Owners Keeping the Lid on Their Cap--for Now : Baseball: They give executive council approval to declare an impasse if there isn’t a new agreement with players by Dec. 22.

Baseball owners didn’t push the salary cap button Thursday, avoiding for at least a week a chaotic winter filled with lawsuits.

In what was a sign either of hesitation, posturing or genuine desire to make a deal, owners gave the ruling executive council authority to declare an impasse in talks and impose the cap if there isn’t an agreement by Dec. 22.

“We want to reach a negotiated settlement, and we say that with every ounce of sincerity we can put forth,” management negotiator John Harrington said. “And this gesture is just that, it’s the olive branch to say, listen, let’s make peace for now and many years to come.”

Union head Donald Fehr said talks probably will resume Monday in the Washington area, but he wouldn’t predict if players would make a new proposal.

“While we do not agree that we are at an impasse, we do agree that it is appropriate to continue talking, and we are encouraged by that.” Fehr said by telephone from his office in New York. “Obviously, if they are willing to negotiate, so are we.”

Talks broke off Wednesday at Rye Brook, N.Y., and mediator W.J. Usery predicted then that the sides might return to the table as soon as this weekend.

“It’d be a nice Christmas present to the fans to give them back baseball, to open the camps and have spring training,” Usery said from Alexandria, Va. “I’m very happy with the decision.”

Owners approved a resolution that gave the executive council the power to impose the salary cap if there isn’t a settlement by Dec. 22. The vote was 25-3, according to several participants, with the Baltimore Orioles, New York Mets and Toronto Blue Jays in opposition.

“If the union really wants to reach an agreement, we’re going to give it more time,” acting commissioner Bud Selig said. “But it must address

Owners, who are threatening to open the 1995 season with replacement players, want players to accept a predetermined percentage of revenue or agree to a tax mechanism that will penalize clubs with high payrolls. The union, which won free agency prior to the 1976 season, says caps and punitive taxes would crush the market for players.

“It was done in the spirit of trying to open one more window of opportunity for both management and the players to create an agreement,” Harrington said, “and we’re making an appeal to the players and their wives and their families to truly understand that implementation is not in our minds and our hearts.”

Both sides appear to be posturing for possible litigation. Atlanta Braves president Stan Kasten has accused players of stalling at the bargaining table. The union would challenge an imposed cap before the National Labor Relations Board and hope the agency would seek an injunction against owners in federal court.

Management would have to defend its declaration of impasse, and owners certainly would cite the one-week delay as evidence of its good faith.

“If we wanted to implement, we could have implemented some time ago,” Selig said. “Taking unilateral action is a last resort. If we do so, it will be done very reluctantly, only when we have exhausted all of our options.”

During a four-hour meeting of the negotiating committee and the executive council, management lawyer Chuck O’Connor made the recommendation that owners adopted.

“Yes, there were those of us that thought implementation should have been passed and approved today and that’s it,” Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad said. “But on the other hand, as long as there is a chance that we might reach agreement with the players, we felt it was in the best interest of everybody that we extend it.”

Colorado Rockies chairman Jerry McMorris called the decision “a very positive thing.”

“I just hope we can get back to playing ball. We want to make a deal. We want to have our major league players out there,” he said.

The owners’ decision to delay imposition of a cap was contingent on the union agreeing to push back the deadlines of baseball’s business calender. Originally, owners said they had to have a deal by Dec. 7, the deadline for clubs to offer salary arbitration to their former players who became free agents, but the sides agreed to push that deadline back 10 days.

Fehr said he would ask the union’s executive board to push back that date again, along with the Dec. 20 deadline for offering 1995 contracts to unsigned players. Clubs don’t want to tender contracts under the current system and commit themselves to another winter of salary arbitration.

“I will recommend to the players that we do so, and I’m sure they’ll go along,” Fehr said.

* ON THE MOVE

Tony Fernandez will play for Yankees and Hal Morris will remain with the Reds if the strike is resolved in time for the 1995 season. C10