Hershiser Mournful Over Talks : Baseball: Dodger pitcher laments possible loss of postseason games; final word from Selig likely today or Tuesday.

Orel Hershiser, pitcher and player representative, sat in a Manhattan coffee shop Sunday a long way from the Dodger Stadium mound and still a long way from a settlement in the strike he is here to support.

On the 31st day of the stoppage, there was no movement and no productive contact between owners and players.

Barring an 11th-hour settlement, acting commissioner Bud Selig is expected to foreclose on the remainder of the season either today or Tuesday.

“The death of a friend,” Hershiser said of the possible loss of the World Series.

The Dodger right-hander also said that as a potential free agent uncertain of what system will be in place if the owners unilaterally implement their salary cap proposal, he might not be signed until mid-summer because the strike probably will resume next spring. He ultimately hopes to return to the Dodgers, he said, but that, too, is in limbo.

Losing $16,939 a day on the $3-million a year contract that paid him $9 million in salary, incentives and signing bonus during the 1992 and ’93 seasons, Hershiser said he has been too involved trying to “protect the rights of the players and what the players believe is good for the industry” to think about his own situation.

However, any time his future was discussed with the Dodgers it was always in the context of waiting until the bargaining agreement is settled.

“It could be as early as spring training or as late as the All-Star break before we even talk,” he said, adding that a dysfunctional system could leave rosters in chaos and the courts besieged by unsigned players.

The clubs, he said, will be hammered economically.

“If we go past the World Series (without a settlement) I don’t see the leagues functioning in terms of spring training and maybe not until the All-Star break of next season when again there’s a pressure point on owners to have baseball on TV,” he said, confident he can wait it out, that his rebuilt shoulder can sustain another three to five years.

The veteran of 11 major league seasons will turn 36 on Friday. He was 6-6 with a 3.79 earned-run average when the strike began.

“It’s interesting times and hard to predict,” Hershiser said. “We’ve seen organizational players of the past who seemed certain to end up dying in a Dodger uniform finishing in another. There are a lot of new stadiums and attractive places to play baseball now other than Los Angeles, but I don’t think anything could surpass the experience of being with the Dodgers and finishing my career with the Dodgers.”

Hershiser hopes to finish the 1994 season with the Dodgers in the new playoff format. “It’s the reason we play,” he said, “and to have that opportunity taken away is frustrating and disappointing.”

It isn’t gone yet, but there’s no sign of a miracle. Hershiser has been at the table as a member of the union’s negotiating committee. The executive board, made up of the 28 player representatives, will meet today and Tuesday.

Hershiser said he was mystified by the control of the small markets and the absence of any role or rhetoric involving the teams in baseball’s two most important media and entertainment markets: New York and Los Angeles. He said there is no clear indication of who has had the real negotiating authority for the owners and no clear indication they have wanted to negotiate.

“It’s just grandstand, just a show,” he said, endorsing the view of union leader Donald Fehr that the owners’ objective is to implement the cap and break the union. The owners’ out-of-hand dismissal of the tax plan proposed by the players Thursday after being encouraged to pursue that concept in behind-the-scenes meetings with club executives underscores the belief that the owners have never intended to deviate from those objectives, both Hershiser and Fehr said Sunday.

“It’s clearly been a joke,” Fehr said. “The few times someone said we have to try and work things out, either their authority was stripped, or they never had any.”

Selig swept in Friday to make sure his negotiating committee rejected the proposal, then left as soon as the announcement was made.

Hershiser shook his head, reflecting on the obvious conflict of a club owner serving as acting commissioner.

“Is he acting in the interest of the industry or his own club?” Hershiser said. “How is it that the center of power is in Milwaukee and not New York or Los Angeles? Commissioners are hired and fired by the owners. They are never truly unbiased, but now you have a commissioner who operates his own club. Fay Vincent and Peter Ueberroth were totally neutral by comparison.”

The cap, he said, will destroy free agency and depress salaries. Championships will be won and lost by teams that have flexibility under the cap. Competitive balance? The owners are really talking about financial balance and guaranteed profits, he said.

And the fans? “They must be wondering how all these brilliant people can be so stupid,” Hershiser said, adding:

“I don’t think we should be so arrogant to think the fans will come back automatically. But I think we can be confident they’ll come back eventually. We’ve definitely hurt baseball in the short term. We can only hope we haven’t damaged it in the long term.”