NL’s Coleman to Step Down : Baseball: League president is said to be unhappy with handling of umpire dispute and future of his office.

National League President Leonard Coleman, upset over baseball’s handling of the umpire dispute and a general loss of authority through the ongoing reorganization of the commissioner’s office, is expected to resign at the end of the World Series, industry officials said Friday.

Coleman, an African American who is baseball’s highest ranking minority official and a leading advocate of minority hiring, did not return messages, but he is known to have expressed increasing dissatisfaction with the changing parameters of a job he assumed in March 1994 and the loss of responsibility and authority under a reorganization concept that ultimately will leave the league presidents nothing more than figureheads.

Much of Coleman and American League President Gene Budig’s powers have already been transferred to Paul Beeston, baseball’s chief operating officer, and three executive vice presidents: Sandy Alderson, who is in charge of baseball operations; Robert Dupuy, who is Commissioner Bud Selig’s longtime lawyer and is in charge of administration, and Robert Manfred, who is in charge of labor relations and human resources.

Coleman is known to strongly oppose the plan to remove umpire control from the league presidents and centralize it under Alderson and objected with equal fervor to the dismissal of some of the 13 National League umpires whose resignations were accepted by Selig and Alderson.

“I’m not surprised by this,” umpires union counsel Richie Phillips said Friday, referring to the spreading news regarding Coleman’s intentions. “He has too much pride to allow himself to continue to be used. They stamp his name to stuff he refuses to sign, [and] I believe that Gene Budig’s exit will be close on the heels of Coleman’s and that his position will be basically extinguished.”

The status of Coleman and Budig and the ongoing reorganization will be discussed by owners at a quarterly meeting in Cooperstown, N.Y., on Wednesday and Thursday.

Coleman, 50, has degrees from Princeton and Harvard and extensive background in marketing development and international relations.