Selig: System Will Be Changed

Putting owners on a collision course with players, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig told a Senate panel Tuesday in Washington “it is time for sweeping changes” in the game’s economics.

“It is my job to restore hope and faith,” Selig testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust, business rights and competition. “I can assure you this system will be changed.”

Players, however, like the system of free agency and salary arbitration that has been little changed since the advent of free agency after the 1976 season. They went on strike for 232 days in 1994-95, wiping out the World Series for the first time in 90 years, to block a salary cap.

Subcommittee chairman Mike DeWine, a Cincinnati Red season-ticket holder, repeatedly pressed Selig on how owners could convince the players’ association to accept substantial salary restraints when their labor contract expires Oct. 31, 2001.

Selig said 18 to 20 of the 30 teams will lose money this year, and revealed that the New York Yankees will pay $17 million in revenue sharing this year and the New York Mets $15 million. The five teams with the lowest revenue received amounts ranging from $11 million to $23 million.

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The Dodgers hired Jack Clark as hitting coach and Jim Colborn as pitching coach, completing new Manager Jim Tracy’s coaching staff for next year.

Meanwhile, the team announced that it will play the first seven games of the 2001 season at home beginning April 2 against the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Brewers are in town for only one day. The Dodgers face the Arizona Diamondbacks from April 3-5 and the San Francisco Giants from April 6-8.

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Shortstop Jose Valentin agreed to a three-year deal to stay with the Chicago White Sox worth $5 million a year. . . . Darryl Strawberry, appearing more upbeat than he has in weeks, was sentenced in Tampa, Fla., to a year’s probation and 50 hours of community service for causing a traffic accident while under the influence of pain killers. Strawberry, 38, pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of leaving the scene of an accident and driving under the influence. He will serve the sentence concurrently with his house arrest at a Tampa drug-treatment center. . . . Ted Williams, 82, has left a hospital in Gainesville, Fla., two weeks after having a pacemaker implanted. A Shands Hospital spokeswoman said the Hall of Fame slugger was released Monday. . . . Free-agent catcher Joe Oliver signed a one-year, $1.15-million contract with the New York Yankees. . . . Free-agent Mark Grace is moving closer to deciding whether he’ll accept an offer to play first base for the Diamondbacks in 2001, his agent, Barry Axelrod, said. Grace, who has played his entire 13-year career with the Chicago Cubs, went to dinner and a Phoenix Sun game Friday with Diamondback owner Jerry Colangelo. . . . Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson pleaded no contest in Carmel, Calif., to disturbing the peace and was sentenced to three years’ probation for a fight with a former business partner.