Congress Not Biting on Pitch : Baseball: House and Senate leaders cool to Clinton’s proposal for settling strike.

President Clinton asked Congress Wednesday to force baseball’s feuding players and owners to accept binding arbitration to end their six-month-old strike. But his proposal met immediate opposition from Republican leaders and renegade Democrats.

Clinton acted after the players and owners refused to accept his proposals for a truce during almost five hours of talks at the White House on Tuesday night.

“If we want a 1995 baseball season, this may be the last resort,” Labor Secretary Robert Reich told reporters after delivering the proposed legislation to the Capitol.

The Administration proposal would authorize Clinton to appoint a three-member board of neutral arbitrators and require the players and owners to accept whatever deal they produce. Without such a law, the President has no power to impose a settlement.

But Congress’ Republican leaders said they see no need for such federal intervention. “We’re trying to get government out of things, not into things,” Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said.

Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) met with William J. Usery, the former labor secretary who tried and failed to negotiate a settlement, and said they see no need for arbitration now.

“We would hope that the players and owners would solve this problem at the negotiating table,” Gingrich said. “We don’t want to set a precedent . . . for intervening in every labor dispute.”

“We don’t want to get into politics,” added Dole, who plans to run for the Republican presidential nomination next year. Then he complained that Clinton’s proposal was an attempt to “pass the buck to Congress.”

Said White House spokesman Mike McCurry: “The President felt it was entirely appropriate for him to do what he did to try to end this strike, and he thinks it’s entirely appropriate now to send special legislation to the Congress. We hope the American people will . . . let members of Congress know that it’s important to them to see the season proceed.”

But so far, members of Congress said there has been no surge in mail or telephone calls from the public asking that arbitration be imposed. A spokesman for Dole said that the Republican leader’s office received more than 1,500 telephone calls on the issue Wednesday, but 84% opposed congressional action.

And even some Democrats were publicly skeptical of Clinton’s plea. House Democratic Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) attended a leadership meeting that discussed the issue but said only that he was keeping an open mind.

And Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) voiced strong opposition, saying: “The federal government should not get involved in this strike. The owners’ and players’ representatives have to work it out themselves.”

Clinton’s bill was formally introduced by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) in the Senate and Rep. Pat Williams (D-Mont.) in the House.

The bill calls on the President to appoint a “National Baseball Dispute Resolution Panel” composed of three “impartial persons.” The panel would be empowered to conduct hearings and to issue subpoenas to compel the owners and players to produce financial information.

The bill directs the board to draw up a settlement “as expeditiously as possible,” and makes the decision binding.

It does not require the players and owners to start the season until a settlement is reached.

With the arbitration legislation on a slow track, the next step appeared to be an attempt by Usery to reconvene the players’ and owners’ negotiating teams for another round of talks.

There was no sign that the results of a new round would be much different from the last, when Usery proposed a settlement that the players immediately denounced as unacceptable.

As time goes on, however, the pressure on Congress to act may increase. Spring training is scheduled to begin Feb. 16 for several teams and Feb. 17 for the Dodgers and Angels.

The exhibition season is scheduled to start March 1, and opening day for the regular season is April 2. Teams have been signing replacement players to play in case the strike is still under way.

Gingrich said that if the impasse continues and threatens the regular season, he and other Republicans might rethink their position. “I don’t want to foreclose anything,” he said.

Meanwhile, the White House said that Clinton is turning his thoughts toward another national pastime. The President, McCurry said, plans to take a day off next week to play golf in Palm Springs with former Presidents George Bush and Gerald R. Ford and entertainer Bob Hope.