Steinbrenner Says He Doesn’t Buy Owners’ ‘Small-Market’ Argument

While it is apparent that major league baseball’s 26 club owners are united in their plan to announce a spring training lockout today, it is less clear how long they will continue to agree.

George Steinbrenner, principal owner of the New York Yankees, said Thursday that although he supports the action to be implemented by the Player Relations Committee, he is annoyed by his fellow owners’ arguments in favor of it.

“I think the other owners are looking for a cop-out, looking for an excuse,” Steinbrenner said. “I’m tired of hearing about all these guys in small markets crying about how much the so-called rich teams are making.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m in total support of the lockout plan, but don’t look at me while you’re crying about rising salaries.

“Take a look at the top 10 salaries these days, will you? Do you see any Yankees in there? Do you see any Mets, or Dodgers or Cubs? Except for (Mark) Langston (of the Angels), all of the big contracts belong to the smaller markets. So when I hear guys like (Ewing) Kauffman (of the Kansas City Royals) crying, I want to say, ‘Give me a break.’

“I hope someone at the meeting does speak up and starts crying about being in a small market and how unfair it is. I’ll tell them exactly what’s on my mind.”

Steinbrenner is the first owner to criticize any aspect of the lockout plan that the PRC insists will be in place until the Major League Players Assn. agrees to a proposal for an overhaul of baseball’s revenue and salary system.

The necessity for a revenue-sharing program, according to Milwaukee Brewer owner Bud Selig, chairman of the PRC, is to prevent the small marketplaces from being at a disadvantage in the free-agent market.

“I never believed, coming from a small market, that revenue sharing is a panacea,” Selig said, “but the PRC has come up with an extremely skillful way of assuring competitive franchises in all sizes of markets.”

The Yankees, beginning this season, will receive $50 million a season for the next 10 years from their local TV package with the Madison Square Garden Network. They also have a lucrative radio contract, boosting the value of their local broadcasting revenue package to more than $60 million annually.

In contrast, the teams in baseball’s three-smallest markets--Kansas City, Milwaukee and Minnesota--each receive less than $5 million in local broadcasting revenue. Beginning in 1990, all major league clubs will receive $15.24 million per season from a four-year network television package.

If the large markets are to have such an advantage, Steinbrenner asks, then why have the Yankees, Mets, Cubs, White Sox, Dodgers and Angels been to just four World Series among them since the 1979 season?

“They all like to point to New York, Chicago and California,” Steinbrenner said, “but I’m tired of it. They point to us because we’re an easy target. We have the big TV contract, and that takes the heat off the culprits. They’re blaming the Yankees, but Kansas City, San Francisco, Oakland and the Angels are the big culprits. These guys are crazy.

“And go look at what (Giant General Manager) Al Rosen gave Will Clark for two years before Clark could be a free agent. That’s stupid business. But then, he never was a bright businessman.”

Rosen formerly was a Yankee executive under Steinbrenner.

The Angels signed free-agent pitcher Langston to a five-year, $16-million contract on Dec. 1; the Giants signed Clark to a four-year, $15-million contract; the Athletics signed pitcher Dave Stewart to a two-year, $7-million contract extension in January; and the Royals signed free-agent reliever Mark Davis to a four-year, $13-million contract and free-agent starter Storm Davis to a three-year, $6-million contract in December.

Said Royal General Manager John Schuerholz: “We have an owner who put up a lot of money out of his own pocket. Mr Steinbrenner confuses the issue. The fact of the matter is, it was not money generated by the club.”

Kauffman, who recently sold $700 million of Marion Laboratories stock in Kansas City, said: “The way I figured it, we were going to lose money anyway with a ballclub that wasn’t going to be all that good. So I said, ‘If we’re going to lose money anyway, we might as well sign Davis and Davis. We’ll be losing a paramount amount of money, but at least we’ll have a winning team.’

“I don’t like it one bit, but the only way we’re going to keep up with the New Yorks and L. A.’s is to spend a lot of money, and that’s what we’re being forced to do.

“The only difference is that, while we’re losing our shirts, they’re making money.”

Said Jeff Smulyan, chairman of the board of the Seattle Mariners: “It’s got to be a game for everybody. If there are cities that can’t keep up, it no longer can be the national pastime. I don’t think there’s any great mystery about the large disparity of revenue in our game.”