Owners Ratify Agreement

Baseball owners approved their new labor contract quickly and overwhelmingly, voting 29-1 Thursday in Chicago to ratify the deal negotiators struck last week to avert a strike.

The New York Yankees, the team that stands to lose the most, voted against the agreement, which ensures labor peace until December 2006. Approval by the executive board of the union is considered certain.

“I’m not going to suggest to you today that there are not clubs with very different views, but at some point you have to come together,” Commissioner Bud Selig said after the two-hour meeting, flanked by his chief negotiators, Bob DuPuy and Rob Manfred.

“I told you last Friday I was a Yogi Berra theorist--’It ain’t over until it’s over.’ It’s over.”

But baseball’s turmoil might not be.

The Yankees are considering a lawsuit, and owners must resolve the uncertain status of the Montreal Expos, who could try to move to Washington or another city by next season. Expo President Tony Tavares wants to know within 10 days whether the team will stay or explore a move.

Selig had spent a great deal of time on the telephone with owners to develop a consensus for the labor agreement, and he approved the final moves made by his negotiators last week. The near-unanimous vote was a sign of support he has among the owners.

The Yankees, who generate the most money in baseball, estimate the annual amount they give up to other clubs will increase from $28 million in 2001 to between $50 million and $55 million next year. The team’s lawyers have been examining grounds for a lawsuit.

Yankee President Randy Levine declined to comment after the meeting.

Kansas City Royal owner David Glass said during the meeting that the agreement was only a start to reforming baseball’s economics, according to one baseball official at the session, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“It doesn’t solve things, but it improves them,” Glass said before leaving the hotel at O’Hare International Airport. “It makes things better, but not where we’d like to be. The main thing is we didn’t have a work stoppage. That’s the big plus.”

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The two most important home run balls Barry Bonds has hit--No. 73 of last year and No. 600 of his career--continued their trip through court, when separate lawsuits over who owns each ball were allowed to proceed.

In Fairfield, 40 miles northeast of where Bonds plays for the San Francisco Giants, a judge agreed to put the 600th home run ball under lock and key.

Also, a San Francisco judge decided to postpone until today his decision whether to dismiss the case on the ball for No. 73. Both parties, who claim legal possession of the ball, will be in court to restate their case, but chances are that the case will go to trial next month.