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CNN Live At Daybreak

Owners Announce Plans to Contract League by at Least Two Teams

Aired November 08, 2001 - 06:49   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Going from one of the best moments in baseball to a moment that are making a lot of baseball fans scratch their heads. The owners are meeting this week in Chicago. They have announced they plan to contract the League by at least two teams. Which those teams might be could be decided as early today -- as early as today, as the owners meet again.

And joining us from Washington to address the baseball contraction issue, and other issues -- Paul White, senior writer for "USA Today Baseball Weekly." Paul, good to see you again.

PAUL WHITE, "USA TODAY BASEBALL WEEKLY": Good to see you, Daryn.

KAGAN: Good to see you haven't been contracted.

WHITE: No, not yet anyway.

KAGAN: That you're still here to talk with us. So the owners will get together today and talk about which teams could be the first to go. We're hearing about Montreal, not surprising. That's not a large-drawing team. But Minnesota, the Minnesota Twins -- this has a lot of fans scratching their heads. Why Minnesota?

WHITE: Well, there's a couple of factors here. One is you need an owner who is willing to take the money and run, and...

KAGAN: And, boy, is he ever.

WHITE: Absolutely, at $200 to $250 million are the reports that Carl Pohlad would get for folding up his team. He seems to like that deal. He only paid $34 million to get in, when he bought the Twins.

And the other thing is if you're going to fold up a team, you don't want to get tied up in things like leases, and the Twins have one year left on their stadium lease. And a team, like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, for instance, has 26 years left.

And if baseball is going to do this, and I think there is still an if involved, they don't want to get tied up in too many lawsuits.

KAGAN: Well, Minnesota, at least, says it's not going down without a fight.

WHITE: Right. KAGAN: Senator Paul Wellstone saying he's going after baseball's antitrust exemption, and saying, if you're going to play hardball, we're going to play hardball right back with you.

WHITE: Yes, and I think there's going to be a lot of court cases. I think the chances of this happening by opening day of next season are minimal. There's just too much involved to get this done in the time. And I think what baseball has done, even though they're denying it, is in one fell swoop, a real master stroke, they put pressure on communities, where they'd like to get new stadiums built -- and Minnesota is one, South Florida is another -- and at the same time put tremendous pressure on the player's union, because they have to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement this winter.

KAGAN: Well, let's talk about that -- that agreement, the last agreement expired at midnight.

WHITE: Yes.

KAGAN: So now, there's a new labor agreement that has to be put together. What are the players -- how much say do the players have in this contraction deal?

WHITE: Well, Major League Baseball feels that it can just fold up teams by itself, without the players' approval. The union...

KAGAN: Oh, so logistics, the players have to...

WHITE: Yes.

KAGAN: ... come and play on the logistic side. What happens to the players' jobs?

WHITE: Exactly. I mean, you're going to have 40 players on each roster of the two Major League teams that they would get rid of. You're going to have all of the players in their Minor League system. This is hundreds of players. How do they do that? These players are under contract.

Now, the union is going to say, well, maybe that makes these players free agents, and there's been all sorts of permutations of what might happen to the players involved. That has to be negotiated, and believe me, at the very least, the players union is going to drag this out as long as they possibly can.

KAGAN: And quickly, in the minute we have left, as someone who has covered for a long time, do you just shake your head? And finally, baseball has come back from what happened in '94, a beautiful World Series. You had Barry Bonds breaking the homerun record. It couldn't be in a better place, and yet, here we go again.

WHITE: Yes. And, you know, we though in the wake of September 11 that possibly both sides, the union and the owners, would say, look, we've got to have peace here. People don't want to hear us fighting over this money. So, yes, they shoot themselves in the foot again, especially the owners, and you're right, you just shake your head.

KAGAN: And just a quick prediction here. When spring training rolls around in about -- what -- four or five months, will we have a labor agreement, and will we have all of the teams back playing?

WHITE: I think we'll have 30 teams on opening day in April. We may not have a labor agreement, but I think, given what's going on, we're probably going to have the teams playing. This is going to drag on for a long time. It may take another year.

KAGAN: Paul White, enjoy your winter break.

WHITE: Thank you.

KAGAN: Thanks for stopping by to see us -- Paul White from "USA Today." Good to see you.

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