Owners Disagree Again

The plan to put Arizona in the National League and Tampa Bay in the American hit a bump Wednesday night when A.L. owners failed to approve it during a straw vote.

Owners split 7-7 during the A.L. meeting, one owner said on the condition he not be identified. However, officials still expect the proposal to be approved during today’s major league meeting.

“I’m disappointed,” Arizona Diamondbacks CEO Jerry Colangelo said. “I was a little taken aback.”

Under the proposal advocated by the ruling executive council, one expansion team would be assigned to each league in 1998, creating two 15-team circuits. However, the A.L.’s first preference would be to get both teams and its second preference would be to get Arizona rather than Tampa Bay.

Because Tampa Bay would probably be assigned to the A.L. East, one team would have to shift from East to Central, and one from Central to West. Kansas City, the team most likely to join the West, objected, as did Texas, which doesn’t like being in a division whose three other teams are in the Pacific time zone: Anaheim, Oakland and Seattle.