Wednesday, November 7, 2001

MLB owners vote to eliminate 2 teams next year
By Ronald Blum
Associated Press

ROSEMONT, Ill. — Baseball owners voted Tuesday to eliminate two teams before the start of next season, but didn’t specify which ones. They also said they wouldn’t lock out players when the labor contract expires Wednesday.

The Montreal Expos, Minnesota Twins and Florida Marlins were the teams recently mentioned as the likeliest candidates, while Oakland and Tampa Bay were discussed earlier this year. This would be the first contraction by Major League Baseball since the National League shrank from 12 teams to eight following the 1899 season.

No baseball team has moved since the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers in 1972.

“It makes no sense for major league baseball to be in markets that generate insufficient local revenues to justify the investment in the franchise,” commissioner Bud Selig said. “The teams to be contracted have a long record of failing to generate enough revenues to operate a viable major league franchise.

Montreal is considered the front-runner to be cut. The Expos averaged just 7,648 fans per game at Olympic Stadium this year and no progress has been made toward a new ballpark. The team’s owner, Jeffrey Loria, is a New York art dealer and has few ties to Quebec.

Selig said all 30 major league teams will continue to sell season tickets for 2002, even though he thinks two of them will not play.

“There are more than two candidates,” he said. “We haven’t picked the final teams.
“I’m not going to get into the numbers game,” he said. “There were a lot of people in the game who were in favor of four-team contraction.”

The move could set up a battle among cities to avoid contraction. Government assistance for new ballparks could get teams off the endangered list.

“I’m not going to deal in what-ifs,” Selig said.

Selig said the possibility of moving teams has not been ruled out, but he added there currently aren’t any acceptable cities to move to.

“Merely transferring existing problems to another ownership group or another city would only exacerbate the problem, not resolve it,” he said.

Owners also said they wouldn’t lock out players or freeze player signings when the collective bargaining agreement expires Wednesday.

Baseball has undergone eight work stoppages since 1972, including a 232-day strike that wiped out the 1994 World Series, and some owners are pressing for concessions from the players’ association, which could trigger another stoppage.

The union could become an obstacle to eliminating teams before the start of next season in fighting to protect the 80 major league roster spots on the two teams and the hundreds more in each minor league system.

Owners said they must negotiate the specifics of how to disperse the players on each eliminated team to the remaining 30 major leagues clubs. Selig declined to say if there was a chance teams wouldn’t be eliminated before the start of next season.

“We have every intention of doing it,” he said.