Baseball Negotiations May Only Be Telephonic Today

Representatives of the baseball players and owners will talk by phone this morning to determine if there is any value in talking face to face.

Having indicated Friday that the collective bargaining negotiations would resume today, Don Fehr, executive director of the Major League Players Assn., seemed less certain Sunday.

“I wasn’t aware then of their public statements,” Fehr said.

He alluded to comments by Charles O’Connor, general counsel of the owners Player Relations Committee, and commissioner Fay Vincent Friday saying there is no sense in meeting unless the union is ready to compromise on arbitration eligibility and offer a comprehensive new proposal.

Fehr said Sunday that the union has not prepared such a proposal and doesn’t feel it has to since its position on arbitration is clear, and it recently made a proposal on minimum salary and pension that has yet to draw a response from the PRC.

“I suppose that if we don’t make this new proposal, the clubs will announce to the world that we failed collective bargaining 101 and we’ll never meet again,” Fehr said.

Fehr added that his last conversation with O’Connor was late Thursday when they arranged to speak by phone this morning, and Fehr said he cleared the air regarding his comment that Vincent has become the owners’ chief negotiator. He said it was not meant as an insult to O’Connor and “it’s now behind us.”

If there are no talks and no agreement through Tuesday, the April 2 start of the season will be imperiled, because the negotiations are scheduled to be recessed again for a PRC meeting in Dallas Wednesday followed by an owners meeting there Thursday.