Plenty of Talking, No Headway : Baseball: Bush calls for settlement, Steinbrenner and McMullen rip union, but Fehr and O’Connor don’t meet.

Day 27 of the baseball owners spring training lockout was not without rhetoric, but there were no collective bargaining meetings Tuesday and none is scheduled today.

As John McMullen, owner of the Houston Astros, and George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees, were criticizing the players and their union Tuesday, the only communication between Charles O’Connor, general counsel of the owners’ Player Relations Committee, and Don Fehr, executive director of the Major League Players Assn., was an exchange of courtesy calls.

“I’d be more discouraged if we weren’t talking at all, but there is still no basis for believing a meeting would lead to a solution (on the issue of arbitration eligibility),” O’Connor said.

He and Fehr will be in the same place at the same time this morning, when arbitrator George Nicolau conducts a hearing at the union’s New York offices. He will consider a motion filed by Fehr Monday asking Nicolau to order the owners to put $52 million of their $170 million lockout fund in an escrow account as a down payment on collusion damages.

O’Connor said he would oppose the motion but declined to give reasons.

In developments Tuesday:

--Commissioner Fay Vincent met with American League President Bobby Brown and National League President Bill White to discuss cancellation of the opening set of regular-season games, but there will be no announcement before Friday, according to Brown.

The American League president said there was a reluctance to make a premature announcement if a bargaining settlement was still possible before Friday. He said that if more than two or three games are canceled, they will not be made up, adding that the primary concern is to see that every team plays the same number of games.

--In a conference call between PRC members it was decided that minor league teams will be allowed to play exhibition games in Florida and Arizona stadiums, O’Connor said, but they are not to be billed as replacement or major league games, and some or all receipts, if an admission is charged, should go to charity.

Meanwhile, both President Bush and his son, George W. Bush Jr., an owner of the Texas Rangers, entered the lockout debate Tuesday.

The President urged negotiators to resolve the stalemate so that he could attend a season opener somewhere, while his son said that the union should put the owners’ offer of a $4-million bonus pool for players with between two and three years of service to a vote of the players, which would prove if there’s “disgruntlement or division” among the members.

Fehr responded by saying that it was “unbecoming” for an owner who has not attended one negotiating session and isn’t allowed on the negotiating team by fellow owners to comment on things of which he has no knowledge.

There was more from Steinbrenner and McMullen.

The Yankee owner warned players that if they continue to reject a settlement they could find themselves out of jobs, as some air traffic controllers and National Football League players did.

Steinbrenner’s comments ignored the fact that the controllers and football players went on strike (the controllers illegally), while baseball’s confrontation stems, in large measure, from a lockout by the owners.

McMullen told the Houston Chronicle that the players have refused to accept an “unconditional surrender” by the owners because they are incapable of making a deal, that they shouldn’t be allowed in the negotiations because, “when they have an argument with their wives, they’ve got to call their agent to settle it.”

He accused players and union officials of outrageous and insulting treatment of a commissioner who has been willing to go “the whole route,” and said the current impasse may wipe out the season.

Of the comments, O’Connor said that Vincent, indeed, has been exhausted by the process but did not believe he has been insulted, although a recent comment by Fehr associate Gene Orza, relating to gangsterism among the owners, is known to have raised management’s ire.

“I do not endorse comments from anybody that can be regarded as personal or demeaning,” O’Connor said in regard to McMullen’s statements. “On the other hand, recognize that in the last four or five days a ranking official of the union has referred to the owners as a bunch of gangsters.

“Labor negotiations is like physics. An action begets a reaction. And John McMullen is John McMullen.

“Don’t ask me or the PRC to endorse everything John says, but in fairness don’t take John’s comments and put them in a vacuum.”