Little done at MLB meetings

Associated Press

PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz.

Commissioner Bud Selig met with baseball’s general managers at the start of what promised to be an uneventful two-day meeting of owners at an appropriately tranquil Phoenix-area resort.

Expansion of the playoffs to include two more wild card teams has been put off until at least 2012, largely because it would must be agreed to by the players’ association. The union’s labor contract with Major League Baseball expires in December.

Selig wasn’t scheduled to talk with reporters until Thursday, following a joint meeting of general managers and owners. When he walked past reporters on Wednesday he told them they were “in for a lot of dead time” at the meetings.

While the NFL and NBA are talking lockout in labor confrontations, baseball has made no such dire warnings, a sign of the peace that exists between owners and the union since the devastating 1994-95 strike that wiped out the World Series for the first time in nine decades.

“Commissioner Selig has worked hard obviously to put the game into the position, as well as the union side, to both work together to find compromise,” New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said. “They’ve done a great job with that.”

Several general managers said the playoff expansion and proposed increase in the use of instant replay didn’t even come up when the GMs met with Selig. They said those are issues to be decided at the ownership level.

Chicago Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said expanding the playoffs “would probably be good for the fans.”

“Certainly other sports have more teams and I think that’s very beneficial,” he said.