Selig, Fehr in a War of Words

Commissioner Bud Selig presented an extraordinary array of negative numbers to the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday and said it was too bad that “union leader Fehr” couldn’t be there so that they could have a “public dialogue on the compelling issues facing the game.”

In Irving, Texas, where he was wrapping up an executive board meeting, union leader Don Fehr said public dialogue is difficult when he and his staff have been threatened with legal action if they engage in one.

“We don’t have a new day, we have the same old day in which the commissioner’s office relegates to itself the rights to determine what information is made available to whom, in what form, and dramatically limits if not prevents any sophisticated analysis of the underlying data, and that’s regrettable,” Fehr said.

The data Selig gave the committee showed that baseball lost more than $519 million in 2001. His hope in revealing club-by-club figures is that the committee, seeing the bleak nature of baseball finances, will accept the need for contraction as a partial remedy and withdraw a bill that would eliminate the game’s antitrust exemption.

In addition to his prepared statement, Selig had mentioned the absence of “union leader Fehr” in regard to having a public dialogue in a letter to committee chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and, in a news conference after a recent owners meeting, had said he would be making full financial disclosure to the committee, that there would be no secrets anymore.

Fehr, who has received similar data from the owners on a yearly basis as prescribed by the collective bargaining agreement, said he responded to Selig’s “extraordinary statements” by sending a letter to the commissioner’s office in which he wrote that it was the union’s belief that Selig “had waived any privileged confidentiality in regard to the documents and we would feel free to disclose information and discuss those issues in light of his statements.”

To his amazement, Fehr said, he received a letter from management lawyer Rob Manfred “advising me in crystal-clear language” that if he or any union member disclosed privileged data--the same or similar data that was given the committee and distributed to reporters--they would be sued.

“How this squares with any interpretation of full disclosure, no secrets and public dialogue is beyond my understanding,” Fehr said.

Because of Manfred’s legal threat, Fehr said he would not discuss specifics in the flood of data Selig released, adding that it’s impossible to make a sophisticated analysis of “lump sum numbers” and, as Conyers told Selig, more information was needed regarding costs, stadium debts, salaries and fees paid owners and related party transactions--the transfer of money between divisions of companies that own teams.

“It’s clear,” Fehr said, “that a very large portion [of the $519 million in claimed loss] was in amortization [$174 million] and I think most businessmen will tell you that any time you can lower your tax liability it’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”

Ultimately, all the rhetoric has to be reserved for the bargaining table, but with the clock ticking on contraction and a new labor agreement, Fehr said the players “are more than frustrated” by the absence of meaningful talks, and that contraction has complicated the situation.

“The principal issue is revenue sharing, and it’s impossible to negotiate when you don’t know how many teams there are going to be,” Fehr said, adding he was told by a senior baseball official after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack that contraction was basically done for 2002 only to be told an hour before Game 7 of the World Series that it would be approved at an owners meeting two days later.

Presumably, the Montreal Expos and Minnesota Twins are being contracted, but no one has said that officially, and Fehr asked, “How are Washington D.C. and northern Virginia being helped by the monopoly control that keeps the Expos from relocating rather than ceasing to exist

Now, contraction is in limbo, held up by a union grievance and the Minnesota courts. Fehr said that the labor talks have been in similar limbo since late June, when, amid secret and optimistic talks with Manfred and baseball CFO Paul Beeston, who is no longer part of the labor team, the union presented a revenue-sharing proposal to which management has yet to respond.

“With due respect to Commissioner Selig, he has no idea what kind of an agreement we could have reached then because he didn’t give it a chance, and that’s disappointing,” Fehr said.