Negotiators Keep Bats on Shoulders Again : Baseball: Compromise appears as elusive as ever as the Friday strike deadline approaches.

There was no progress Monday during negotiations on the non-economic issues in baseball’s bargaining agreement, no hint of a compromise on the major issue of a salary cap and the likelihood of a strike beginning Friday loomed ever larger.

“We’re talking apples and oranges,” said Richard Ravitch, the owners’ chief negotiator.

Negotiations on the proposed salary cap--strongly opposed by the players’ union--will resume Wednesday, but both Ravitch and Don Fehr, the union’s executive director, said they did not expect either side to change its position. If that turns out to be the case, Thursday’s games will be the last before the players strike Friday.

Fehr said he was resigned to baseball’s eighth work stoppage in 22 years, again blamed the owners for forcing it and said he has been unable to convince Ravitch that the union will never accept a salary cap despite “hitting him over the head with everything except the kitchen sink” on that point.

Said Ravitch: “I don’t want to spark any unrealistic optimism, but when you’re in a situation like this, I wouldn’t dare predict what’s going to happen between now and Friday. That doesn’t mean I think the fairy godmother will descend with a solution.”

Ravitch also said that although the union rejected a salary cap in the last two negotiations and he accepts Fehr’s rigidity on it, he isn’t sure all 800 players share that ideology, indicating that he believes the owners can outlast the players for the first time. He said the owners have no plans to offer any other proposal.

The owners’ proposal calls for a 50-50 split with the players of all revenue generated by both sides--58% of the owners’ 1994 revenue will go to salaries--along with the elimination of salary arbitration and reduction of free agency eligibility from six years of major league service to four, with a player’s current club having the right to match his best offer.

Both Ravitch and Fehr said they saw no value in the possible intercession of Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who has offered his assistance. A sarcastic Fehr added that the only sign of hope was that interim commissioner Bud Selig on Sunday, backed off the owners’ claim that 19 teams would lose money this year, saying the number was 12 to 14.

“If we can keep up that kind of progress, maybe we’ll be all right,” Fehr said.