Baseball eyeing Mitchell

In removing himself from consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court, Sen. George Mitchell put himself in position Tuesday to be named the next baseball commissioner.

Baseball officials would not say that Mitchell was their man for the job, which has been unfilled the last 19 months. But people familiar with their thinking said they were prepared to move quickly to get him before someone else did.

Mitchell, D-Maine, who announced last month he would not seek re-election, has not said that he would accept the job of commissioner if it were offered. But at a news conference in Washington Tuesday, at which he announced he had withdrawn his name from consideration for the Supreme Court, he said in response to a question, “If the position is offered to me, I will consider it at that time.”

Major league club owners decided last January that they would not fill the vacant commissioner’s office until they negotiated a new labor agreement with the players. No one knows how long that process could take, but their stance presents no problem for Mitchell because his term in the Senate, from which he is retiring, runs until next January.

Furthermore, the people who talked on the condition of anony Furthermore, the people who talked on the condition of anonymity about the current thinking of baseball officials said Mitchell could be named well before he would take office. They cited the precedent of the election of Peter Ueberroth in 1984.

The owners elected Ueberroth on March 3, 1984, knowing he would not be able to assume the position until the following October because he was president of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee.

Bud Selig, owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, has served as acting commissioner since Fay Vincent resigned under pressure on Sept. 7, 1992. At his news conference, Mitchell, the Senate majority leader, said he hnews conference, Mitchell, the Senate majority leader, said he had spoken with only one person involved in baseball over the last several months, and that person obviously was Selig.

“I’ve known Senator Mitchell since December of 1992,” Selig said Tuesday by telephone from Milwaukee. “We’ve developed a very good relationship. He and I have communicated reasonably frequently and I have the highest regard for his ability. He’s also a splendid human being.”

Selig and Mitchell both said Mitchell has not been offered the job, but the people who talked about the possibility offered two reasons for a relatively quick move to make the offer.

Noting that Mitchell, 60 years old, will have many opportunities presented to him, one person said baseball could short-circuit those opportunities by acting quickly. He also said baseball would benefit from the prestige of luring a man whom the president wanted for the Supreme Court.