Selig touches on variety of subjects with sports editors

Commissioner Bud Selig met with The Associated Press Sports Editors in New York on Thursday and during a question-and-answer session touched on a wide range of topics, including:

• Expanded replay. Selig said he expects a proposal for 2014 to be made at the quarterly Owners Meetings in New York on May 15-16.

• The designated hitter. The Commissioner said he has no intention of adding it to the National League or taking it away from the American League. "I'm going to leave things the way they are. And I do not think it's bad for baseball," he said.

• The Biogenesis investigation. Selig declined to answer specific questions about the now-closed anti-aging clinic alleged to have supplied illegal performance-enhancing substances to more than two dozen players, but added: "We have the toughest drug-testing program in American sports. To enforce that program, we have to be aggressive and thorough, and that's what we're doing."

• MLB's newly appointed diversity task force, created in response to statistics that show the number of African-American players to be less than half what it was in the mid-1970s. "We'll do better," he said. "I can assure the result of everything we're doing now you will see in the next two or three years, or maybe better than that."

• The Olympics. The International Olympic Committee board is to meet next month to recommend one or more sports for possible addition to the 2020 Games. The Commissioner was asked if he would consider a rearrangement of the regular season so the game's top players could participate.

"Look, we can't stop our season in August. We just can't," Selig said. "You can't say to your fans: 'We'll see you in the next period of time.'"

He said the idea that the Olympics could be accommodated during an expanded All-Star break wouldn't work, because starting the season earlier or completing it later would lead to weather complications.

"Do I wish I could? Yes," Selig said. "But is it practical? No."

Selig reiterated that he plans to retire when his current contract expires in December 2014 and added that he isn't sure that the territorial dispute that has kept the Oakland A's from moving to San Jose will be resolved by then. "Time will tell," he said. "I'm not going to set a time limit. We're in intense discussions with all the relevant parties."