If teams believe they have the right to decide when to call up players from the minor leagues, why won’t they acknowledge that major league service time is a primary factor, if not the only factor, in determining the call-up date?

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ top officials, for example, in explaining why they are not yet promoting a player, always say the player needs more minor league experience, more plate appearances, more work at an unfamiliar position.

President Frank Coonelly and General Manager Neal Huntington never say, “If we keep him in the minors another few weeks we gain a year in salary arbitration.”

Coonelly and Huntington are not alone in their reticence. None of the clubs speak about the subject with candor. The pattern prompts speculation that the commissioner’s office …

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At the age of 78, Jerry Reinsdorf very likely doesn’t have a lot of time left as chairman of the Chicago White Sox and an influential owner in Major League Baseball. That means if he has any unfinished business, if he wants to accomplish something dear to him while he has time, he has to act quickly. And boy does he have something he wants to accomplish.

He doesn’t talk about it, but his actions betray his silence. Despite the battering the owners took in the 1994-95 strike and the severe damage it did to Major League Baseball, Reinsdorf apparently wants to revisit the issue that the owners fought the players over in 1994 and ’95.

Curious about Reinsdorf’s reported opposition to Bud Selig’s desire to have Rob Manfred, MLB’s chief operating officer, succeed him as commissioner when he retires next January, I asked several people why they thought Reinsdorf opposed Manfred.

“This is all about Jerry,” said a lawyer who is closely connected to Major League Baseball and many of its owners. “He wants to …

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The American League’s three division leaders met for a series of round-robin games over the last two weeks, with Oakland, Detroit, and Toronto looking to establish early-season supremacy in the Junior Circuit. The Athletics and Tigers split a four-game series in Detroit, and it has been the surprise division leader—the Blue Jays—sweeping the potential playoff previews.

League-leading Oakland was up first. The A’s flew to Toronto in late May having won 11 of 13 games in the previous two weeks, generating a healthy amount of “Moneyball 2.0” buzz along the way. In the second inning of the series, Toronto’s fill-in second baseman, journeyman Steven Tolleson, jumped on a 3-1 Scott Kazmir offering for a two-run home run, his first of the year, and the Blue Jays never trailed in the game. Tolleson had hit just three career homers entering this season, but Toronto’s early-season home run binge is affecting all members of the lineup.

Evidence came the next day, when …

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