Outlook Becomes Brighter : Baseball: Owners make concessions, and Fehr says latest proposal is a step in right direction.

Baseball’s collective bargaining negotiations are being conducted here in the commissioner’s office on Park Avenue, but maybe they should be moved to Wall Street, the fluctuations in substance and atmosphere being that similar to the stock market’s.

On Thursday--Day 8 of the owners’ lockout of players from spring training camps--there was a return of bull-market optimism.

Only 24 hours after offering a proposal that outraged the players’ union with its new restrictions on salary arbitration and salary potential for younger players, the owners’ Player Relations Committee withdrew virtually everything the players had found objectionable.

In place of Wednesday’s proposal was submitted one that addressed the union’s desire for increases in minimum salary and pension contribution, and left arbitration as it is, including the three-year requirement for eligibility, still a sticking point for the union, which wants it rolled back to two.

Don Fehr, executive director of the Major League Players Assn., said he was confused by the shifts in offers and emotions but considered this latest proposal a step in the right direction.

“We’ve come a substantial way in terms from where we were, (Wednesday), though we still have a ways to go,” he said.

“It’s a problem that they’ve come this late with what I would characterize as an opening offer, but at least it has come.”

Fehr, who had considered breaking off talks today to leave on a cross-country trip designed to update the players, said he would sample player reaction by phone and meet with the PRC again this morning.

“The PRC indicated a desire today to wrap this up shortly, so no one is going to leave as long as there is the likelihood of being productive here,” Fehr said, adding that he is scheduled to meet with his executive board in Phoenix Tuesday.

Both Fehr and Charles O’Connor, the PRC’s general counsel, said there was a “sense of urgency to get it done this weekend” to protect the April 2 opening of the season.

That urgency, O’Connor said, was one aspect of what seemed to be a mind-boggling change in proposals, leaving the union, after two months of warding off revenue sharing and arbitration caps, in position to emerge with an improved version of the status quo.

What had happened Wednesday, when the PRC seemed to bow to hawk elements among the ownership and tried to override Commissioner Fay Vincent’s attempts at a compromise solution?

A management source said Thursday it could probably best be described as one last shot at a radical change in the economic structure. Having failed, the PRC’s bargaining team--including five owners and the president of the St. Louis Cardinals--met Thursday morning, when Vincent’s philosophy and authority were reasserted.

Deputy Commissioner Steve Greenberg then called to invite the union to an afternoon meeting and presentation of the opening terms.

Asked later about Wednesday’s events, Vincent said he preferred to focus on Thursday’s developments, adding that he felt comfortable with the clubs’ proposal and the status of the talks.

He acknowledged that there has been debate but said that no one in the PRC disagrees with the latest move, a straightforward invitation, he said, to a real agreement.

The softened proposal, he said, encompassed the need to take a serious look at the game’s economics through a joint study of revenue sharing and acknowledged the potential harm in allowing the current situation to linger. He said that protecting the start of the season was a factor in bidding now for a quick settlement but that consideration of the fans and the anguish of businesses in Arizona and Florida were also factors.

“With the union’s cooperation, we can put this behind us and start to build a better relationship,” Vincent said. “We’re acknowledging the need to look forward, not backward.”

Cynics might suggest that the PRC also finally acknowledged that both sides have too much money at stake to risk losing any of the season.

Thursday’s proposal, aside from eliminating the restrictive aspects that angered the union Wednesday, carried these provisions:

--The minimum salary would be raised from $68,000 to $85,000, with a $5,000 increase during each year of a four-year contract that either side could re-open after two years. The union seeks a minimum between $100,000 and $125,000.

--The pension contribution would be increased from $39 million a year to $42.3 million, going up to 47.3 million in the fourth year. The owners’ current contribution translates to about a third of the national TV contract. The union covets a similar percentage of the new, $1.06-billion TV contract, or about $100 million a year.

Fehr said the salary and pension offers provide the basis for discussion, but not agreement.

There is also nothing in the proposal about the union’s desire to increase roster size from 24 players to 25, nor is the requirement for arbitration eligibility changed from three years to two.

Would the union accept three years if the pot were sweetened in other areas?

Dodger player representative Tim Belcher said yes, but added that the other areas would have to be substantially sweetened, including the minimum salary.

“A lot of the players feel it is worth risking an extended lockout to get that year back,” Belcher said.

Of the overall proposal, he said: “It represents substantial movement toward serious negotiations but not substantial movement toward a settlement in the next 12 hours.

“Where we are today is where we should have been two months ago, given the health of the game.”

The PRC, believing that too many cooks have been spoiling the broth or, at least, prolonging the cooking time, requested that only two players sit in on Thursday’s meeting.

The union agreed and selected Belcher and Paul Molitor of the Milwaukee Brewers.

Molitor said that his feeling was one of cautious optimism, but that the shifts in offers had contributed to confusion and doubt as to who carries management’s authority.

“Something will be said in a meeting, and the next day we get the feeling from them that whatever was said shouldn’t have been, that whoever said it shouldn’t have,” Molitor said.

“Today, everything came from Fay and Steve (Greenberg). There was a clearer feel for who has the authority. If it continues, fine. If it doesn’t, we’re back where we started.”

Fehr said: “We’re not only taking it one day at a time, but one meeting at a time.”