Sunday, March 12, 2000
Selig: Realignment options still being considered
Tries to ease Arizona concerns
The Associated Press
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Commissioner Bud Selig tried to ease the concerns of the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday, saying there has been no final decision on a realignment plan for baseball.
“There are a lot of options. This is a difficult exercise,” Selig said during an exhibition game between the Diamond backs and the San Francisco Giants.
“Each club has very strong feelings and I'm sensitive to that. In the end, the greater good must prevail. The schedule is important to all 30 teams.”
The Diamondbacks are one of the most outspoken critics of the realignment plan that would move them from the National League to the American League West for the 2001 season.
“The bottom line is that a move to the American League would have potentially serious negative implications with regard to this franchise,” Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo said earlier this week, citing surveys that said 85 percent of Arizona fans would prefer to stay in the NL.
Diamondbacks manager Buck Showalter said that the expansion team would have approached the building process differently if he knew he would eventually be playing in the American League. But for now, he's not letting talk of a switch bother him.
“I'm preparing to play in the National League this year,” Showalter said. “If and when someone tells me we're playing in the American League, there are a number of things that we'll have to approach differently.”
But under the expansion agreement the Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays signed, baseball has the right to switch which leagues the teams played in following the 2000 season.
Tampa Bay has expressed a willingness to move to the NL, while the Diamondbacks have been fighting it.
The other teams in the NL West are in favor of the move, in part because of Arizona's sudden success and high-spending ways.
“I'd say our success, as quickly as we've had it, may have some impact on opinions,” Colangelo said. “Enough said.”
The other 28 teams have veto power over any move, making Arizona the most likely team to move leagues so Selig can fulfill a promise to the Texas Rangers to move out of the AL West and into a division with teams that play in the Central time zone.
“People have been complaining about the schedule for years,” Selig said. “We can't do what we need to do without making some minor changes. Keeping this group of 30 owners happy is not an easy task.”
Along with fixing a few geographical inconsistencies, the biggest motivation for realignment is to allow teams to play more games within their own division and to rotate opponents in interleague play.
“To accomplish this we need modest realignment,” Selig said. “Everybody wants an unbalanced schedule. What was the sense of going to division play if you play more games outside your division than inside? That's the most important part of the schedule.”
Selig also dismissed a report baseball is considering splitting up longtime rivals St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs.
“I would never take the Cubs away from the Cardinals, or Milwaukee for that matter,” Selig said. “They are such great natural rivals.”
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