Tampa Bay Rays principal owner Stuart Sternberg wants balanced schedule, more playoffs

Asked Friday on SIRIUS XM's Mad Dog Radio what suggestions he'd make to commissioner Bud Selig's committee to improve the game, Rays principal owner Stuart Sternberg suggested a "more balanced schedule" and expanded playoffs.

• Saying "my big issue here is the Yankees and the Red Sox and dealing with these guys," he wants to make the Rays, Orioles and Jays more competitive by reducing the number of games played vs. New York and Boston.

• He wants to add one or two wild-card teams and an extra round of playoffs, keeping more teams in the race "while still keeping the playoffs to a point where you probably have to win 86, 88 games to get in, which is not a bad number."

Sternberg also said the economics of the game "over the next 10 years could be problematic really because of the separation from the haves and the have-nots."

Marc Topkin, Times staff writer