Players Set the Strike Date: Aug. 6

The executive board of baseball’s Major League Players Assn., responding to a lack of progress in negotiations with the owners over a new collective bargaining agreement, voted Monday to begin a strike Aug. 6, providing a settlement isn’t reached.

The board, composed of at least one player from every team--although Atlanta, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto representatives were absent--also voted to play tonight’s All-Star game in Minneapolis as scheduled.

Donald Fehr, the union’s executive director, said a boycott was strongly considered.

“The All-Star game is not a players’ game, as it has been portrayed, nor is it a fans’ game,” he said. “It is strictly an owners’ game.

“The players get $2,176,000 of the TV money for their pension fund, but the remaining $20 million goes to the owners, as do all the gate receipts.

“Why are the players playing it? Because they realize the fans enjoy it and like to see it played. They agreed to go ahead and do it, their own negotiating problems to the contrary.”

Those problems have lingered since November, when the union first attempted to open negotiations. The collective bargaining agreement that was signed in the wake of the 50-day players’ strike of 1981 expired on Dec. 31.

Can a settlement be reached by Aug. 6?

“A strike is not inevitable,” Fehr said. “There’s more than enough time . . . if the owners have any interest in a settlement.

“So far, and this was discussed here today, we have seen functionally no indication that the owners have any interest at all in trying to reach an agreement.

“In fact, a significant number of players said today that they have been told by the owners that they don’t want to reach an agreement, that they want to force the players out and sit on them, if you will, until they knuckle under.”

The owners, Fehr reiterated, have yet to make a substantive proposal, leaving the players to believe “enough is enough,” that nothing would be accomplished without a deadline.

Why Aug. 6? Fehr wouldn’t be specific, saying only that it was chosen from among several dates.

One obvious factor is that the schedule for the week of Aug. 6 calls for a series of games between traditional and geographic rivals, cancellation of which would significantly affect owner income.

The Chicago Cubs, for example, play both the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals that week. The Dodgers play Atlanta and Cincinnati. The New York Yankees play at Boston, Detroit at Kansas City, the Angels at Minnesota.

Said Yankee player representative Don Baylor: “I think there’s an 80% chance we’ll strike again. The owners don’t seem to want to reduce those chances. Hopefully, that will change now that a date has been set.”

Said the Dodgers’ Rick Honeycutt: “Our attitude is the same as always. We definitely want to work things out, but we’re getting no answers from the people talking for the owners. They’ve made one general proposal and haven’t moved off it.”

Former American League President Lee MacPhail, who now represents the owners in negotiations with the players, said the owners had asked the union to delay in setting a strike date. But, he thought an agreement could be reached by Aug. 6, providing the union recognizes that the industry has financial problems--which the union doesn’t.

Fehr said Monday that Stanford economist Roger Noll’s analysis of the financial records provided by the owners will show, when released by the union later this week, that the game is “robust and healthy.” He said that the owners’ contention that attendance and gate receipts are increasing at only 5% a year compared to salary increases of 15% is inaccurate.

Noll’s study, he said, shows that the market is correcting itself, that the salary increase is now down to 9% to 11% a year.

“The owners themselves project gross revenue of $600 million this year and $900 million by 1989,” Fehr said. “Some clubs don’t make as much money as others, but most make a hell of a lot.

“I mean, we’ve attempted to discuss individual situations such as Oakland’s with them, but they say no, they only want to talk about the situation overall.”

Robust and healthy? MacPhail laughed when given Fehr’s view. “That’s hard to take,” he said. “We have 18 of 26 clubs losing money.” The 1984 loss, MacPhail had said in May, was $42 million. A New York University accounting professor, hired by the owners to study the financial records, said last week the loss was more in the neighborhood of $27 million.

“The date (Aug. 6) itself doesn’t bother us,” MacPhail said Monday. “It’s the union’s state of mind that bothers us. I’m not saying that the players have to publicly say we have financial problems but I am saying that they have to recognize it in framing an agreement.

“I mean, they keep saying that all they want is the status quo, but the status quo represents a $45 million increase in their pension fund and a $35 million increase in salaries.

“That’s $80 million from an industry already deep in red. I don’t know where they think we’re going to get the money.”

The major issue revolves around the six-year, $1.1 billion TV contract baseball signed in 1984. The union insists that its pension fund should receive the same 33% of the new TV contract that it received from the previous contract. This would mean $60-to-62 million a year compared to $15.5 million a year previously.

Said Bob Fishel, an aide to MacPhail: “Some clubs were able to increase salaries because of the increase in TV revenue. Now the players want it both ways. They want the continued growth of salaries, but they also want to take back a large chunk of the TV money.”

The owners have yet to make an offer on this, but seem to remain firm in opposition to the 33% ratio.

There are other stumbling blocks, a recent eight-point proposal, presented to the union in general terms, featured several items that the union says are designed to turn back the clock and force the players to help the owners police themselves.

Among them: A salary cap that the union says would emasculate free agency; the elimination of incentive clauses and the ability of a player to renegotiate; a rule requiring a player to put in three major league seasons rather than two before becoming eligible for salary arbitration, and an undefined extension before a player, now eligible in six years, can become a free agent.

Fehr shook his head and said: “They’ve never asked us what we want, never told us what they’d be willing to give to the pension fund, never said how much they’re trying to save--if, in fact, we were to accept their financial figures.

“I mean, Lee MacPhail has been quoted recently as saying he’s now ready to begin serious talks. I thought the negotiations began in November. What can I say except ‘Better late than never.’ ”

Will it be too late? Fehr said he would have a better idea after negotiations resume Thursday in New York. He said both sides have agreed to take the issues one by one rather than continuing the seemingly futile debate regarding the game’s financial health.

Both he and MacPhail said there was no way to predict how long a strike might last or in what form play would resume--if, in fact, it did.

The fans? Fehr said the union was sensitive to their emotions but couldn’t make collective bargaining judgments on the basis of it.

Of Commissioner Peter Ueberroth’s view that a strike would represent failure by both sides, Fehr said the commissioner has done nothing to familiarize himself with the issues nor did the owners seem to be consulting the man hired to put their financial house in order.

“I’m not inviting him into the negotiations,” Fehr said. “I simply find it interesting.”