Arbitrator Won’t Have Quick Collusion Verdict

Amid speculation that spring training or the early phase of the season could be disrupted by a decision that would award immediate free agency to a number of key players in baseball’s second collusion case, arbitrator George Nicolau said Monday that it isn’t going to happen.

At issue is the owners’ conduct during the winter of 1986-87, when Tim Raines, Andre Dawson, Lance Parrish, Jack Morris, Ron Guidry, Rich Gedman, Bob Boone and Doyle Alexander were among the free agents who challenged the owners’ solidarity.

Their lack of success led the Major League Players Assn. to file a grievance that charged the owners with violating the collective bargaining agreement by acting in concert to restrict free-agent movement.

In a similar case regarding the owners’ conduct during the winter of 1985-86, arbitrator Tom Roberts found them guilty of collusion.

Then, in his first remedial decision stemming from the ensuing penalty hearings, Roberts granted modified free agency to Kirk Gibson and six other players who were free agents during that winter.

Nicolau has completed the evidence and testimony phase of his hearings on the second grievance, but he refuted speculation that Raines, Dawson, Morris and the other involved players could become free agents again by mid-March.

“I’ve read that and can assure you it isn’t going to happen,” he said from his New York office.

“I’ve already got a 9,000-page record to read, and the briefs aren’t scheduled to be filed until early March.

“I’m allowed 30 days to write a decision once the hearing is completely over, but I can also ask for an extension, and in a case of this size, I probably will.

“I know there are people anxious to have a decision, but I’m more concerned with making the right decision.”

Thus, Nicolau said, in all likelihood it will be May or late April at the earliest before he announces a decision. And even then, he said, the decision will deal only with the guilt or innocence of the owners.

If guilty, he said, “I would then deal with the penalties in the same fashion Roberts did.” That means he would conduct a penalty phase stretching over several weeks.

Roberts ruled on Sept. 21, 1987, that the owners were guilty of collusion.

He then began a penalty phase leading to his Jan. 22 decision that awarded modified free agency to Gibson and the six others. He currently has recessed the penalty hearings until mid-summer, when he is expected to award financial damages to the involved players.

If Nicolau, as expected, renders a guilty verdict in May and then follows the same timetable Roberts did, it would be August or September before Raines and the others could become free agents again, creating the possibility that Nicolau might wait until the season is over before setting them free.

Then again, with the Roberts’ decision as precedent, he may not require four months before making his first remedial ruling.

In any case, it won’t happen in spring training and probably not during the first half of the season, foiling the hopes of Morris, Parrish and others who contend that the calendar has become an ally of the owners.