Delayed Opening Best Scenario

If baseball players and owners finally manage to make a deal this week, the guessing is that opening day will be pushed back eight days to April 10.

Both sides agree that about three weeks of spring training is needed after the strike, which starts its eighth month today. When the sides settled on the night of March 18 in 1990, they postponed opening day from April 2 to April 9. The start of the playoffs was put back three days, to Oct. 5.

Acting commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday that players and owners had not yet lost out on the chance to play a full 162-game season with the regular major leaguers.

“We haven’t defined that,” he said. “There are certain adjustments that could be made.”

The sides are due back at the bargaining table Tuesday, when owners are scheduled to present their “best offer.” The schedule could be changed because of action by the National Labor Relations Board.

The agency is expected to tell the parties on Tuesday how it intends to rule on the union’s unfair labor practice charge. If NLRB general counsel Fred Feinstein issues a complaint, which is expected, he probably would ask the five members of the NLRB for permission to seek an injunction in federal court that would restore all the old work rules - including salary arbitration.

Ueberroth may buy Angels

Former commissioner Peter Ueberroth may buy 25 percent of the California Angels, with an option to buy the remaining 75 percent upon the death of owner Gene Autry.

Ueberroth and his investment group recently began talks with the Angels, according to Jackie Autry, Gene Autry’s wife and the team’s executive vice president.

Jackie Autry said a price for the team has not yet been set, but it is believed the Angels would be valued at $125 million to $135 million if their deal to build a $215 million stadium in Anaheim is finalized.

There’s joy in Tampa Bay

In a bash to banish nearly two decades of disappointment, about 10,000 people partied to bands and fireworks in St. Petersburg, Fla., to welcome their long-awaited baseball team - the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

“We did it … we are majorleague!” St. Petersburg mayor David Fischer crowed to the throng that gathered at a waterfront park. “No city ever deserved it more.”

Rain foils Mariners

An exhibition between the San Francisco Giants and the Seattle Mariners in Scottsdale, Ariz., was canceled because of rain and high winds.