BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Chaos Wins if Season Is Called Off

If the remainder of the 1994 season is canceled, as appeared even more likely Saturday, the Fall Classic is certain to be replaced by a fall, winter, spring and perhaps summer of chaos.

“Utter chaos,” Donald Fehr, executive director of the players’ union, said of the expected reaction to the owners’ anticipated decision to unilaterally implement a salary cap that would eliminate arbitration and restrict free agency, besides putting a ceiling on payrolls. “It’s new territory, so anyone who says they know what would happen should take a cold shower, but we would take every legal step at our disposal. It would be resisted by the players, individually and collectively, any way they can.”

“I just can’t imagine the players playing under a salary cap they went on strike to resist.”

The salary cap was still there Saturday, still the drum beat John Harrington, the Boston Red Sox CEO, and Stan Kasten, president of the Atlanta Braves, were marching to during a morning meeting with union officials pertaining to revenue sharing.

That was expected to be the topic, at least, but it always gets back to the cap.

“They reassured us of two things,” Fehr said. “They need the cap and they were in the process of leaving town. Clearly, the owners have no desire to reach an agreement and never have.

“Every signal I’ve received from ownership is that they don’t intend to play ball again this year.”

Acting commissioner Bud Selig is expected to make that announcement Monday or Tuesday.

The Brewer owner was in Milwaukee on Saturday, and it was uncertain whether he would return to New York to deliver his season-ending benediction.

“Bud has made it clear he wants to sit on the mountaintop and pass judgments, assuming Milwaukee is a mountaintop,” Fehr said.

“I mean, Bud really likes the job and the gravity he feels and he wants everyone to know the weight he has on his shoulders.”

The burden will only become heavier if the owners implement the cap.

Said one union lawyer: “It will spawn so much litigation that only the lawyers and accountants will make any money.”

Said another: “I wouldn’t be surprised if the 1995 season didn’t start until June, and by then there may be only 22 or 23 clubs because a few of them may not survive April and May (considering the revenue they already have lost as a result of a players strike that began on Aug. 12).”

If the rest of the season goes down, including playoffs and the World Series, the union estimates that the 28 clubs will have lost between $600 million and $800 million in gross revenue because of the strike, and between $400 million and $500 million after the savings on salaries is deducted.

Those losses will be compounded by a continuation of the strike in 1995, one of the almost certain responses to unilateral implementation.

Not only would the viability of some clubs be threatened, the value of several others up for sale would be significantly diminished because of the industry’s overall uncertainty, union lawyers believe.

“If Jackie Autry thought she could still get $150 million for the Angels, she’d be sadly mistaken,” a union lawyer said.

In addition to the likelihood of the strike resuming in 1995, the union has other options.

--It can complain to the National Labor Relations Board that the owners failed to negotiate in good faith, initiating a long and complex process that ultimately could lead to an administrative law judge who would have authority to overturn the salary-cap system and compensate the union financially.

The union acknowledges that it is difficult to prove bad faith, but believes its potential case was enhanced when the owners failed to supply complete data on their revenue-sharing plan until the strike was in its fourth week. The owners also never made even one alteration to their proposal.

--It could file a default grievance aimed at making every player a free agent.

--It could help underwrite a new league through $200 million in licensing revenue. A new league, of course, is far from the most viable of options, but it already is being used by the union as leverage. Said Dodger center fielder Brett Butler, a member of the union’s negotiating committee: “Players would be more willing to start a new league than to play with a salary cap.”

--It could hope that Congress reacts to cancellation of the World Series by removing the owners’ antitrust exemption, broadening their legal options. The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled new hearings on the exemption for Sept. 22, and Fehr said: “Sooner or later legislators have to understand that as long as they tolerate cartels, sooner or later those cartels will do the things cartels do. The owners would not have a snowball’s chance in hell of implementing the cap if the exemption was removed.”

Would it be reward enough if the strike resulted in the exemption’s removal?

Fehr shook his head and said, “You do what you have to do in the context of bargaining. You don’t go on strike to get the exemption lifted. You go on strike in the hope of reaching an agreement.”

In this case, you also go on strike because it’s your only economic leverage against unilateral implementation, a step the owners can take at any time.

There are no negotiating sessions scheduled today, and no owners remained in town Saturday after Harrington and Kasten left. The union’s executive board, comprising the 28 player representatives, will meet here Monday to review its situation.

Fehr said he would apprise the board that “spring training appears to be in jeopardy” and, if Selig brings down the season, it becomes even more obvious that the owners “intent is to break the union, to keep the children from playing. It’s old-fashioned union busting.”

All of that is the stuff of chaos, but there’s more: Do the players sign contracts if the owners implement? Under what system do the 192 players eligible for free agency operate, along with the 182 eligible for arbitration? Would the clubs attempt to use minor leaguers as replacement players in ‘95? Do the complexities of the salary-cap proposal, compounded by 1994 revenue and payroll yardsticks, make immediate implementation impossible because too many clubs would be over the cap?

The initial plan was to phase in the system over four seasons. Management sources insisted Saturday that a decision on implementation has yet to be reached. Fehr scoffed at that, saying it’s a foregone conclusion. Asked if he was surprised that the eighth stoppage since 1972 has gone this far and come to this, he again shook his head and said:

“Ever since the owners fired Fay Vincent (as commissioner), I’ve heard Jerry Reinsdorf (Chicago White Sox owner) talk about going to war with the players, so I’m not surprised.”

Neither is Vincent. He predicted that these would be the “Bud and Jerry Ice Cream Wars.”

PACKAGE DEAL

The Chicago Cubs will pay the Minnesota Twins $350,000 and a player--possibly left-handed hitting first baseman Brooks Kieschnick, their No. 1 draft choice of 1993--as compensation for hiring general manager Andy MacPhail as president and CEO of the Cubs.

MacPhail shook hands on a five-year deal that will pay him $600,000 a year, with incentives that could take it to $900,000. He will receive memberships in a country club and private club, along with stock options and benefit plans through the parent Chicago Tribune Co.

Larry Himes will be fired as the Cubs’ general manager, having never really recovered from the departure of Greg Maddux as a free agent. MacPhail may fill the GM role, too, rather than hire a replacement.

His handsome deal with the Cubs was floated past union leader Fehr, who smiled and said, “Obviously, salary caps only apply to players.”