Ueberroth Rejects Contract Extension

Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth said yesterday he was rejecting a second five-year term offered by owners but would extend his contract through the negotiations in 1990 if necessary.

Ueberroth, who had said he didn't think he had enough votes for another term, was offered the new term last week but turned it down.

He said he told owners at the meeting in San Francisco that he would remain in office for a transition period and said he decided yesterday that it would last no more than one year beyond the end of his current contract on Dec. 31, 1989.

"The owners came back to me and talked about a second term," Ueberroth said. "I was suprised. I was pleased. I was thankful. But I told them I would not accept."

He said he will not seek political office as has often been rumored.

"I have no entry point into politics," Ueberroth said. "I've passed up opportunities. I'm a little too brash, a little too blunt. But I run things well. I'll find something to run."

Ueberroth said he would participate in the selection of his successor and said he and the new commissioner both would be involved in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, a new national television contract and expansion plans.

"In this way, my successor will have plans and agreements for the 1990s with which he could live," Ueberroth said. "I didn't think it would be fair to the owners and my successor to allow the institution to suffer from the situation in which I found it upon taking office in 1984."

Hand-Picked Successor

Owners were concerned that Ueberroth would leave only months before a possible players' strike. Baseball's collective bargaining agreement expires the same day as Ueberroth's contract and baseball's network television contracts end after the 1989 season.

Ueberroth, 50, succeeded Bowie Kuhn and became baseball's sixth commissioner on Oct. 1, 1984. He came to baseball after organizing the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.