Salary Cap Upsetting to Padres : Kennedy Says Strike Becomes a Possibility

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Terry Kennedy kept cursing out loud Tuesday night, not because the Padre-Met game was postponed because of rain, but because this baseball season may soon be postponed because of stubbornness.

Kennedy, the Padre player representative, spent his lunch hour on Tuesday with Don Fehr, acting executive director of baseball’s player association. And Fehr explained to Kennedy the owner’s new eight-point labor proposal, which included a salary cap that Fehr says will eliminate free agency.

Later that night, Kennedy eliminated all subtleties.

“It’s bull. . . . ,” he said of the salary cap.

So, perhaps a baseball strike is imminent. Kennedy will leave Thursday for Chicago, where the 26 player representatives are expected to vote unanimously to ask for strike authorization from the players. They then would set a strike deadline.

And although Kennedy would not say how he planned to vote Thursday, it’s quite easy to read between his nasty lines.

“I personally think it (a strike) is a no-win situation. We’ll be accused of not thinking about the public, the fans. It always comes down on our heads, but I think the public is starting to realize after they see some of the moves the owners make that a lot of the blame should fall on them. Because they pull some pretty selfish stuff, too.

“They don’t bargain in good faith. They don’t bargain. They wait. And they know we’re going to force them, and they know we’ll strike. Every time, we’ll strike.”

The question is when do they strike. Kennedy said a logical time would be after the season, but just before the playoffs. The owners apparently collect $102 million of their $140 million television money after September 15. But they collect none of this money if there’s no baseball.

The owners’ eight-point plan was designed to bring progress, but it has not. It’s the salary cap that confuses things, too.

“It (the plan) would be almost acceptable except for the last part, which blows the whole thing,” Kennedy said.

The last part is the cap, which is new to sports, introduced by the National Basketball Assn. in 1983. In the NBA, there is a limit on the amount of money a team can spend on contracts, but there are loopholes, so teams can go over the salary cap. For instance, NBA teams can sign their own free agents for any amount of money. Therefore, free agents can still make money.

But under this baseball plan, the cap would be set at approximately $10 million to $11 million for each team, and teams could not go over the limit in any case. For instance, if Tim Flannery wanted a new contract and the Padres were at the cap, they could only pay him more money if they released another player.

This is what the player’s association objects to.

Also, in the NBA, teams are required to spend a certain amount of money on salaries, promoting parity. In baseball, that would not be so.

“Minnesota’s below (the cap), and they don’t sign free agents anyway,” Kennedy said. “And if they make money, they’ll save it. They won’t spend it on free agents.”

Said Steve Garvey: “The subject is free enterprise and supply and demand and the value of an individual. And if you start restricting that, you’re restricting the ambition and the desire of the participant.”

So, amazingly, a strike could come again, just as it did in 1981.

“If we settle it, it’ll be at the 25th hour,” Kennedy said. “There’s no (deadline) date yet. But we’ve given them notice. . . . We can strike anytime. . . . And this could have been settled a long time ago. We could’ve settled this in spring training or in April. It would’ve been quiet. Everybody would’ve applauded both sides and said: ‘Hey, those guys got their stuff together and got it done before a strike possibility.

“But I’ll tell you, I’ve found out two things: I wouldn’t work for the commissioner’s office, and I wouldn’t work for the player’s association after I’m done playing.”

At about 6 p.m. EDT, the rain came, and it never stopped here. At 8:57, the game between the Mets and the Padres was called. The make-up game has tentatively been set for Aug. 23, when the teams will play a twi-night doubleheader here.

Before the game was called Tuesday, the Met organization was good enough to show the Stanley Cup hockey game on its Diamond Vision screen, and the fans cheered. Soon, there was a fight on the ice. The fans, typically, loved it.

Still, there’s one more game in this series, though, and Eric Show will face Ron Darling tonight at 4:35.

And now for a sad story, one that could only happen in New York.

Former Padre pitcher Ed Whitson, who signed a five year, $4.5 million contract with the Yankees in the off-season, says he was heckled by fans as he walked to his car on May 13, just after he’d been bombed in a game against Minnesota.

“Hey Whitson,” said a man, stepping in his path, “Why don’t you get you and your family the hell out of here? Better yet, why don’t you blow your head off and put yourself and us out of our misery?”

Whitson passed the man and the group of people, made it to his truck, but then was involved in a car chase. He stopped at a red light, and the other people, screaming insults, got out of their car and started toward him. He ran the red light and escaped.

Naturally fans here aren’t happy with his 1-5 record and 6.09 ERA, but this seems to be a little extreme. His every move is booed here.

“I’ve never seen anybody put in the gave because of baseball,” Whitson told Mike McAlary of the New York Post. “But you never know if there is a sniper out there on a light tower or what. . . . Every team has to have a goat, and I guess I’m the guinea pig.”