Both Sides in Praise of Ueberroth Remarks on Salary Cap Proposal

Both the owner and the union sides of the baseball contract talks appeared Sunday to welcome baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth’s statement opposing the owners’ proposal for a cap on player salaries and staking out an independent position in the negotiations.

With a strike deadline of Aug. 6 little more than two weeks away, the head of the owners’ negotiating committee, Bud Selig of the Milwaukee Brewers, lauded Ueberroth for being “very, very constructive in the whole process” and said he is happy that Ueberroth is working to “increase lines and levels of communication in all areas.”

Selig added that he is particularly pleased that Ueberroth has been consulting on a regular basis with players’ union leader Donald Fehr.

Asked if the owners might now abandon their salary cap proposal, Selig did not answer one way or the other. He said the owners will confer this week.

Union leader Fehr said he is pleased that Ueberroth “is now saying publicly the things he has been saying privately.

“Why he’s saying it, I don’t know,” Fehr added. “But maybe what Peter (Ueberroth) has done is foster a vacuum in the talks, and he may now have a limited time to move into it.”

The effect of Ueberroth’s statement appeared to be to cut a great deal of ground out from under the owners’ salary cap proposal, since it would, from a practical point of view, be close to impossible for union leaders to accept a management proposal that the commissioner--who is hired and paid by the owners--has rejected.

Since the last players’ contract was signed in 1981, the average annual salary of the 650 major league players has nearly doubled, from $185,000 to $363,000. But salaries are not the only major issue involved in the present talks. If the owners were to abandon hope of putting a cap on salaries, they probably would press for a substantial cutback in the percentage of television revenues going into the players’ pension fund.

Fehr reiterated Sunday that there remains enough time to reach a settlement without a strike. But he indicated that if Ueberroth is going to get involved actively in the talks, he had better come in as soon as possible.

Selig expressed surprise that Ueberroth has been telling players in a series of private clubhouse meetings that most owners would vote to fire him if a vote were held today. The Brewers owner said that to the contrary he and other owners he knows welcome Ueberroth’s statements and do not regard them as “anything aberrational.”

“Peter is a very independent thinker,” Selig said. “This is only a further manifestation of that.”

The baseball talks have been going on for eight months with essentially no progress reported. The players’ general contract expired last Dec. 31, and Fehr said last week that had a strike deadline not been set by the union he was convinced the owners representatives would have been content to talk for another 20 years without progress.