Owners Study Options for Realignment

NEW YORK — With an eye toward implementing changes for next season, baseball owners focused on four or five plans to realign leagues during a meeting Thursday.

The plan that seems to be gaining the most support, known as “16-14,” calls for two leagues; the American League would have two seven-team East divisions and the National League would be split into a Central and Western, each with eight teams west of Chicago.

Four teams--two division winners and two wild cards--from each league would advance to the playoffs.

(The Dodgers, Angels, Oakland Athletics, San Francisco Giants, expansion Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners would be in the Western Division.)

One form of realignment would have all 30 teams using the designated hitter under the “16-14” concept.

Acting Commissioner Bud Selig said there would be a conference call today for participants to review the plans. He said realignment for 1998 remains “a strong possibility.’

The realignment committee still must present a plan to the 12-member Executive Council. Then, the plan would have to be approved by a vote of the full ownership before a schedule could be completed and presented to the players’ union.

The next owners’ meeting is scheduled for Sept. 9-11 in Atlanta.

At least one owner, however, is not ready to fall so quickly in line.

“Everybody is so sure this idea is going through, but not me,” New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner told the Tampa Tribune. “Baseball has a long way to go before it gets all the way back and we have to take it a little slower. . . . We have to let the fans warm up to things like interleague play before we change the whole institution around.”