MLB.com

By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com

The Expos have six games remaining this season at San Juan's Hiram Bithorn Stadium. (AP)

"My guess is that (the chances) are 50-50," Tavares said after Thursday's joint morning session of the 29 owners and their representatives ended. "I wouldn't think it was any worse or any better than that."

Major League Baseball is hoping to have a permanent solution for the future of their owned-and-operated team by Labor Day. But even Commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday that the relocation committee "has work to do yet, and lots of it."

Tavares said Thursday that he had no firm idea where the Expos would be playing in 2004, but he was certain they would not be playing a split-home schedule like they did this season. By the time the 2003 season ends, the Expos will have played 59 of their home games at Olympic Stadium and 22 in San Juan's Hiram Bithorn Stadium.

Their longest road trip was a 14,000-mile, 22-game trip during the first half of the season that included six games in Puerto Rico. They went 8-14 on that trip.

"I really believe that we will be 100 percent wherever we are," Tavares said. "The union has taken a very strong position that they would not support (splitting) it. There is some validity to their claim that they get to participate in that decision.

"The players became convinced of it after that first long road trip where we went from Puerto Rico to Seattle. That kind of locked-and-loaded it for everybody at the team level. They were just drained. The travel schedule was just a bear."

The tentative 2004 schedule is supposed to be delivered to the Players Association by Friday. It has been delayed twice and could be again, Tavares said.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the schedule is delayed again until there's some resolution," Tavares said.

For next season, MLB has offers on the table from Puerto Rico and Monterrey, Mexico, to host as few as 22 home games and as many as a full slate of 81. Groups from Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia and Portland, Ore., are still hoping to get the team permanently.

All are in a holding pattern, although some political maneuvering in the Oregon Legislature has moved the long-dormant $150 million stadium funding bill out of a Senate rules committee. It must be passed again in the House, where it already has survived once, before a vote is taken in the full 30-person Senate, perhaps by the end of next week.

If the bill is approved by the Legislature, Governor Ted Kulongoski, an avid supporter of bringing MLB to Oregon, has vowed to sign it. Portland would then have to identify how it will pay for its share of a projected $350 million open-air downtown ballpark. Like all three groups, there will also be a private financial component to the Oregon ballpark project.

In Washington, where a $339 million bill for a $436 million stadium has been introduced, the 13-member City Council is not schedule to convene again until Sept. 15. In Northern Virginia, where some money for a stadium is in place at the state level, there are massive site selection problems and a lengthy nine-month land permit process under the best of conditions. The Virginia State Legislature isn't scheduled to meet again until next year.

Thus, Selig said he's not going to rush the relocation committee into making a quick judgment and that the other 29 owners are willing to continue funding the team until the right deal is accomplished.

In late 2002, the Expos were identified as a prime candidate for contraction. But since then, MLB purchased the team for $120 million and each club owner has been paying about $1 million a season in operating costs, plus the Expos' portion of revenue sharing.

Contraction was taken off the table last summer for the duration of the new four-year collective bargaining agreement that ends after the 2006 season.

"The process, and not everyone seems to understand this, is to get it done right, not to get it done fast," Selig said. "This is a difficult situation -- I understand that and have often told the clubs that. This is the last residue of contraction and a very difficult process. We've made the best of a very tough situation. We need to move on, but we will do it in the right time and in the right manner.

"(The owners) have given me the authority to do what is in their best interests."

Barry M. Bloom is a national reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.