MLB Commissioner Bud Selig is "expected to inform" MLB teams at this week's owners' meetings that he "will require strict compliance with the 60-40 rule," in which teams must have a ratio of no less than 60% equity to 40% debt, according to Murray Chass of the N.Y. TIMES. In recent years, the Commissioner's Office has been "lax" in enforcing the ratio, which Selig believes "could make an inroad into the growing disparity in payrolls." Selig is "expected" to request financial information from teams and will then form a compliance schedule if one is needed. Chass: "Selig hopes the 60-40 enforcement helps. The luxury tax certainly hasn't" (N.Y. TIMES, 1/10). In DC, Mark Maske wrote that with a '98 payroll of "just under" $79.5M, the Orioles will pay "more than" $3.1M in luxury tax to MLB's central revenue fund. In the first two years of the tax system, the Orioles have paid "nearly" $7.2M (WASHINGTON POST, 1/9). Tax figures are based on the average annual value of contracts -- not per-year salaries -- and include the entire 40-man roster, plus $5,576,415 per team in benefits paid to players (BOSTON GLOBE, 1/9). The following lists the top five MLB teams in payroll and the luxury tax each must pay:
| TEAM | '98 PAYROLL | TAX |
| ORIOLES | $79,468,674 | $3,138,621 |
| RED SOX | $76,743,283 | $2,184,734 |
| YANKEES | $72,456,584 | $684,390 |
| BRAVES | $71,917,256 | $495,625 |
| DODGERS | $70,642,787 | $49,593 |
AGENTS' ACCESS LIMITED: In Boston, Peter Gammons wrote that the Commissioner's Office sent a memo to teams that "prohibits clubs from issuing passes that give agents access to clubhouses or the field" (BOSTON GLOBE, 1/9).
