BASEBALL; A Title Is Diminished But the Salary Soars

The man who would not be commissioner is earning more than the last man who was commissioner.

Bud Selig, who has served in the role of acting commissioner for 17 months but has refused the title of commissioner, has a $1 million-a-year salary, several men in and close to major league baseball said yesterday. One of the men said that the Executive Council had approved Selig's salary last September, after he had been in the job for a year.

Selig, the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, neither confirmed nor denied the $1 million figure, declining to discuss the matter in any manner. The salary, though, is the highest ever for the person running the major leagues.

Fay Vincent, who was commissioner from Sept. 13, 1989, until he resigned under pressure Sept. 7, 1992, earned $650,000 a year. His salary became a subject of discussion when the club owners hired Richard Ravitch as their chief labor executive in November 1991 at $750,000 a year.

The disparity in salaries was seen by some owners as a slap at Vincent. But the owners who were instrumental in hiring Ravitch, the board members of the Player Relations Committee, said that one salary had nothing to do with the other. Ravitch received $750,000, they said, because that's what it took to hire him.

Other owners said subsequent to Ravitch's appointment that Vincent's salary should be raised above Ravitch's because the commissioner rightfully should be the highest-paid executive.

It was a matter left to the Executive Council, a body of eight owners who advise the commissioner, but the council never acted and Vincent's salary remained $650,000.