European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 24, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 32 the stars. And stripes sports wednesday August 24,1994 owners wrong of claim poverty so i go to Church and the gentleman handing out prayer books says just Call up All the minor leagues. Let them play. They d play for nothing. Forget these other Guys. Reagan did it Vith the air traffic controller Sand it worked did t it do it with so i go to my car and the gentleman in the parking lot says what people Don t like about it is that it s what s happening in every other part of our society. Nothing s Asgood As it used to be. Every thing s corrupted by now it s baseball. Which brings me to.,a Long paragraph and three questions if your business could make $500 million by expanding to Morrow at no Cost to you. If the next Day television wanted to give you another $30 million for doing nothing. If you could make $20 million by changing one sentence in a contract. If Dave Kindred you could make a bundle by simply rearranging the stuff on your shelves. If your $3 billion business Al ready set sales records annually. If All this were True then would you Tell everyone you re going broke and would you blame your employees for it and would you threaten your employees with the loss of their jobs if they did t give Back rights they had earned earlier anyone with a thimble Ful of common sense would say no no and no. Yet major league baseball owners Are saying yes yes yes. In this glorious baseball summer of 1994, the owners Are claiming poverty while surrounded by All that Money and worse they Are making enemies of the employees who made the Money possible. We live in baseball s Best times. They were made possible by uniquely talented players Given negotiating Power by their first Union Boss Marvin Miller whose two decades of work beginning in 1966 should earn Hima place in the Hall of Fame. Commentary More fans today go to More games in More cities than Ever. More teams win championships with More stars. Franchises sell for record prices and maybe two dozen buyers Are eager to pay whatever it takes to join the major leagues. Few people believe the owners Are going broke. These rare owners who respect our intelligence have spoken up to say the game is in no trouble. But let s say they Are losing Money. Why not instead of fighting players be and Over and pick up the Money lying on the ground they could pick up $500 million in expansion fees by adding four teams at $125 million each. They then could divvy up that Money to help the poor lil Small Market teams crying so loudly. The owners could make $30 million the Low estimate by economist Andrew Zimbalist author of baseball and billions by Selling pay per View to. If you re Yankee fan in St. Louis Zimbalist says you could buy Yankee games from their network. Millions of such people Are scattered across the another $20 million might come from a change i Revenue sharing. American league teams share Gate receipts 80-20 the National league s Home team gets97 percent. Make it 80-20 in the National league Zim Balist says and the Small Market Revenue problems Ofsan Diego Pittsburgh and Montreal would be resolved. The value of All franchises would go up with the Start of inter league play a simple shuffling of inventory that puts a Frank Thomas Here and a Barry Bonds there. And these appreciations would happen in a business with franchises already Worth More than $100 million each. Bought for $11 million in 1979, the Baltimore orioles sold 12 years later for $173 million the Only reasonable response to the owners bleat Ings is to say these owners Are no different from those of a Hundred years ago. They must come with a genetic disposition to the outrageous lie. At birth a baseball owner must emerge squalling i m broke and it s the players How else to understand the existence today of a salary Cap idea that was abandoned As unworkable 105 years ago in 1889, National league owners set the maximum salary for a class a player at $2,500. A class e player made $1,500. Boston owner Arthur Soden required e s to sweep out the bleachers after games. The players Quick response to the Cap was to create a competing league the players league. So the nation Al league dropped the Cap and ran the players league out of business in a season. And Here we Are 105 years later the players still fighting for what they deserve in a free Market society the right to work anywhere for whatever anyone wants to pay them. Plumbers and sportswriters and even the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers have that right but not baseball players whose Bosses now want to create new restrictions rather than new freedoms. The owners negotiator even says his Bosses will not give up their Legal right if a bargaining impasse is declared to implement their own rules. They would impose a salary Cap and eliminate salary arbitration. The players Union Leader Donald Fehr has said of let s get rid of arbitration Well drop it if you la give us free Agency sooner than six years. The owners response has been an insistence on nothing less than the salary Cap a fixed shackle on Freedom. If the owners implement rules they would touch off a War not seen since 1913, when players jumped to the Federal league. Today s players would stay out on strike indefinitely if not longer. And the 1995 season would be played by minor league kids an the Odd big leaguer who quits the Union. So i m at Home late one night watching television. And i see the left handed hitter out of Indiana the lbs to sports savant David Letterman. He insists hews driving into the big City the morning after the strike began and saw a Squeegee your Windshield Guy coming toward his car. I waved him away Letterman said. And then he recognized the Squeegee Guy. It was Don Mattingly i Felt so distributed by the . Times Washington Post news service Stewart knows about strikes Dave Stewart. Defends players by Claire Smith the new York times when Dave Stewart took off his to Ronto Blue jays uniform for the last time before the strike of 1994 started he knew More than most major leagues that Yogi Berra was right. It was Dejavu All Over again. Stewart came to the majors in 1981 and walked right into a season that was marred by a 50-Day players strike. Now in this his 14th and final sea son Stewart sits Idle As a players strike with the potential to wipe the final month off the schedule. They Are bookends of the sort Stew Art would wish on no one but bookends he will defend even if they mean that his announced retirement comes two months earlier than expected. Nothing really much you can do about it Stewart said from san Diego where he is working on a new Home and waiting for that one More game one More inning one More pitch to better end his impressive major league career. It is a wish undoubtedly being shared by any number of veterans who now wonder out loud about the improbability of surviving a strike that stretches past this season. Players like Stewart Don Mattingly Dave Winfield Rich Gossage and Dave Righetti know they might be bidding Adieu to their livelihood. But to a Man they have defended the cause rather than mourn the possibility that their Ca Reers could end before their time. These players Are the ones who Don t fit easily into the argument that it s a labout Money. But Stewart who has lived through the strike of 85 As Well As 81 and 94, knows that to make such an argument is to lose before a hostile Public that Only wants to hear play Ball not Points of principle. A lot of people will always look at strikes especially in the entertainment Industry As a Money Issue something having to do with greed Stewart said. But those attitudes too often have to do More with envy and jealousy. People Are just not trying to compassion and sympathy Aren t things the players Are entitled to nor to their credit even covet. But As a player who More than most of his generation is synonymous with generosity of spirit and Community involvement Stewart is bothered by the Lack of empathy. The Lack of understanding about How you have a right to ask for a fair share if you re a part of the Success of a Busi Ness he says. Not All. Just a fair share. It does t take much to understand that Stewart said. But you can explain it a thousand ways. You an put them in your same shoes and ask them a million questions based on How things Are As opposed to How they think they Are and they Don t want to understand. So i Don t eve bother. " it s a surprising anger to be found in someone More noted for helping Earth quake victims in Oakland in the 1989 Post season and feeding the homeless in Canada during the 1993 Post season. Even More surprising is that his anger in t directed toward management inane major Way. Rather Stewart is sympathetic to some of the management s contentions he believes that Small Market teams Donee. Some Revenue sharing Relief. Just not off the backs of the players he said. Yet in making that distinction Stew Art defines the stalemate. Small markets want greater Revenue sharing with the big markets. But they can t get it until they secure a Cap on player salaries. The players have refused to offer up their gains to help the owners solve their local Revenue disparities. Thus the impasse. And the fear that a strike that drags into october could drag the careers of players like Stewart to ignominious ends. But forgive Stewart if he remains unconvinced that it is a fait a comply. He believes he is destined to move on to management in Toronto or Oakland. But just not quite yet. I just Don to think the season is Over he said i Don t think that the Industry is that stupid. I think they Are intelligent peo ple who should be Able to sit Down and figure out a Way to make this situation work without a salary Cap. That should t be too Tough to Stewart intends to see that for him self. Talks resume tomorrow with own ers participating for the first time. If and when negotiations Start going Day in and Day out Stewart plans to participate too joining other players who participate in negotiations along Side their Union representatives. In 81, i was Young and just really was going with the flow Stewart said. This time i feel like i m a part of the flow. I want to be it is something Dave Stewart figures he owes to the rookies of today. A try. A contribution one he Hopes does t prove to be his last As a major league player. / h v $
