Owners Keep the Lid on the Cap--for Now : Baseball: They give the executive council approval to declare an impasse and implement the proposal if there isn’t a settlement with players by Dec. 22.

Major league baseball owners took the anticipated step Thursday, but not in the anticipated form.

They voted, 25-3, with the Baltimore Orioles, Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets opposing, to give their executive council the authority to declare an impasse in their bargaining dispute with the players’ union and implement their salary-cap proposal. However, they also gave their negotiating committee seven more days to break the stalemate with the union.

If that stalemate still exists on Dec. 22, the implementation goes into effect, acting Commissioner Bud Selig said.

“We have repeatedly said that implementation isn’t the long-term solution,” Selig said. “We need to reach an agreement at the bargaining table, not in Congress or the courts, and if there’s even a scintilla of hope we have to pursue it.

“I mean, we’re appealing to the union for reason and common sense. Seven more days.”

The bargaining talks will probably resume under special mediator William J. Usery in Washington on Monday, which would reduce those seven days to four.

Union leader Donald Fehr, reached in New York, called it a positive development “but I can’t tell you what it will lead to.”

The implementation would have gone into effect today if the union had refused to postpone two roster deadlines, but Fehr said the players would agree to move Saturday’s deadline for clubs to offer arbitration to their own free agents to Dec. 23, along with the Dec. 20 deadline for tendering 1995 contracts.

“Without agreeing that an impasse exists or their right to declare an impasse, we’re glad they’ve taken this step,” Fehr said of the delay. “I think everyone would agree that there was a different and constructive tone (during the final 48 hours of talks in Rye Brook, N.Y.).”

It is difficult to say whether the owners’ decision to postpone implementation for a second time--they canceled a Dec. 5 meeting at the urging of Usery--is merely the latest chapter in what some believe has been a shameful attempt by both sides to establish evidence of good-faith bargaining if that becomes an issue before the National Labor Relations Board or whether their differences were legitimately narrowed in Rye Brook.

It was learned that the owners voted approval of implementation despite a warning by the attorney for Fred Wilpon, co-owner of the Mets. Wilpon brought his own attorney to Thursday’s meeting for the purpose of advising fellow owners they can not win a union challenge on implementation before the NLRB.

Selig said the legal questions--the NLRB has already announced it is issuing two complaints against the owners for failing to make a $7.8-million pension payment to the players from All-Star game receipts--are not an issue. But the potential consequences, financial and otherwise, could be significant, and one aspect of a union challenge to implementation would be that an impasse doesn’t exist.

“I seriously question whether they can prove it does after the last two or three days in Rye Brook,” a union lawyer said, referring to an ongoing exchange of proposals and concepts and what seemed to be, sources on both sides said, displays of flexibility from both on the payroll tax and how the owners’ revenue-sharing pool would be created and funneled.

A source said that even after Wednesday’s talks broke off and the owners’ negotiating committee arrived in Chicago there was clandestine contact between the sides.

John Harrington, chairman of the negotiating committee and chief executive officer of the Boston Red Sox, said the committee decided to recommend a delay while flying to Chicago.

“The philosophical gap (relating to a mechanism that will produce a stronger drag on salaries and a closer relationship between revenue and salaries) is still so large it’s hard to say we’re any closer,” Harrington said. “But the fact we’re still talking is a measure of progress in itself.

“We’re appealing to the players, their wives and families. Implementation is not in our hearts. We’re extending an olive branch.”

Said Fehr, of the olive branch: “I hope that’s what this turns out to be.”

Otherwise, Atlanta Brave President Stan Kasten said, implementation will only “escalate the rhetoric, harden feelings and prolong this war.”

On Thursday general managers were briefed on how the new system works in a morning meeting and quietly selected a committee to deal with the concept of replacement players if the camps open without an agreement next spring, when the union would resume the strike.

The ensuing decision to delay implementation pleased Dodger owner Peter O’Malley, who has lobbied for a partnership with the players.

“Implementation is the direct opposite of a partnership and should absolutely be the last resort,” he said. “I had hoped common sense would prevail (in the negotiations). It makes no sense to have to implement.”

Sense? The latest spending spree by the owners makes even less. How does it relate to the quest for cost control and certainty?

“There’s a lot of money in baseball,” Kasten said. “There’s a lot of money that can be paid out.

“But whether it’s a salary cap or a tax mechanism, we’re seeking a better connection between what’s coming in and what’s going out.”

They will look for it at the table again. Only seven more days, they insist.

Perhaps.

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ON THE MOVE:

Tony Fernandez signed with the Yankees, but Hal Morris agreed to remain with the Reds, meaning Kevin Mitchell is probably gone. C10