Baseball Still Has Many Realignment Plans On Table Radical Changes May Be Out; Mariners Could Switch To N.L.

With as many as 10 realignment plans still under consideration, baseball’s executive council meets today in Chicago to assess what teams want.

The radical realignment plan, in which 15 teams would switch leagues, is dead or close to it, several officials said Tuesday on the condition they not be identified. That plan would have placed the New York Mets and Yankees in the same division, and also would have placed the Chicago Cubs and White Sox in the same division.

However, there still is sentiment for realignment in order to keep Tampa Bay from winding up in the A.L. West, to reduce the number of early evening and late night televised games in many markets and to avoid having 15 teams in each league, which would necessitate an interleague game nearly every day.

According to the officials, Montreal, Florida and Philadelphia have expressed a willingness to shift to the American League, and Anaheim, Kansas City, Oakland and Seattle have said they would switch to the National League. Milwaukee also may be willing to switch, one owner said on the condition of anonymity.

That would leave 16 teams in the N.L. and 14 in the A.L., solving the interleague play scheduling problem.

But there still doesn’t appear to be a consensus on whether each league should have three divisions or two.

In addition, Texas would like to be in the same division with Houston, but the Astros don’t want to switch to the A.L.

There appears to be widespread sentiment for all the West Coast teams being in the N.L. While the Giants object to having Oakland in the same division, nearly all other teams appear to be in favor of such a plan.

Owners hope to vote on realignment when they meet in Atlanta from Sept. 16-18. It then would take approximately a month for officials to develop a draft of the 1998 schedule.

Two schedules already have been created for 1998, one with 15 teams in each league and one with 16 teams in one league and 14 in the other. However, both are basically balanced schedules, and owners say they would switch to an unbalanced schedule if they realign.

An unbalanced schedule includes more games between division rivals. The balanced schedule - used in the A.L. since 1977 and the N.L. since 1993 - has teams playing each opponent in its league approximately the same number of times.