Arbitrator Rules Baseball Owners Guilty of Collusion

In a strongly worded statement that seems to represent a significant and embarrassing rebuke of Commissioner Peter Ueberroth and the 26 baseball owners, arbitrator Tom Roberts ruled Monday that the owners violated the collective bargaining agreement by conspiring to restrict free-agent movement during the winter of 1985-86.

Acting in response to a grievance filed by the Major League Players Assn. on Feb. 2, 1986, Roberts wrote that the owners conspired to “destroy” free agency after the 1985 season, violating Article XVIII, Section H, of the bargaining agreement, which holds that players cannot act in concert with other players and that clubs cannot act in concert with other clubs.

Roberts, in a 16-page decision, wrote that the owners’ approach to free agency in 1985 was “not consistent with the existence of a free market” and that Kirk Gibson, Donnie Moore and the 60 other free agents of that winter “surely had a value at some price and yet no offers were advanced.” The word no was underlined.

What does it mean?

Detroit Tigers pitcher Jack Morris said that a labor-law violation means that the owners are “crooks” and the only question now is “what do we do with the crooks?”

Don Fehr, the union’s executive director, suggested: “Make them pay.”

Fehr called the decision a “significant and unmistakable victory.” He said that he hopes it would influence the owners to restore a legitimate system of free agency.

He also said that he will ask Roberts, who will preside over a penalty phase, to create new free agency opportunities for the free agents of 1985-86 or to establish a scale of financial compensation based on what they would have received in a true free market--all in addition to seeking possible punitive damages, particularly for players who lost their livelihood because of the absence of a free market, such as Rod Carew.

Fehr said that he hopes Roberts will establish penalties for future violations but that the union will be prepared for a “major confrontation” when the current collective bargaining agreement expires in 1989 if the owners don’t restore the free-agent system. That confrontation could take the form of additional litigation or what player agent Tom Reich said Monday would be a “wipe-out strike.”

Fehr said: “The arbitrator supported our contention that the clubs entered into a common scheme, the effect of which was to destroy free agency. They corked the market. We will now ask him to make sure that it never happens again.”

Barry Rona, legal counsel to the owners’ Player Relations Committee, said he obviously disagrees with Roberts’ decision but that the clubs want to comply and will comply.

Rona added, however: “I’m baffled and confused as to how to advise them. I can’t order a club to engage in free agency, just as I can’t and have never ordered them to remain out of it. I know there are clubs that remain concerned about the future and will not change their current policy of financial restraint. The important consideration is that they have always acted independently.”

Among the players who will be eligible for free agency this winter are Dale Murphy, Mike Schmidt, Jack Clark, Jesse Barfield, Cal Ripken, Gary Gaetti, Chili Davis, Nolan Ryan, Mike Scott, Jack Morris, Dave Righetti, Mike Witt, Bruce Hurst, Dave Smith and Jesse Orosco. Will they encounter a free market?

The Angels Monday were among several clubs saying they will continue to build from within and through trade, putting a low priority on free agentry, but that picture should be clearer once the owners assess the penalties Roberts deems appropriate for the 1985-86 violations. By that time the owners may be under fire on a second front as well.

Monday’s decision, according to Fehr, at least, established a clear-cut precedent on the conspiracy issue, establishing the likelihood of a union victory in the grievance hearing pertaining to the free agents of 1986-87.

“If the owners couldn’t explain Gibson and Moore, how are they going to explain Tim Raines?” Fehr asked.

Raines, the offensive catalyst of the Montreal Expos and one of baseball’s best players, was unsigned as a free agent last winter and finally returned to the Expos on May 1, the same date that free agents Bob Boone, Rich Gedman, Ron Guidry and Doyle Alexander returned to their original teams, having received no other offers.

Among the best of last winter’s free agents, only Lance Parrish and Andre Dawson switched teams, both for less than they were offered by their previous clubs.

The union’s second grievance is being heard by arbitrator George Nicolau. A decision is expected in November.

Major financial penalties could force the owners to restore a legitimate market, though Rona said he sees no basis for those penalties.

Faced with the prospect of Roberts conducting a series of arbitration cases to determine how much the free agents of 1985-86 should have received, Rona said: “I don’t see how the players can demonstrate they were damaged. Kirk Gibson, who was the premier free agent of that winter, received $4 million for three years (from his original team, the Detroit Tigers). Donnie Moore received $3 million for three years (from his original team, the Angels). How much more were they going to receive?”

Significantly more, according to their respective agents.

David Pinter, who represents Moore, said that Moore received a “beautiful contract” from the Angels but that it is not unreasonable to think he should have received half of what Bruce Sutter had previously received from the Atlanta Braves, which was $11 million for six years.

“Put the Dave Henderson homer and Donnie’s injuries of this year out of your mind,” Pinter said. “Donnie had just saved 31 games, a club record. At any other time he would have gotten a five-year deal for between $5.5 and $6.5 million, but he didn’t even get one other offer. Why shouldn’t he still be compensated in some way, though I certainly don’t hold the Angels liable.”

Gibson was coming off a season in which he drove in 97 runs and hit 29 homers. Agent Doug Baldwin said other legitimate superstars, outfielders such as Rickey Henderson, were signing for $1.5 million to $1.7 million a year. Gibson received $1.3. Baldwin said compensation is in order.

“We were stonewalled in every aspect,” Baldwin said. “Not one team asked, ‘How many years?’ or, ‘Would he like to play here?’ All I got was, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ It was arrogance. It was the most egregious slap in the face. They simply decided, ‘We’re not going to play by the rules we had agreed to play by.’ It was all right there in the collective bargaining agreement they had already signed. Where was there integrity?”

Of that winter’s 62 free agents, only two switched teams. Juan Beniquez went from the Angels to the Baltimore Orioles, and Dane Iorg went from the Kansas City Royals to the San Diego Padres. Carlton Fisk and Phil Niekro, like Gibson and Moore, were forced back to their original teams. No player in the last two winters has been offered more than a three-year contract.

Was it coincidence or a freeze out?

The union claims that the clubs have received their orders from the PRC, which has received them from Ueberroth. The commissioner claims that you can’t get 26 owners to agree on anything, and testified on that point during the grievance hearing.

Ueberroth was unavailable for comment Monday, but his spokesman, Rich Levin, released a statement from Rona, who works at the same address on Park Avenue in Manhattan, to the effect that the clubs will continue to recognize their financial responsibility and that Roberts found nothing wrong with the communications that the PRC sends to the clubs, often pointing out the negative impact of multiyear contracts or the money wasted on free agents now out of the game.

Rona, consistently citing an increase in the average salary from $52,200 in 1976 to $412,520 in 1986, has frequently said that the owners arrived at their current philosophy through common sense rather than conspiracy, that the pivotal event occurred when Ueberroth ordered the owners to open their books during the last collective bargaining negotiations and they were embarrassed to discover how much money they were losing.

“There is nothing in the bargaining agreement that says they have to bid on free agents,” he said Monday.

Roberts weighed 288 exhibits and 5,682 pages of transcript before making his decision. The process took nearly 18 months because at one point the owners fired Roberts in apparent unhappiness over another decision in which he said that the clubs could not unilaterally put drug testing clauses in multiyear contracts. The union protested, and arbitrator Richard Bloch ordered Roberts reinstated.

Roberts’ decision Monday seems to include no clear-cut evidence of conspiracy but in several instances cited clubs cooling on the possible signing of a free agent--Gibson by Kansas City, for example--in the immediate wake of an owners’ meeting or concurrent with an owners’ meeting.

Said San Diego based player agent Tony Attanassio, talking about the 26 clubs: “Whether they all bid or not isn’t the issue. Whether they all hand out million- dollar contracts isn’t the issue. No one can force them to do that. The qualified players simply have to have the chance to move. That’s the issue. Let’s hope the owners now show the integrity they’re always talking about.”

Agent Reich put it another way, saying the issue wasn’t just Gibson or Moore but all the free agents who ended up in the minor leagues or out of baseball, period. He predicted that the market will improve but remain difficult. He said that the owners have to realize that the potential for punitive penalties from the two collusion cases is staggering.

“Anyone who downgrades the significance of a conspiracy decision doesn’t understand what’s involved,” he said, adding, however, that it’s no time for the players to crow.