Owners Will Call Umpires Out After Weekend

It isn’t strike II, it’s lockout I in baseball.

Baseball’s second labor dispute began Wednesday when owners notified umpires they will be locked out after this weekend and won’t be paid.

National League President Len Coleman said the umpires received the lockout notification by overnight mail. Umpires are paid on a year-round basis and their four-year contract expires Saturday.

“The union’s request for a 60% pay increase is astronomical,” Coleman said. “Given the tenor of the times, these demands are completely out of order.”

The players’ union denied a Houston Post report that Baltimore Oriole shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. has the blessing of striking players if he wants to cross their picket line to keep his consecutive games streak alive.

Houston Astro relief pitcher Todd Jones was quoted as saying the union has told Ripken it won’t mind if he’s on the field with strikebreakers if that is how owners insist on starting the 1995 season.

But Gene Orza, union associate general counsel, said Jones’ comments were taken out of context.

Ripken has played in 2,009 consecutive games and is 122 shy of breaking Lou Gehrig’s major league record.

Hockey

There was no contact between the NHL and its players’ association and none planned, leading sources connected with the league and the union to say negotiations probably won’t resume until next week.

It’s expected that Commissioner Gary Bettman will then urge union chief Bob Goodenow to reconsider his stance of refusing to talk as long as the NHL continues to seek a payroll tax or concessions from players on salary arbitration rights.

Soccer

Mexico, which played host to the 1970 and 1986 World Cup tournaments, has submitted a bid for the 2002 event. Mexico’s rivals are South Korea and Japan.

United States World Cup goalkeeper Tony Meola lost his first indoor start as the Dayton Dynamo defeated the Buffalo Blizzard, 13-11, in a National Professional Soccer League game at Dayton, Ohio.

Miscellany

Chad Bickley, a 6-foot-1 guard from Santa Maria Valley Christian High, broke his national prep record for three-point shots in a game when he made 21 against Citadel of Sacramento. Bickley, who finished with 79 points, sank 21 of 39 three-pointers. Valley Christian defeated Citadel, 118-70, at Santa Maria. Bickley made 20 three-pointers in a game last February against Cuyuma Valley. . . . Members of three teams competing at the world junior hockey championships in Red Deer, Canada, were robbed of an undetermined amount of money.

Michael Chang defeated John McEnroe, 3-6, 6-4, 7-5, in a tennis exhibition at The Pond of Anaheim before an estimated 6,000. The match benefited the Safe Passage Foundation, a charity raising money for AIDs in the name of Arthur Ashe. . . . A search plane located French sailor Isabelle Autissier alive aboard her yacht in heavy seas more than 850 miles off the south coast of Australia, 18 hours after she activated emergency beacons, officials of the BOC Round the World Challenge yacht race said. . . . Floyd Emde, winner of the 1948 Daytona 200 and 1947 Pacific Coast championship race at Riverside, died Dec. 24 in San Diego. Emde, 75, is survived by Florence, his wife of 53 years, five children, 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Services are 2 p.m. today at Glen Abbey Memorial Park, 3838 Bonita Rd., in Bonita.