When the owners' meeting in Phoenix last week adjourned after two days, the owners had voted to accept the sale of the Red Sox and listened to the first statement ever given at a full owners' meeting by a representative of the players union. Unfortunately, the list of items left for another day dwarfs their accomplishments.

The owners did not vote to postpone contraction until after the 2002 season despite the fact that Spring Training is less than a month away, even though they appear no closer to accomplishing the task than they did when the original vote was taken in November. Arbiter Shyam Das has yet to even finish hearing arguments in the players' grievance regarding contraction, and so his ruling is at least a week or more away.

At the time of the meetings, the owners were still awaiting a decision from the Minnesota Appellate Court as to whether or not the court would overturn a Hennepin County District Court judge's injunction forcing the Twins to honor their lease and play in the Metrodome in 2002. The appellate court ruled yesterday, finding that the district court judge did not step outside of his jurisdiction with the injunction thereby upholding the ruling. This decision puts yet another crimp in the owners' plans, as they will now have to beg the Minnesota Supreme Court to overturn the injunction. While the court occasionally expedites cases in which time is a factor, they have yet to even accept an appeal and set a hearing date. If they do not expedite, the normal turn-around time for a verdict after a hearing is between five and seven months, by which time the baseball season will be over half over, and as no one believes the owners would go through with contraction mid-season, the Court might not even rule on a now-moot point. Provided they take some action and complete a ruling before the start of the season, there is some hope for those in favor of contraction as the Appellate Court did not rule on the merits of the case but only as to whether the ruling was within the power of the district court judge.

Some members of the Minnesota legislature welcomed this ruling, as it should allow them time to vote on the two stadium plans currently proposed. If the state is willing to contribute to the funding of a new ballpark for the Twins, they should be removed from the list of contraction candidates. Donald Watkins remains very interested in purchasing the organization and has informed people that he has private investors who would finance the construction of a new park, so the state would not need to get involved at all. However, Watkins' offer does not put an immediate halt to contraction plans, as Twins' owner Carl Pohlad has indicated he would be willing to potentially sell the team to Watkins, but would also likely make more on a sale of the Twins to MLB for contraction.

We must also keep in mind the fact that although the Twins and Expos have long been suspected to be the primary targets of contraction, the owners have never defined which teams would be contacted and could simply shift their focus to another franchise.

As far as the Expos are concerned, their owner has yet to complete his purchase of the Florida Marlins franchise, although we now know the franchise needs to be sold as Marlins' owner John Henry is with the group that won the bid for the Boston Red Sox. Henry will also be selling his one percent ownership in the New York Yankees. Loria is expected to sell the Expos to Major League Baseball once his purchase of the Marlins is complete, and then MLB will run the team until another ownership group can be found. New developments occurred in that area as those in favor of placing the Expos in the Washington D.C. area appeared to make progress towards their goal.

Last Thursday, Commissioner Selig publicly reopened the idea of relocation for the first time in years, citing D.C. as a prime candidate due to the dedicated interest of the community in reacquiring a team. SportsTicker Contributing Editor Ed Randall also reported that "two groups vying for baseball in Washington are pooling their efforts. They have agreed to bid jointly and provide preliminary funding to plan a new $400 million ballpark that would seat 44,000." He also says "the city is granting the combined group sole rights through the end of 2003 to work out a lease to use RFK Stadium until the new park is ready." Although any group relocating to D.C. will still likely have to pay Orioles owner Peter Angelos for the supposed infringement on his territorial rights, both of these developments indicate good prospects for baseball in the capital. Given the vigor of the potential ownership group and the likely failure of contraction, I'm going to say now that I would not be overly surprised if they pulled off a purchase and possibly even a relocation of the Expos before the start of this season.

Owners approved the sale of the Boston Red Sox to a group including John Henry, former Padres' Owner Tom Werner, former Padres' President Larry Lucchino, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, skiing entrepreneur Les Otten, T.J. Maxx founder Ben Cammarata, Ed Eskandarian the owner of a top US ad agency, and the New York Times company, which owns the Boston Globe. Before the sale could reach the owners for vote, the group needed to negotiate with Massachusetts AG Thomas Reilly. He felt it necessary to insure that the Yawkey Trust, the majority owner of the Red Sox, received fair value as a charitable institution. As previously discussed, he was concerned that Commissioner Selig had unduly influenced trust representative John Harrington into accepting the bid of the Henry group despite more obviously lucrative offers. Reilly allowed the matter to drop after the group agreed spend an additional $20M to set up a new charity and the current limited partners agreed to donate another $10M to the trust. The group bid $660 million with the understanding that they will take on the $40 million of debt currently owned by the team. I believe the trust was to receive $410M of that, so they should now be receiving $420M for their portion of the Red Sox, Fenway Park, and NESN.

Many have found it significant that the new owners neglected to provide Boston GM Dan Duquette with a vote of confidence after their approval, as it seems to indicate he will be replaced shortly after the sale becomes final. Speculative candidates include Oakland GM Billy Beane, San Francisco GM Brian Sabean, and San Diego GM Kevin Towers. The lure of working with a large payroll should be enough to tear candidates from their current teams, although especially in the case of Beane, the Sox may need to provide the GM's current organization with some form of compensation. Al Avila, the most senior member left on the Florida staff, is also in the running but would likely be an interim solution while the team searched for someone with more experience. Florida's front office is expected to be populated by former Expos' personnel after the sale.

While the Arizona Diamondbacks aren't for sale, they could reportedly receive a $160 million cash infusion from new investors. The additional funds would virtually solve money troubles brought about by spending outside their budgetary limits for the last few seasons. However, there has been no decision as to whether or not to allow the new people to join, as it would diminish the value of the original investors' stock in the team. The group should meet on February 1st to discuss the proposal. If they do not opt to go this route, they will face the prospect of contributing more money out of their own pockets or obtaining high-interest loans.

I glossed over this earlier, but the fact that union representative Donald Fehr was allowed to speak at the owners meeting was quite a significant event and hopefully a sign of potential progress. Fehr commented that the owners were attentive listeners, so it's possible that one or two of them departed the meeting with a little better handle on the labor situation. There has been little forward movement in negotiations between MLB and the MLBPA on a new labor agreement this off-season while the distraction of contraction hangs over everyone's shoulders. At the meeting, Selig proposed a 50% luxury tax on payrolls over $98M as well as a new revenue sharing plan. Although the luxury tax would currently only affect a small number of teams, there will still be problems with getting union approval as the AP quotes Fehr as stating that "Our view is that players aren't luxuries."

In a related matter, Paul Beeston, MLB's President and Chief Operating Officer, has announced that he intends to leave the Commissioners office, though he has not yet set a date for his departure. Much has been made of the fact that Beeston had made considerable advances towards a labor agreement during informal negotiations with the union, when Selig, the only person who outranks him in the MLB front office, pulled the rug out from under him. Union officials have stated that they were very close to completing something in June when talks came to an abrupt halt at Selig's order. Beeston's departure is unfortunate, as he appeared to have more of an open mind and better grasp of the labor situation than the majority the people on Selig's staff.