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Baseball won’t contract teams until 2003
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Wednesday, February 6, 2002
NEW YORK (REUTERS) — Major League Baseball is abandoning a plan to eliminate two teams for this coming season but remains committed to contraction for 2003, commissioner Bud Selig said Tuesday.
Baseball’s owners, decrying the economic state of the game, have tried to fold the money-losing Minnesota Twins along with the Montreal Expos but have met a series of legal roadblocks and opposition from the Players’ Association.
The owners had voted in November to contract the league to 28 teams from 30 before April’s Opening Day so that shared revenues from television contracts and stadium receipts would be divided among fewer franchises.
The final blow to the plan came Monday when the Minnesota Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal of an injunction that forces the Twins to fulfil their Metrodome lease in 2002.
“While the clubs would have preferred to contract for 2002 and begin addressing the economic issues immediately, events outside our direct control, including yesterday’s court decision in Minnesota, have required us to move the date of contraction to 2003,” Selig said in a statement.
Teams are scheduled to report for spring training in a few weeks to begin preparations for the 2002 season.
Besides the legal moves taken in Minnesota to save the Twins, the MLB Players’ Association has filed a grievance over the owners’ right to unilaterally eliminate teams.
MLB chief operations officer Paul Beeston, the owners’ principal labor negotiator, said he expected to win an arbitration ruling affirming the owners’ right to enforce contraction.
“We continue to believe that contraction is a decision to be made by the clubs and that the union’s only involvement is to bargain the effects of contraction on the players,” said Beeston. “We anticipate that the arbitrator will promptly proceed to a determination on that point so we can clear the decks for our decision to contract next year.” Donald Fehr, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, also released a statement in response to the contraction announcement. “We are pleased that the 2002 season will proceed with 30 teams, and anticipate an exciting year. The players also look forward to continuing negotiations for a new Basic Agreement. However, it is regrettable that the clubs continue to assert that they can and will act unilaterally, rather than by negotiation and agreement,” he said.
