Vincent’s Role in Baseball Talks Still Uncertain

It remains unclear what role Commissioner Fay Vincent has played or will play in baseball’s stalled collective bargaining negotiations, but the impression is that at some point he will be heard. It’s assumed that he is not interested in a prolonged disruption of spring training or the season.

“I understand my obligation and am trying to exercise it,” Vincent said from his New York office Wednesday, adding that he cannot be specific, that diplomacy is best conducted away from the spotlight.

“I intend to be opportunistic and relevant,” he said. “I hope at some point I can be helpful. I’m trying very hard right now to let the process play out. The parties are at the table, and I believe in the process.”

Vincent said he also believes that baseball faces future problems from the revenue disparity between teams in big and small markets and that the owners’ revenue-sharing proposal addresses that problem. The proposal would eliminate arbitration and modify free agency, and the Major League Players Assn. has said it is aimed strictly at eradicating the market and lowering salaries.

If the union does not accept the concept by Feb. 15, spring training camps will not open, the owners’ Player Relations Committee has said. The owners will meet in Chicago Friday to receive an update on the negotiations. Charles O’Connor, the committee’s general counsel, said after a brief and fruitless negotiating session Wednesday, the last until Monday, that he knows of no scenario in which the camps would be opened without an agreement.

“As far as I know, nothing has changed,” he said, alluding to the resolutions of support that the owners gave the committee in July and December.

He reiterated that a lockout is “part and parcel” of negotiations and that the clubs favor a spring resolution rather than face the risk of a player strike amid the pressure of the season--at a time, perhaps, when the players have received most of their salary but the clubs are still waiting for the bulk of their national TV revenue.

Said Vincent, who will attend Friday’s owners’ meeting: “I’m disturbed by any threat to the season and spring training. Baseball has a public trust, and it’s to the best interest of all of us to see that the spring and season is not impaired.”

Asked what he has learned from a historical review of the commissioner’s role in labor relations, including Bowie Kuhn’s decision to order the camps opened amid the lockout of 1976, Vincent said: “The history of baseball is not a road map. There has never been a successful negotiation. Looking back at the way my predecessors responded doesn’t lead to adaptation. Each commissioner acted differently amid different circumstances. The only thing I can tell you is that I’ve talked to a variety of people and received a certain amount of counseling.”

Don Fehr, the union’s executive director, will meet with players who live in the Los Angeles area at an airport hotel tonight. He told the Associated Press Wednesday that he still believes that the owners will implement the lockout at their Chicago meeting.