MLB Acting Commissioner Bud Selig said that the league
will not award two expansion franchises next year, according
to Mark Maske of the WASHINGTON POST. MLB owners could
award two expansion clubs by December 31, 1999 for the 2002
season, but Selig said that MLB "will concentrate on helping
its financially troubled franchises." Selig, on expansion:
"Quite candidly, it stands nowhere. There's no discussion
of it. There's no one that I know of in favor of it. I am
very confident we will not expand again for quite a while."
Maske wrote that Selig's comments "could be a crippling
blow" to DC/Northern VA's chances of acquiring an MLB team,
and that "many baseball people seem to believe that the
window of opportunity for Northern Virginia is closing
because" Orioles Owner Peter Angelos "no longer is the
outcast among his ownership peers" (WASHINGTON POST, 6/27).
TIME HEALS WOUNDS? The relationship between MLB and the
MLBPA was examined by Tom Haudricourt of the MILWAUKEE
JOURNAL SENTINEL who wrote that with MLB President Paul
Beeston "acting as a liaison between management and the
union," MLBPA Exec Dir Donald Fehr has "found no reason to
criticize owners" for naming Bud Selig the game's permanent
commissioner. Beeston, on working with Fehr: "Sometimes
people see Don as an omnipotent dictator. But he has always
been responsive to me. I wouldn't use the word 'delight' to
work with, but we certainly can be professional and work
together" (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 6/28).
