Owners’ Plan Marches Forward

Major league owners meeting here today are expected to approve a contract extension for Commissioner Bud Selig and express cautious support for the ongoing process of contraction.

Although legal issues have derailed, at least temporarily, an attempt to eliminate the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos before the 2002 season and some owners and club officials recently told The Times that it was time to put the emphasis on reaching a labor agreement with the players union, a high-ranking industry official said Monday that he didn’t think “anyone is inclined at this point to pull the plug on contraction.”

Nor, apparently, will there be enough dissent to prevent Selig from receiving a second term of at least three years, although his current, five-year contract does not expire until Aug. 1, 2003. If, indeed, there is a vote and Selig is approved by 75% of the electorate, or 23 of the 30 clubs, he would be the first commissioner to serve two terms since Bowie Kuhn in 1969-’84.

Peter Ueberroth, who followed Kuhn, chose not to serve a second term; Bart Giamatti died shortly after succeeding Ueberroth; and Fay Vincent was forced to resign in a palace coup that Selig helped orchestrate and ultimately led to his appointment as acting commissioner, a position he held for six years before receiving a five-year contract on July 9, 1998.

It is not clear why Selig, who did not return a call to his Milwaukee office Monday, would receive an extension when he has two years left on his contract and there are so many complex issues on baseball’s off-season plate. It is believed his kitchen cabinet of Houston’s Drayton McLane, Kansas City’s David Glass, San Diego’s John Moores and Minnesota’s Carl Pohlad suggested a vote of confidence to muzzle any internal opposition to his leadership and serve as a show of strength when management lawyers get serious regarding a labor deal with the union.

For now, however, contraction remains at the forefront of the owners’ strategy, and Selig will not ask his constituents to deviate until the legal issues have been played out. Whether that can happen in time for the clubs to hold a dispersal draft of contracted players by mid-December, or in time to resolve all the other complexities before clubs go to spring training in February, seems increasingly doubtful.

There are two main legal hurdles.

* A district court judge in Minneapolis ruled that the Twins must honor the last year of their lease and play the 2002 season in the Metrodome. Baseball and the Twins have asked the state Supreme Court for an expedited appeal of the temporary injunction and expect an answer Wednesday. But even if the Supreme Court hears the appeal, it is unlikely oral arguments could be presented before Dec. 7.

* Lawyers for baseball and the union have yet to agree on dates for an arbitration hearing on the union grievance claiming baseball violated the bargaining agreement and other rules by voting to contract. Arbitrator Shyam Das may finally set the dates Wednesday.

Amid all of that, the high-ranking baseball official who said Monday that the plug won’t be pulled on contraction also revealed for the first time that even if the Minnesota courts force baseball to delay contraction for a year, the industry would probably proceed with the union hearing. “At some point,” he said, “whether it’s this year or next, the ambiguity of whether we have the right to contract without union approval has to be cleared up.”

With all of this, there is still the possibility contraction will end up a bargaining chip in negotiations with the union. There is also the possibility that--if contraction is delayed and Montreal owner Jeffrey Loria still buys the Florida Marlins from John Henry, who is now said to have joined a group pursuing the Boston Red Sox--the commissioner’s office could run the Expos in 2002.

“I’ve heard that several times, but we have no intention of doing that, nor has it been discussed,” Robert DuPuy, baseball’s top lawyer, said Monday.

In other words, it won’t happen?

“I didn’t say that,” DuPuy said. “It’s the commissioner’s intention to go as far as he can for as long as he can with contraction and take other approaches when and if it’s necessary.”

By buying out the Expos from Loria--even in the absence of contraction--owners would send the clearest signal possible about their resolve in abandoning small-revenue markets.

“If they need to contract, that makes one team an automatic,” former Angel president Richard Brown said. “And that puts pressure on Minnesota to come up with something.”

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) has asked Selig to delay contraction for a year, so Selig could portray the owners as respecting that wish--and those of numerous other politicians--by affording Minnesota one last chance to commit to the new ballpark that would generate the revenue deemed vital for the Twins to succeed in Minneapolis. The delay might also derail Congress from hauling Selig to Washington and demanding that he explain why the sport should retain its cherished antitrust exemption.

The extra time might not prevent owners from deciding to eliminate teams next year, but by then owners might have an enhanced revenue-sharing agreement and a new labor agreement with the union.

Without those agreements, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura says he would not consider supporting the Twins’ drive for a new stadium.

And, if the Twins get that new ballpark, owners could put the Expos on the auction block in the hope of igniting a bidding war between the rival groups trying to lure a major league team to the Washington D.C. area, with the possibility of owners making twice as much money as they might pay to buy out Loria.

Even if owners pay Loria $100 million to $150 million and then get $200 million to $300 million from a D.C. buyer, they would not pocket the entire difference.

But they would have essentially seduced a D.C. buyer into covering the costs of buying out Loria, running the Expos for that lame-duck season and, perhaps, buying out the territorial rights claimed by Baltimore Oriole owner Peter Angelos. Owners could then split the remaining millions 27 ways--Loria, Angelos and the D.C. owner not included.

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Staff writer Bill Shaikin contributed to this story.