Major League Baseball

Selig hints at playoff expansion

Published Sep. 25, 2010 1:53 a.m. ET

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Baseball commissioner Bud Selig wants to explore expanding the postseason this winter.

''It's a fair question,'' Selig said Friday before the St. Louis Cardinals played the Chicago Cubs. ''We have less teams than any other sport. Eight teams make the playoffs. One wild card in each league. We certainly haven't abused anything.''

He's not afraid of upsetting the purists, who were vocal in their opposition when the sport added the wild card.

''As the guy who brought the wild card and took a lot of abuse - maybe from nobody in this room - it's worked out great, nobody's against it,'' Selig said.

Selig said he has been monitoring the contentious divorce proceedings of Jamie and Frank McCourt, the owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers, but he refused to comment on the trial that could determine the future of the ownership of the team.

Despite efforts to cut down on the shattering of maple bats, a freak injury to the Cubs' Tyler Colvin on Sunday has given Selig new concern about their safety.

Colvin was hit in the chest by shard from a maple bat while on third base. He was released three days later from a Miami hospital after being treated with a chest tube that prevented his lung from collapsing.

''Two years ago when this really came about, we retained people in the forestry division at the University of Wisconsin and at Harvard. They have really helped us. We have cut down on broken bats by about 50 percent and that's a lot of progress in a short period of time,'' Selig said. ''Is it enough? No. We've got the remaining 50 percent to do and you watch something like the Tyler Colvin incident, and it scares you. But we're making progress.''

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