THE LOCKOUT: DAY 1 : THE KEY PLAYERS

DON FEHR

The 41-year-old executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Assn. grew up in Prairie View, Kan., graduated from Indiana and received his law degree from Missouri in 1973. He began his career as a law clerk for Judge Elmo Hunter of the U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., then joined the Kansas City law firm of Jolley, Moran, Walsh, Hager & Gordon, which was selected as the local representative of the Players Assn. in 1975 when the landmark case involving Andy Messersmith was tried in federal court in Kansas City. Arbitrator Peter Seitz ultimately declared Messersmith a free agent, invalidating the clubs’ longstanding contention that the option clause in baseball’s standard contract renewed itself every year, tying a player to his parent club until he was traded or retired.

The ruling created the system of free agency, and Fehr’s work on that case eventually led to his hiring in 1976 as the union’s general counsel, replacing Richard Moss, who left to become a player agent. Fehr, in his new capacity, worked closely with Marvin Miller, the union’s executive director and architect of the players’ sweeping growth in salary, rights and solidarity.

When Miller retired in 1983, federal mediator Kenneth Moffett was hired as his replacement, but Moffett’s conciliatory philosophy concerned the players, who thought the clubs would view it as a weakness, leaving the union vulnerable in collective bargaining situations. Moffett was fired a few months later, and Fehr took charge, exerting and exhibiting a Miller-type intransigence and disregard for ultimatums and intimidation when player rights have been involved.

Despite two--and perhaps, three--years of club collusion regarding free agents, which is likely to cost the clubs more than $70 million in penalties, rthe average player salary in 1990 is expected to reach $600,000, and Fehr has responded to the clubs’ revenue-sharing proposal by refusing to yield the key components of the salary escalation: free agency and arbitration. “They’re trying to reinvent the wheel,” he says, adding that if management wants a true partnership, the players must have a voice in the decision-making process.

The current negotiations, while producing an impasse, have been marked by cordiality, but Fehr notes, “Just because we’re friends, I’m not going to sell you my $400,000 house for $200,000.”

CHARLES O’CONNOR

The 49-year-old general counsel of the owners’ Player Relations Committee grew up in Boston, graduated from Holy Cross in 1963 and received his law degree from Boston College in 1966. Even while working as a bricklayer in college and enduring what he calls the torments of all Red Sox fans, O’Connor knew he wanted to make a career in labor and contract law.

He got his start in the general counsel’s office of the National Labor Relations Board in Washington. In 1979, he joined the Washington/New York firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, becoming a partner three years later. The firm is one of the largest labor-oriented firms in the country, and O’Connor’s practice has been directly related to collective bargaining and contract enforcement in such industries as trucking, brewing, construction and public services.

O’Connor came to the attention of Bud Selig, owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and now chairman of the PRC, in 1981 while working on a project for Anheuser-Busch, which owns the St. Louis Cardinals. His firm was later hired by then-commissioner Peter Ueberroth to work with the PRC and its then-executive director, Barry Rona. When the latter resigned on the eve of the current negotiations--under pressure, it is believed, from some owners and Commissioner Fay Vincent--O’Connor was appointed general counsel and viewed as a voice of conciliation at a time when Vincent was stressing the importance of improved relations with the union.

“Conciliator? Yes. But the thing I’d be concerned about is that I don’t think--at least in my experience dealing with union leaders and management leaders--that you should ever confuse civility with weakness,” O’Connor says, having given the union few opportunities to present its proposals while he hammers at the revenue-sharing concept authored in partnership with Selig.