Pact or No Training Camps, Owners Say : Baseball: Lawyer makes threat as players union complains that it is being ignored.

The chief negotiator for baseball’s owners said today that spring training camps will not open unless both sides agree on an outline for a new collective bargaining agreement.

Chuck O’Connor, general counsel of the owners’ Player Relations Committee, made the statement in response to a question at the end of a nearly two-hour briefing for reporters on the proposal being pushed by the owners.

The first players are scheduled to report for spring training Feb. 15. Asked what would happen if there is no agreement by then, O’Connor said unequivocally, “The camps will not open.”

After the briefing, the union and management began their 15th negotiating session in an effort to replace the contract that expired Dec. 31. The sides had met Wednesday without progress as the owners continued to argue in favor of their revenue-sharing proposal.

“I’m a little frustrated with it,” union Executive Director Donald Fehr said after Wednesday’s three-hour session. “Their strategy is to talk about their stuff. It’s clear they are not of a mind to seriously discuss the players’ proposal.”

The sides are to negotiate three more times next week before owners meet in Chicago on Friday.

Management’s plan calls for the players to get 48% of the revenue from ticket sales and broadcast contracts. The proposal is tied to a pay-for-performance plan that calls for players with fewer than six years in the major leagues to be paid according to statistical formulas.

The owners withdrew their proposed change in the collusion language that would have made it harder for the union to prove its cases.

Fehr said the union’s proposals on economic issues did not get any “meaningful” response, but he emphasized that the talks still are at an early stage.

“The season is not going to be canceled tomorrow, I hope,” he said.

The players are asking that the minimum salary rise from $68,000 to between $100,000 and $125,000, that the service time for salary arbitration be reduced from three years to two, that team rosters go back to 25 players from 24 and that draft-pick compensation for certain free agents be dropped.

“They’re not willing to agree to any of the suggestions we’ve made,” Fehr said. “The reason, they say, is cost, but they can’t quantify the cost.”

Owners say they need revenue sharing because they fear there will be a gap in income between teams from large and small cities. But they have been unable to tell the union when they think it will happen.

“We’re looking for the rationale,” Fehr said, adding that the owners’ inability to pinpoint their problem “does take the urgency off it.”