K.C. Or Brewers To Switch

Kansas City will have first choice to join the National League next season, and the Milwaukee Brewers will switch leagues if the Royals decline, baseball owners and officials said Tuesday.

Detroit will move from the American League East to the A.L. Central and the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays will take the Tigers’ place in the East under the plan, scheduled for a vote today during a telephone conference call. This will create a 16-team N.L. and a 14-team A.L. next season.

The Royals, who have been in the A.L. since they joined the major leagues in 1969, will have until about the end of the month to decide if they want to move to the N.L. Central. The Brewers have said they would move to the N.L. Central if the Royals decline, several owners and officials said, all on the condition they not be identified.

That leaves the A.L. West with the same four teams - Seattle, Anaheim, Oakland and Texas - and five teams in the Central and East. The 16-team N.L. would have five-team divisions in the West and East and six teams in the Central.

Brett says interest rising

George Brett said his interest in buying the Kansas City Royals is getting keener after meeting with the man who appears to be his main competitor.

“We’re not as excited as we were 2-1/2 years ago when we made the first step,” said Brett, a three-time batting champion and 13-time All-Star with the Royals. “But a lot has happened in the last two weeks to rekindle that flame. A lot. And we’ve been working on it.”

Brett and his brother and business manager Bobby met Tuesday with Jerry Green, a Kansas City banker and car dealer who is also heading a group of potential investors.

Green held a news conference last month urging the Royals’ board of directors to begin the bidding process. Afterward, the board said it would. Another interested group headed by Kansas City businessman Frank Oddo has since dropped out.

After Green and the Bretts met for about an hour Tuesday in Green’s downtown office, they insisted they did not discuss joining forces.

Hitter’s dilemma: Twilight time

How difficult will it be to hit against Mike Mussina and Charles Nagy in the twilight at Camden Yards? Only the shadows know.

Baseball noir was the talk of the A.L. Championship Series a day after Baltimore cut Cleveland’s lead to 3-2. With today’s game scheduled to start at 4:15 p.m. EDT, batters made it sound like it would be easier to hit in the fog on the tarmac of “Casablanca.”

“The people who set the time don’t have to play,” the Orioles’ Eric Davis said. “They don’t know what it’s like to be in the shadows and try to hit the ball.”

Davis’ ninth-inning homer was the decisive run in Baltimore’s 4-2 victory Monday night. The Orioles, trying to become the ninth team to overcome a 3-1 deficit in a postseason series, will try to tie the series behind Mussina, who struck out an ALCS-record 15 over seven innings in Game 3.

Nagy, 1-0 with a 7.71 ERA in two postseason starts, didn’t make much of the twilight start. The sun might not even be a factor, with a weather forecast calling for cloud cover.

“It’s not going to change the way I pitch because of the shadows or anything like that,” Nagy said.