Brewers: HBO story inaccurate

? The Milwaukee Brewers and major league baseball are disputing an HBO report that said three members of the Selig family were drawing more than $2 million in combined salary while the club was seeking funds to build Miller Park.

“That’s obscenely inaccurate and outrageously inflated,” said Rick Schlesinger, the team’s executive vice president of business operations.

A baseball source with knowledge of the Brewers’ finances, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press on Thursday that Bud Selig, his daughter, Wendy Selig-Prieb, and son-in-law, Laurel Prieb, earned approximately $700,000 in combined annual pay during the 1995-96 period when the team was pushing for a taxpayer-funded stadium.

HBO spokesman Ray Stallone said: “We have no additional comment, and we stand by our reporting” on the story that aired on HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” this week.

Selig, the team’s controlling owner, hasn’t drawn a salary from the club since becoming full-time commissioner in 1998.

The commissioner’s office forwarded a telephone call seeking comment from Selig to Carl Mueller, a Milwaukee-based public relations executive who represents major league baseball in Wisconsin.

Mueller said two reviews of the club’s finances currently under way would show that the Seligs earned far less than $2 million at the time they were pushing for a new ballpark to replace County Stadium.