BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Voting Rule Cries for Compromise

Several big-market clubs are still hopeful of returning to the field by the lucrative Labor Day weekend, which would require a compromised settlement and end of the player strike by early next week.

Is it possible?

Possible, but difficult.

The major hurdle is the new voting rule requiring 21 of the 28 clubs to approve a settlement, meaning eight small-market teams can block any deal that does not include a salary cap.

How do the big markets overcome it?

1--Trash the cap by agreeing to revenue sharing with the small markets without linking it to a cap. Give the union unrestricted free agency after three or four years in exchange for the elimination of salary arbitration. Raise the minimum salary from $109,000 to more than $150,000, compensating younger players for the loss of arbitration by allowing them to move up the salary ladder more quickly.

2--Raise so much internal havoc and do so much arm twisting that the small markets are forced to concede on the cap, finally convinced the union will never accept it. The ensuing settlement would be based on the above tradeoff: earlier free agency for the elimination of arbitration.

3--Make the magnanimous gesture of saving the postseason for the fans by agreeing to waive their right to declare an impasse through 1995 in return for the players returning to the field and waiving their right to strike through ’95 as negotiations continue.

Are the small markets willing to listen to compromise?

Not if Tom Werner’s thinking is persuasive.

Although he is on the verge of selling his San Diego Padres, Werner has been boasting in the inner circles about how much money the small markets are saving with this shutdown, a big-market executive confided.

“Great attitude, huh?” the executive said.

Even more confounding is this:

--Werner, on his way out the door, is expected to be among the pool of owners and club officials from which five will join the negotiations with the union when they resume on Tuesday or Wednesday.

--He and Carl Pohlad of the Minnesota Twins, who also has his franchise for sale and is expected to be represented at the bargaining table by General Manager Andy McPhail, are allowed to sit on the executive council, which is charged with the long-term good of the game.

That’s the council chaired by Bud Selig of the small-market Milwaukee Brewers and stacked heavily with his allies, including Pohlad, Werner, Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox, Jackie Autry of the Angels and Fred Kuhlmann of the St. Louis Cardinals.

In addition, Reinsdorf, Pohlad and Kuhlmann are members of the Player Relations Committee, along with Doug Danforth of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who is also attempting to sell his team.

Is there a conflict of interest here, or what? Isn’t an owner attempting to sell his team only interested in creating a system that he perceives will increase the value of his franchise? Isn’t it a conflict of interest for that owner to join committees and negotiations aimed at establishing long-term objectives and solutions?

All of that feeds the feeling that there is more at stake here than Labor Day. Within a week or two, the owners could be past the point of no return on the season.

It took the owners 18 months to formulate and present their proposal. Selig has suggested that the current pain may be worth the long-term gain.

The owners may be committed, as the players believe, to breaking the union and unilaterally implementing their system. A Labor Day settlement devoid of a salary cap might not be acceptable, despite big-market pressure. It might all hinge on saving face and how much the big markets start to believe their own rhetoric.

Insisting that the industry will lose $100 million this year, Stan Kasten, president of the big-market Atlanta Braves, said there are two reasons the owners have failed in previous negotiations. The first, he said, is that the profitable big clubs would put together a majority coalition and force play to resume without anything having been accomplished in the labor talks.

“This time (with the minority rule), the eight teams that need the system to change the most are in charge,” Kasten said.

“The other reason we’ve lost in the past is that the strikes were basically arbitrated by the commissioner, whose only interest was playing the games. That’s fine, but he achieved that without considering the economic issues, and he could influence only one side--the owners. The point is, we never really had collective bargaining with the ability to negotiate evenly across the table. That’s why there’s no commissioner now. This is our one chance, and we’ve got to get it right.”

NUMBERS GAME

When Kasten and other club executives say that baseball will lose $100 million this year, they are employing an economic theory postulated by the late Walter O’Malley. What it means: The clubs aren’t going to lose $100 million this year. They are going to make $100 million less than the year before.

Industry revenue for 1994 is projected to be $1.8 billion, with the players receiving about 58%.

The following supports the union contention that the current dispute isn’t between players and owners, but owners and owners as to how to share their increasingly larger slice of the revenue.

In 1985, baseball had total revenue of about $720 million. The players received about $323 million. That left almost $400 million for the owners.

In 1993, in allegedly tougher times, revenue was about $1.88 billion. The players received $998 million.

That left almost $900 million for the owners, or twice the 1985 pie.

MORE NUMBERS

The owners and their negotiator, Richard Ravitch, like to float the $1.2-million average player salary, but there are other ways to look at player salaries.

For example, the average salary is just that, and somewhat misleading. Of the 746 players on opening-day rosters or on the disabled list, 237 earn more than $1.2 million and 507 earn less.

The median salary of $500,000 is considerably less than $1.2 million. Of those 746 players, 363 earned less than $500,000 and 361 earned more. Another 22 were right at it.

Ravitch has frequently said that a decreasing median proves that fewer and fewer players are receiving a larger percentage of the total take, a scenario that the players can’t be happy with and a reason that they, too, should want to change the system, according to Ravitch.

However, this year’s median--yet to be tabulated through the end of the season--is up considerably from last year’s $371,500, which would dispute Ravitch’s theory.

The union contends that the players don’t care what the median and average salaries are as long as they are established by a free market, not possible under a cap, according to the union.

“It isn’t up to Dick Ravitch or Gene Orza or Soupy Sales to determine salary dispersion,” union counsel Orza said the other day. “It’s a facet of the free market, and the players are prepared to live with it, as they always have been.”

LABOR MAN

He’s only a second-year big-market owner who continues to ruffle the hawks’ feathers by saying the salary cap should be negotiable, but Jerry McMorris of the Colorado Rockies would seem to be a natural for the owners’ negotiating team in the revived talks this week and is definitely expected to be part of the pool.

No other owner has McMorris’ labor background.

He started with three trucks in 1959 and now has 12,000. His NationsWay Transport is the largest privately owned trucking company in the country.

His formula: Buy companies at war with the Teamsters and establish peace with the union. He has never had a labor stoppage.

“It’s a relationship built on 30 years of trust and respect,” McMorris said of his union dealings.

Trust and respect? Hardly the stuff of the owner-player relationship.

PERCEPTION

The American League West doesn’t get any better with age. The strike merely underscores the mediocrity. The Texas Rangers lost their last six games and still led with a 52-62 record, which is better than only three other teams’ in baseball: division rivals Oakland, Seattle and the Angels.

“It’s hard to draw any satisfaction from a situation like this,” General Manager Tom Grieve said when asked about being first by default.