Within months of the report's circulation on Capitol Hill, however, baseball initiated plans to shut down at least two franchises.
DuPuy said Major League Baseball chose the more drastic step of contraction because the economic conditions in baseball had worsened considerably.
Inside baseball there was speculation that contraction was a part of the owners' pre-war buildup, a negotiating ploy designed to show the players' union that baseball was prepared to cut at least 7 percent of its work force if it did not gain concessions.
But owners and union representatives said contraction was not a tactic. "Obviously, it was real," wrote Red Sox owner Henry in a lengthy e-mail interview. Henry, whose former team, the Marlins, was a candidate, added, "In any business or industry, if you have companies or divisions that are not making it, you close them."
Richard E. Jacobs, the former owner of the Cleveland Indians, warned Selig: "It's going to be a bloody process. The blood's all going to be yours. Do it anyway."
The process began in October 2000. Selig announced at a Chicago owners meeting that he had asked DuPuy and Paul Beeston, then baseball's president and chief operating officer, to study the ramifications of eliminating franchises.
As the meeting broke up, Samson, the Expos' president, bolted across the room to confront Selig.
"What do you mean: You're contracting the Expos?" Samson asked incredulously.
DuPuy quickly grabbed Samson by the arm to defuse the situation.
"David, we'll talk," he said.
In the spring of 2001, Beeston scrawled a list of candidates on a piece of yellow lined paper and handed it to an aide. The list included the Expos, Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays, Oakland Athletics, Marlins, Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Anaheim Angels.
Throughout that summer, baseball officials met in the 31st floor executive conference room at Major League Baseball's headquarters at 245 Park Avenue in Manhattan. From the beginning, according to a former baseball official who participated, there were discussions about whether baseball had the legal authority to unilaterally eliminate teams. The contraction meetings were referred to by euphemisms such as "baseball issues" or "ownership issues." Participants sometimes were told not to take notes or to hand in their notes at the end of meetings, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of an ongoing federal racketeering suit filed by the former Expos limited partners.
