Pressured Owners Drop Salary Cap : Baseball: Management averts National Labor Relations Board sanctions and removes NLRB as possible ally for players’ union.

The salary cap came off Friday. In an agreement with the National Labor Relations Board, major league owners scrapped the system they implemented Dec. 22.

The NLRB, in turn, will drop plans to issue a complaint against the owners for unfair labor practice.

A victory for the players’ union on the surface, the development angered the union, sources said, and pleased the owners because it removed the NLRB as a legal option for the union in the ongoing labor dispute.

In addition, for all practical purposes, the owners had already withdrawn the cap on Wednesday when they switched to a luxury-tax proposal to which the union is expected to make an official response today.

Management is expected to remain firm in pursuit of a system providing cost control if not cost certainty. But it was unclear whether removal of the labor board as a potentially key player on behalf of the union--coupled to formal withdrawal of the cap--will provide a breakthrough in the six-month negotiating stalemate of which President Clinton is seeking resolution by Monday.

But acting Commissioner Bud Selig said removal of the NLRB “cleared out” another potential avenue for the union, was one less legal and financial obstacle for the owners to worry about and, it is hoped, will force the union to concentrate on reaching an agreement at the bargaining table. Management has felt the union has been stalling in the hope of receiving help from the NLRB in avoiding any kind of payroll ceiling.

Rollback of the salary-cap system, which included elimination of salary arbitration and restricted free agency for players with four and five years of major league service, becomes effective Monday, and it is possible the union will react by lifting a signing freeze it initiated in response to the implementation.

It is uncertain how the 38 players who became restricted free agents under the implemented system will be dealt with, or whether players who had been eligible for arbitration will regain that eligibility. The owners still are seeking elimination of arbitration in exchange for the restricted free agency as part of their luxury-tax proposal.

“That and everything else is up in the air,” said Boston Red Sox chief executive officer John Harrington, the owners’ lead negotiator.

Conceivably, a union official said from Washington, with the cap off the players could agree to end the strike and report to spring training in two weeks, but it is likely the clubs would order a lockout if there is no agreement.

In the wake of the Dec. 22 implementation, both sides had filed charges with the NLRB, accusing the other of failing to negotiate in good faith.

Admittedly under Presidential pressure to accelerate the process, the NLRB summoned representatives of the owners and players to its Washington office on Friday and said it was inclined to issue a complaint against the owners for declaring an illegal impasse, but not issue a complaint against the players.

The board gave the owners the option of removing the cap in return for dismissal of the potential complaint, and the owners agreed to it in a conference call of the ruling executive council, escaping the possibility of the board pursuing an injunction on behalf of the union and a fine that might have made the $280 million collusion penalty seem paltry.

“I think most of us considered the labor board to be pro union and we didn’t figure to be very successful pleading our case,” an American League owner said. “I mean, if someone had told us two weeks ago that we’d have gotten out of this with no complaint and no future penalties, we’d have been very happy, indeed. The board suggested we take the cap off, and we had already done that.”

The stunned union attempted to put a positive spin on the sudden loss of potential NLRB support. Union leader Donald Fehr said the players have always been willing to accept the old system and now the old system was back in place. “What was imposed is rescinded; it is as if it had never been,” he said, adding that the union will have to contemplate its next move.

For the present, the union canceled a Monday meeting in Texas with managers, coaches and trainers and will counter the owners’ tax proposal today after NLRB activity prevented extensive bargaining on Friday when Labor Secretary Robert Reich said he was “cautiously optimistic” about a settlement by Monday. Clinton has said that if there is no settlement or progress, he wants special mediator William J. Usery to consider making his own recommendation for a settlement.

“I’ve made recommendations before, but certainly not in a situation like this,” Usery said of the baseball complexities.

Anticipating a long weekend, the mediator checked into the Washington hotel where the meetings are being held, as did longtime management lawyer John Westhoff, who would be involved in the drafting of a final agreement. In the meantime, a White House spokesman said the President plans to take a “40-ounce Louisville Slugger to both parties” this weekend. And labor department officials told the Washington Post that in a meeting with management officials on Jan. 19, Reich, as reported by The Times in Friday’s editions, had said that the administration considers the use of replacement players for striking major leaguers “anathema and unacceptable.” Will it come to that? Friday’s developments may have diminished the odds.