Owners Say Today Deadline to Obtain Players’ OK on Expanded Playoff Plan

The attempt by baseball’s owners to expand the league playoffs from five to seven games must be approved by the Players Assn. today or be scuttled as infeasible in 1985, Lee MacPhail, the former American League president who represents the owners in negotiations with the players regarding a new collective bargaining agreement, said Tuesday night.

Representatives of the owners and players met in a negotiating session at the Gene Autry Hotel here Tuesday, but there was apparently little progress toward an agreement on the question of dividing the added TV income from a seven-game playoff.

They will meet again tonight here, beyond which nothing is presently scheduled.

MacPhail said he has already extended the deadline once and can’t do it again. He said that NBC, which will telecast the playoffs, needs to plan its fall programming now.

“We either do it today or we don’t do it,” MacPhail said. “I’m hopeful we can work it out.”

Don Fehr, executive director of the Players Assn., said of the deadline:

“If that’s it, that’s it, but I’m not convinced it’s absolute. They scheduled the mini-playoffs (after the 1981 strike) on a lot shorter notice.”

Is he, too, hopeful? “How can I be hopeful,” he said, “when we don’t even have a preliminary agreement?”

The association is believed willing to approve the seven-game playoff but wants the owners to contribute $3 million of the added $9 million in TV revenue to the players pension plan.

The association has said that the one third ratio is comparable to the current division.

“So far,” Fehr said, “their approach is that they want all $9 million. They’re trying to tell us that they’re going broke but they won’t settle for $6 million.”

“I’d like to say there was a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said, “but I don’t see it. It’s the same old thing. We presented a pension proposal Dec. 19 and haven’t received a response yet. They brought up the issue of their financial problems Feb. 27 and haven’t yet supported it with evidence.

“We’re not sure who’s in charge or who has the authority to give us answers. It’s always, ‘well, we’ll get back to you on that.’ ”

The current collective bargaining agreement expired Dec. 31.