Selig Shows Up, Does Nothing

Acting commissioner Bud Selig finally met with Donald Fehr on Monday, but gave no indication he was in favor of completing a labor deal for major league baseball and wouldn’t commit to holding an owners’ meeting to discuss an agreement.

Fehr said he intends to leave for Japan on Monday with the major league all-star team, leaving little time to conclude an agreement that would save interleague play for next season, a luxury tax to slow payroll growth and revenue sharing for small-market teams.

Fehr and management negotiator Randy Levine, who also participated in the session at baseball’s offices, said they will meet in Atlanta on Wednesday.

“We spent maybe half an hour,” Fehr said. “We discussed procedures by which we might bring negotiations to a successful close.”

Fehr and Levine have grown increasingly impatient with Selig, and officials on both sides, speaking on the condition they not be identified, say they think Selig is trying to kill a deal by inaction.

“If this deal isn’t made, the players will be furious,” said one union official, who asked to stay anonymous.

Selig refused comment when reached at his hotel and said he would speak to reporters on the field before Monday’s World Series game. However, he did not get to his seat until after the National Anthem.

Tom McCraw, who spent the past five seasons as the hitting coach for the New York Mets, was named to the same position Monday on the staff of new Houston Astros manager Larry Dierker.

Toby Harrah, who replaced Buddy Bell on the Cleveland Indians’ coaching staff this season, will not return in 1997.