball as the 1999 season ends is contraction. As in subtraction. As in taking a hard look at the Oakland, Montreal, Kansas City and Minnesota franchises and possibly combining four into two.

It was first thrown out by Colorado Rocky chairman Jerry McMorris in an off-the-cuff fashion when he spoke to the committee studying baseball’s economics several months ago.

Some owners were quick to pick up the theme--savoring, perhaps, the possibility of a bigger slice of the TV and revenue sharing-pies with 28 teams rather than 30.

The decision to table a vote on the sales of the A’s and Royals added fuel to the contraction speculation, but the reality is that it is only that--speculation.

Said Commissioner Bud Selig: “To this point, it’s received more publicity than is merited. There has been very little serious discussion about it. Obviously, it’s a complex concept.”

Complex translating to a landslide of legal and financial issues. Not to mention the needed approval of the players’ union, which would be quick to reject the loss of 50 jobs.

Some in the industry, in fact, believe the contraction momentum has been kept alive only as a hammer to be used against the union when owners next pursue a more rigid salary restraint after the 2001 season.

“Right now it’s best treated only as a rumor,” Gene Orza, the union’s associate general counsel, said of the contraction concept. “There are substantial antitrust questions raised. I mean, you can’t just get a bunch of people together and buy up a competitor. It’s like Ford and General Motors getting together and buying up Chrysler.

“Other than that, it strikes me as counter-intuitive. At a time when the population and economy is booming, and we’ve had one of the greatest years in the sport’s history, they’re talking about reducing the number of teams? It doesn’t make sense legally or logically, but if and when the rumor becomes a proposal, we’ll take it more seriously. At some point, they would have to come to us.”

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Industry insiders say Dave Stewart, one of baseball’s most attractive general manager candidates, is about to have his position as assistant general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays expanded to include director of baseball operations. Stewart, if he doesn’t become a general manager elsewhere, is expected to eventually replace Gord Ash as Toronto general manager when Ash becomes club president.

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Former Angel general manager Mike Port, vice president of baseball operations for the Boston Red Sox, interviewed Wednesday and Thursday for the Seattle Mariner general manager vacancy, but Pat Gillick, Bob Watson and Mariner executive Roger Jongewaard are still considered the front-runners. The new general manager, of course, steps into the land mine of the Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez contract situations. Both have been offered record dollars, with an industry source pegging the Mariner offer to Griffey at $140 million for seven years.

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Detroit Tiger Manager Larry Parrish and Baltimore Oriole Manager Ray Miller are expected to be fired Monday. Neither is excited at the prospect. As Parrish put it: “It’s upsetting that I’m going to take this fall. If Davey Johnson [had been the manager] or [Jim] Leyland, I think the talk would be that either the club underachieved or was overrated.”