14 Th6 Michigan Daily - Wednesday, November 8, 1995 I Baylor named NL manager of the year If Cleveland *...d owner Art Modell ... .: . .. ... gets his way, his ' : f tmi football team will ** not be calling 63- r . y.." year old Cleveland Stadium Its home after this season. Modell's proposed' move of the Browns to Baltimore is one of the topics of discussion at this week's NFL meetings. . AP PHOTO NFL owners discuss league's turbulent times tGRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) - Art indicated that while there was initial op- mendations. Still, the Browns will be a move after the season - in this c Modell declared yesterday that the position, the owners are likely to let lame duck team for the rest of this season. about 90 miles east to Orlando. BWns' move to Baltimore is all but Modell, a league insider for 35 years, Modell, who hadn't missed a game in Denver, Chicago and Cincinnati irrevocable, but he also joined fellow move on. Approval of23 of34 owners is the 35 years he's owned the Browns want new stadiums, as do Pittsbu owners in calling for stability in the NFL. needed. beforehis no-show Sunday, said he won't Philadelphia and Washington. It's a very, very serious problem," Modell denied a report on ABC's attendthethreeremaininggamesinCleve- Tagliabue and the owners also NEW YORK (AP) -Don Baylor, who led the Colorado Rockies to the playoffs in only their third season, was voted National League Manager of the Year on Tuesday. Baylor received 19 of 28 first-place votes and nine seconds for 122 points in voting by the Baseball Writers Associa- tion of America, easily defeatingt Davey Johnson. Baylor was the only manager named on every ballot. J o h n s o n , Baylor pushed out by the Reds after leading Cincinnati to the NL Central title, got eight firsts, 15 seconds and four thirds for 89 points. Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox was third with one first, one second and 12 thirds for 20 points, followed by Terry Collins of Houston (11 points), Jim Riggleman of the Chicago Cubs (6), Dallas Green of the New York Mets (3) and Bruce Bochy of San Diego (1). Baylor is the first former MVP to win the manager's award. He was the AL Most Valuable Player in 1979, when he played for the California An- gels. Under Baylor, the Rockies were 77- 67 last season and won the wild-card spot by one game over the Astros. Colorado finished one game ahead of Los Angeles in the NL West. Baylor, 46, was hired by the Rockies in October 1992 and has led them to a three-year record of 197-226. As a player, he was with seven divi- sion champions, three pennant win- ners and one World Series champion: the 1987 Minnesota Twins. Baylor, who retired as a player in 1988, had a .260 career average with 338 homers and 1,276 RBIs. His best season was 1979, when he hit .296 with 36 homers and 139 RBIs. He was hit by a pitch 267 times, a major league record. ase, also rgh, ad- Modell said of franchise movement after the Browns joined the Raiders and Rams as the third team to move within a year. "It's something we have to address with the utmost urgency." Modell argued his case at the NFL o vnersmeetings,while Cleveland Mayor Michael White, appealed to the group to stop the Browns from leaving. "They are the Cleveland Browns and they will be the Cleveland Browns until the owners in the NFL say they are no longer the Cleveland Browns," White said. The 70-year-old Modell, however, ruled out any chance of the Browns stay- ing in Cleveland- even if the city builds him a new stadium or improves the old one. "The bridge is down, burned, disap- peared," Modell said. "There's not even a canoe there for me." While commissioner Paul Tagliabue said "I have no idea" how the owners would vote on the move, an informal poll Monday night football that he was $50 million in debt, claiming the Brownshave lost $21 million over the past two years. The Browns-to-Baltimore bombshell gave the meetings an entirely new focal point. There was even a demonstration of about 30 people protesting against the move outside the hotel where the meet- ings took place. Also yesterday: O Dallas owner Jerry Jones and his favorite antagonist, 49ers president Carmen Policy, competed for cameras on the day after Jones answered the NFL's $300 million suit over revenue sharing with a $750 million antitrust suit of his own. Policy blamed Jones for some ofthe financial problems leading teams to relo- cate; Jones blamed the NFL. Dueling news conferences featuring Modell and White, who each argued their case over the Browns' relocation to Bal- timore. That won't happen at least until January while Tagliabue decides on his recom- land. It was White who best stated the prob- lem facing the NFL -the "franchise free agency" that the Browns move implies. "What's the impact for the NFL if it allows that team to kick the city in the teeth?" Cleveland's mayor asked. "It happened to Oakland, nobody said anything. It happened in Los Angeles, nobody said anything. It's happening in Houston, nobody said a word. How many cities are going to be threatened in this way before the NFL recognizes that it's bad forthe country and bad forthe league?" And that's the problem the league is facing. While the Browns' move tops the agenda, the owners were also preparing to take up Bud Adams' desire to move the Oilers from Houston to Nashville, Tenn., something Adams discussed again on Tuesday. Tagliabue has already pledged to fill the void in Los Angeles, perhaps with the Seattle Seahawks, and Tampa Bay could dressed a problem they didn't anticipate when the salary cap was instituted - a growing gap in revenues between haves and have nots. One reasonis that revenues the "haves" get from luxury boxes, increased parking fees and other non-shared money go into the cap after they reach a certain point, increasing the cap and, in Tagliabue's words, "forcing some teams to spend money they don't have." Another is that the cap has been used in ways that have allowed teams to pay rela- tively small salaries with large signing bonuses that are amortized over several years. Modell said he borrowed $5 million for a signing bonus for Andre Rison, be- cause he didn't have the cash on hand. He noted that teams like New England and Dallas had the money for their players. "Jerry Jones signed Deion Sanders and all he had to do was to go to his check- book," he said. "Bob Kraft signed Drew Bledsoe and all he had to do was go to his checkbook. I can't do that." I