BASEBALL IS BACK : Boys of Summer Take Over From Buffoons of Winter

Allan H. Selig, forever branded in the minds of fans as A Man Named Bud, looked out from his perch on the podium and uttered the second great sports revelation in recent weeks to gush forth from this city.

But unlike Michael Jordan’s, this announcement was plural:

“They’re Back!”

Specifically, Selig, the acting commissioner of baseball--as opposed to the baseball commissioner of acting--said, “The players are back. The game is back.”

And so it is.

Major League Baseball, as we have come to know it and even occasionally love it, is back. It will begin Wednesday, April 26, and it will go on despite owners’ estimates that put their strike losses at $700 million.

Call it a few days and few dollars short, but call it real baseball. Call it games to be played by players who belong in pinstripes and not in softball knee-socks and jerseys that read Joe’s Bar and Grill.

Despite all that has swirled around this game in the nearly eight months since the players went on strike and the bickering began, Sunday in Chicago was a good day for baseball. Its essence was that--despite efforts on all sides to screw it up--baseball is bigger than the boys who play it and the buffoons who run it.

Starting April 26, “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” will be a song again, not a sob.

Certainly, the game will go on with a cloud floating overhead. The fact that the game’s major players, who own the game’s major players, could not decide anything in eight months of finger-pointing, name-calling and hatemongering--popularly known in this country as labor negotiations--cannot be forgotten.

But Selig, clearly a man unaffected by the bright lights of Milwaukee, answered perfectly when asked how two sides, so bitter for so long, would be able to play games and still work on a deal.

“We’ve got to do both, it’s that simple,” he said. “We needed to put the game back on the field, and we need to still work on this (negotiated labor settlement), off the field.”

Although Selig pretty much refused to directly address Friday’s National Labor Relations Board injunction, the return of baseball was the result of the ruling by Federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who figuratively slapped baseball owners upside the head and told them they had bargained unfairly with the players.

But for the moment, this was an any-port-in-a-storm situation. If it took Bill Veeck’s midget to come back and stand on his head or hold his breath until he turned blue, so be it. This thing had gotten so far out of whack that it took someone with the power of a federal judge to reel it back in. Remember how the owners flicked away the interest and in-roads of the President of the United States? Unfortunately for him, Bill Clinton’s clout on this issue was more ceremonial than legal.

Selig, a man the other owners pay one million dollars a year to take the heat while they slip out the back door and run to catch airplanes far from the madding media crowd, also had it right when he said that baseball’s focus must now be on the games. If for no other reason, the fans, who pay the bills but get no real vote in all this, deserve to have back what they want: Real games played by real players.

They also deserve an end to this seemingly endless Theater of the Absurd that has been playing out over the last eight months in cities from coast to coast, as labor negotiations threatened to replace the box score as the game’s leading symbol.

Sunday was no exception. In the hotel where O.J. slept and where Bud would soon speak, Mr. Cub worked the crowd. To each reporter he met, Ernie Banks demanded presence at opening day, the playoffs and the World Series. And he actually was talking about the Cubs.

Outside, the TV people hassled with the hotel people, who were being told by the air traffic control people in O’Hare airport’s tower a few hundred yards away that the TV trucks had to be moved because their satellite feeds were somehow interfering with the instructions to landing aircraft.

The trucks were moved, the danger--real or imaginary--averted and the prevailing theory quickly was reinstated among the press corps that the only thing in danger of crashing and burning on this day were the baseball owners.

Soon, a rumor circulated that the meeting room where the owners were to hold their session was being swept for bugs. Shortly thereafter, Selig, long-time owner of Selig Ford in Milwaukee, drove up in his black Lexus.

When the 4 1/2-hour meeting broke up, Selig headed to the news conference and Dodger owner Peter O’Malley headed to an airplane. But when questioned en route about whether he was happy with Sunday’s agreement to let the games return, O’Malley said, quietly, “Yes.”

Then, after he took a few more steps, he stopped and repeated himself, this time much more emphatically.

“The answer is yes,” he said.

And that answer is sweet music to baseball fans. Let the games begin and let the geeks go negotiate for a while in the back room.

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack.

* COMMENTARY

* IT’S OVER: The eight-month baseball strike ended Sunday when owners agreed to accept the players’ offer. A1

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Baseball Is Back

* What happened: Owners decided not to vote on a lockout. Instead, they accepted the players’ offer to return to work and expect a back-to-work agreement to be completed within 24 hours.

* Opening day: Wednesday, April 26.

* Rosters: They will be expanded to 28 players until May 15, when they must be reduced to 25.

* Length of season: 144 games. Minor schedule adjustments will be made to give each team 72 home games and 72 road games. Complete schedule should be announced this week.

* Exhibitions: Players must report to camps in Florida and Arizona by Friday. First game is April 13. Tentative plans call for 12 games to be scheduled for the three-week period.

* Tickets: The Dodgers and Angels will announce their policies for new and canceled games this week. The Angels’ $1 ticket offer for all tickets on opening day stands.

* All-Star Game: The game will be played July 11 at Arlington, Tex.

* Postseason: Divisional playoffs begin Oct. 3, league championship series on Oct. 10 and the World Series on Oct. 21 in the city of the National League champion.

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Long and Twisted Negotiating Road

Chronology of key events in baseball’s labor negotiations:

1992

* Dec. 7--Owners vote, 15-13, at Louisville, Ky., to reopen collective bargaining agreement as of Jan. 10 in sections on free agency, salary arbitration and minimum salary. Resolution requires three-quarters vote in the future to start a lockout.

* Dec. 8--Owners send notices to Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and the New York State Mediation Board that they may lock out players after 60-day window.

1993

* Jan. 13--Talks begin with Player Relations Committee president Richard Ravitch announcing he will recommend to owners that there be no lockout during 1993.

* Feb. 17--Owners vote to tie revenue sharing to a salary cap.

* Aug. 12--After failing to reach a revenue-sharing agreement, owners pledge not to lock out players during the 1994 season and not to unilaterally change terms of the collective bargaining agreement through the conclusion of the 1994 season.

* Dec. 31--Collective bargaining agreement expires.

1994

* Jan. 18--Owners agree to a new revenue-sharing formula among themselves but condition it on players agreeing to a salary cap.

* May 23--Ravitch proposes eliminating termination pay, trade demands and major league service for players called up in September.

* June 8--Owners vote to require 75% of clubs to approve a collective-bargaining agreement during a strike.

* June 14--Owners make salary cap proposal, asking players to split revenue 50-50 in exchange for limiting payrolls to 84-110%.

* July 18--Players reject salary-cap proposal.

* July 28--The union’s executive board votes unanimously to set an Aug. 12 strike date.

* Aug. 12--Strike begins after another bargaining session. Both sides agree to federal mediation.

* Sept. 8--Players present a proposal calling for 1 1/2 percent tax on revenues and payrolls of the 16 largest clubs by revenue and payrolls--money that would be distributed to the bottom 10 in each category.

* Sept. 14--Owners cancel the World Series for the first time since 1904.

* Oct. 14--W.J. Usery appointed mediator by Labor Secretary Robert Reich. Selig and Fehr meet with President Clinton at the White House.

* Nov. 17--Owners make tax proposal that acts like a cap.

* Dec. 5--Ravitch announces his resignation, effective when his contract expires Dec. 31.

* Dec. 14--National Labor Relations Board issues complaint against owners for failing to make $7.8 million benefit payment on Aug. 1.

* Dec. 23--Owners implement their June 14 salary cap proposal, as amended on Nov. 17.

* Dec. 27--Both sides file unfair labor practice charges with NLRB.

1995

* Jan. 20--Ruling executive council approves rules to sign replacement players.

* Jan. 27--Mediator W.J. Usery announces talks will resume Feb. 1.

* Feb. 7--Sides fail to reach agreement during a White House bargaining session. President Clinton asks both sides to accept binding arbitration, owners refuse.

* Feb. 8--Players file new unfair labor practice charges.

* March 14--NLRB says it will issue unfair labor practice complaint against owners the following day for unilaterally eliminating salary arbitration, free agent bidding and anti-collusion provisions.

* March 27--The NLRB files for the injunction and the case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who schedules a March 31 hearing.

* March 30--Owners vote 26-2 to begin the season with replacement players.

* March 31--The strike ends when U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor rules in favor of the players and issues an injunction against the owners ordering them to restore free agent bidding, salary arbitration and the anti-collusion provisions of the expired collective bargaining agreement.

* April 1--Opening day was postponed until April 26 and replacement players were released. The final seven replacement spring training exhibitions were canceled.

* April 2--Owners decided not to take a lockout vote and instead said they expect a back-to-work agreement with players to be completed within 24 hours. Regular players were expected to start reporting to camps today.