CINCINNATI -- Opening Day in Mexico City?

It won't happen until 1998 if it ever happens. But major-league owners left open the possibility yesterday that the next round of baseball expansion could include the first team in Mexico.

John Harrington, chairman of the expansion committee, said this week's meeting of club owners produced no decision on whether to go ahead with another round of expansion. But Harrington, a Boston Red Sox owner, said the committee is inviting any interested cities in North America to submit information.

"Right now, all options are open," Harrington said, including Mexico.

Said Bud Selig, baseball's acting commissioner: "This is part of why we are going through this process now. It's a fact-finding process."

Selig and Harrington put to rest any hope of a fast track for expansion, much to the annoyance of fans in Phoenix and St. Petersburg, Fla. Those cities appear to be the clear favorites the next time baseball expands.

* CONTRACT TALKS: Owners turned up the rhetoric as they braced for Tuesday's scheduled meeting with the union. They say they will present their controversial salary-cap proposal to the players at that session.

Richard Ravitch, the negotiator for the owners, warned that a decision to strike by the players could be a miscalculation.

"Strikes only occur when one side underestimates the leverage of the other side," Ravitch said. "I hope Mr. Fehr [players union executive director Donald Fehr] does not underestimate the purposefulness of the owners in 1994."