While MLB owners voted to give three-year contract
extensions to the league presidents, Rockies Chair Jerry
McMorris, head of MLB's search committee for a new
commissioner, said that "many teams" want Acting
Commissioner Bud Selig to remain on the job, according to an
AP piece in the Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE. McMorris: "I
definitely sense that. A lot of teams feel we made so much
progress, he shouldn't come out." Meanwhile, MLB sources
told the AP that the contracts for AL President Gene Budig
and NL President Leonard Coleman, both set to expire in '99,
were voted three-year extensions through 2002. The
extensions are scheduled to be announced today (AP, 6/12).
IF THEY CAN MAKE IT THERE: MLB officials have asked a
U.S. federal judge in Tampa to move the Yankees/adidas
antitrust suit to New York. MLB "argued the case was
improperly filed in Tampa, the hometown of Yankees Owner
George Steinbrenner. The officials asked the court to
either dismiss the case or transfer it to Manhattan." MLB
also field a motion asking the court to allow MLB's
Executive Council to decide the case. U.S. District Judge
Henry Lee Adams did not say when he would schedule a hearing
on the motion (AP/ESPN SportsZone, 6/12).
MORE INTERLEAGUE PREVIEWS: Interleague play begins
tonight with four games, followed by a full schedule of
action over the weekend. The novel concept is mentioned on
the front-page of the N.Y. TIMES and Murray Chass writes
that MLB has "acted to give the majority of fans what they
say they want, trying to generate greater interest and
higher revenues and return baseball to the lush green look
it had before other sports began making inroads into its
popularity" (N.Y. TIMES, 6/12). In L.A., Ross Newhan: "If
this is Thursday, the 12th of June, that must be the
Brotherhood of Baseball Purists observing a day of mourning
as the sport discards decades of tradition and begins a two-
year experiment in interleague play as an economic and
marketing stimulant" (L.A. TIMES, 6/12). In DC, Mark Maske
calls it MLB's "most radical change yet" (WASHINGTON POST,
6/12). CNN/SI's Leigh Montville, a self-described "American
League guy," calls interleague play, "a box office
inevitability, a move into the future. ... But the price is
stiff. Reality replaces imagination, and mystery and wonder
disappear. I, myself, liked it when the National League was
another exotic world, far, far away" ("CNN/SI," CNN, 6/11).
Orioles GM Pat Gillick: "They've screwed up a lot of things
in the game and I just think that's the one thing I wish
they had let alone" (Larry Millson, Toronto GLOBE & MAIL,
6/12). In Minneapolis, Jim Souhan: "Interleague baseball is
like baseball itself -- fascinating in design, if flawed in
practice" (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 6/12). In Detroit, Tom
Gage: "[W]e don't know yet what baseball hath wrought as far
as the consequences of interleague play. The fans will
react favorably in cities where natural rivalries exist, but
the concept might not make more of a ripple than a pebble in
a pond elsewhere" (DETROIT NEWS, 6/12). In Baltimore, Peter
Schmuck writes that despite the two-year trial period,
"there is little chance that the interleague concept will be
abandoned" (Baltimore SUN, 6/13).
