BASEBALL LABOR TALKS : Selig Said to Be Reason Why Progress Is Slow

Two days of private bargaining between acting commissioner Bud Selig and union leader Donald Fehr broke off Tuesday with no hint of progress in the stalled labor negotiations and no date set for resumption of talks.

With the season scheduled to start on April 2, Selig said there is a “clear possibility” he will remain in a more active leadership role when talks resume, but a management official said Selig still appears to be under the hard-line thumb of Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, whose goal, the union believes, is to carry the dispute into the season in the hope of breaking the union.

The official, a frequent participant in the sporadic negotiations, said Selig, as a consensus builder rather than a decision maker, seems to lack the will to pull the trigger on any agreement not supported by all 28 clubs or any agreement compromising the owners’ stance.

“In all fairness, Fehr is pushing for a deal, but the problem is Bud,” the official said. “He is still under the influence of the man in Arizona (Reinsdorf). His ties to Reinsdorf are still strong. It’s a tragedy if we run out the string on that basis. The game has been bloodied enough.”

Amid the rising cost, Selig reiterated that he is no one’s puppet but is committed, like Reinsdorf, to finding a meaningful solution to the industry’s economic problems.

“That’s a joke, sheer nonsense,” he said of the frequent contention that Reinsdorf pulls the strings. “The way I’m able to build a consensus, to get 23 to 25 votes on almost anything, is that it’s a centrist vote (as opposed to a hard-line vote).

“I’ve always felt my job was to represent the great majority of clubs, and I’ll continue to do that.”

Selig described the talks with Fehr at a Washington area hotel as “intense and constructive” and said both sides shortly would be in touch with special mediator William J. Usery.

He denied an Associated Press report that he raised, rather than lowered, the owners’ previous tax and threshold proposals during the talks, but would not discuss specifics.

Stan Kasten, president of the Atlanta Braves and a member of the owners’ negotiating team, was briefed by Selig in a conference call after Selig returned to Milwaukee Tuesday night. Kasten said the union hasn’t budged from where it was when talks in Arizona broke down March 4.

“They’re still talking about a tax on basically nobody that disappears after three years,” he said.

Fehr said he would not comment on the talks except that they were “recessed at Bud’s suggestion and I don’t know when we’ll get together again.”

There were conflicting reports from within the union on the possibility, as one union official said and another denied, that the union will give “serious consideration” over the next few days to ending the eight-month strike--even without a court injunction forcing owners to reinstate the rules and conditions of the expired bargaining agreement.

Although it was disputed by a colleague, a union official insisted that the union might choose to force the owners to vote on a lockout by announcing an end to the strike even before the National Labor Relations Board goes to court on the players’ behalf.

The NLRB’s five-member board is expected to vote Thursday on general counsel Fred Feinstein’s request to seek an injunction.

Fehr has said the union would end the strike if the NLRB obtains that injunction. The owners, who have shown no interest in playing another season under the terms of the previous system, would likely respond by appealing the court ruling and voting to institute a lockout, providing 21 of the 28 clubs approve.

There are rumors that the union, with the season scheduled to open in 11 days and the first pay checks due about two weeks later, might soon face widespread defections.

Contingents of the Chicago White Sox and Philadelphia Phillies, according to the rumors, are ready to bolt. By ending the strike and putting the onus on the owners, the union might be able to head off any defections.