Reinsdorf and Belle Made It All Possible

Peace is at hand, Henry Kissinger would say, had he negotiated the baseball truce talks. Except for a dotted i here or a slashed $ there, an agreement has been forged between the workers and the bosses, so, on with the Show.

On the heels of the huge-payrolled Yankees winning the World Series and the big-bankrolled White Sox winning an auction for the most expensive player money could buy, major league owners declared Tuesday armistice day, calling off a four-year war with their own players, so all may share the spoils.

Neither side came away happy, except for being able to drop the subject.

Terms were described by one owner, Jerry Colangelo of the embryonic Arizona Diamondbacks, as “the best of all the alternatives,” which is easy to translate. It means not everything got settled, but enough is enough. Whatever this deal may be, it is better than no deal at all.

The landslide 26-4 vote of approval was the direct result of two things, one being a reluctance to risk the game’s revived popularity after an entertaining 1996 season, the other being the owners’ general feeling of betrayal over Jerry Reinsdorf, the leader of the resistance movement, offering $11 million annually to Albert Belle to entice the outfielder to join Reinsdorf’s Sox, a big-budget team.

Subsequently, a mere 20 days after spurning a players’ union proposal, by a vote of 18-12, more than a dozen of Reinsdorf’s fellow owners broke ranks. The only owners still standing with their Chicago counterpart were Cleveland’s, Oakland’s and Kansas City’s, at a time when baseball’s so-called “small markets”--few smaller than Oakland or Kansas City--fear being unable to keep pace with the sport’s fattest cats.

Even Milwaukee voted yea. This was because Bud Selig, sometimes called a do-nothing in his role as acting commissioner, did something, persuading several owners to switch their votes. Selig, who runs the Milwaukee organization, called this “a landmark day for baseball,” while Reinsdorf made jokes that Selig missed his true calling, in politics.

“He should be majority whip in the House,” Reinsdorf said.

Meantime, the rich get richer and the poorer pay so they can play.

Part of the bill will be footed by the typical fan, who bears some of the brunt of players such as Belle being given $55 million. Already, the top price of Yankee Stadium tickets has shot up, in the weeks since George Steinbrenner’s team took the World Series. New stadium projects often request taxpayer support, and new franchises ask fans to pay personal-seat license fees; i.e., buy a ticket for the right to buy a ticket.

Also victimized are the small-market teams, “doomed,” to use Reinsdorf’s word, by insufficient funds and lack of parity. A player’s average salary in 1994, the strike year, was $1.168 million. Throughout the decade, cash-poor clubs such as the Montreal Expos have had to shed talented players, simply to remain solvent.

Others, such as the Dodgers, must try to develop players in their own farm systems and keep ticket prices reasonable, without incurring rancor from fans who also demand that they keep up with the Reinsdorfs and Steinbrenners. Too many want to have their cake and eat it.

Tuesday’s vote ended the hostilities, at least. Fred Claire, the Dodger vice president, said, “The only good thing about it is that it ends this. I don’t think it’s a deal that answers all of our questions, but it’s a heck of a lot better than no deal. It’s been one hell of a bumpy ride. Maybe now we can move on.”

Not even the president of the United States could bring both sides together when they were apart, and not even the owners’ own negotiator could get them to endorse a proposal he approved. That’s how stubborn some have been.

Resolution came only with “the realization we couldn’t change the deal,” according to Bill Giles, the president of the Philadelphia Phillies. Any last chance of changing it was lost when Reinsdorf demonstrably put his own interests ahead of his brethren’s. That freed the owners to change their pledge of allegiance, to go their own way.

Albert Belle was the crack that let liberty ring.