Climate May Be Right to Reach Labor Accord

Yes, life will go on and needs to go on, but the sport that has long fancied itself as the national pastime should understand this:

Amid the kind of climate that FDR once called “the warm courage of national unity,” another labor breakdown won’t be tolerated.

A nation numbed by Tuesday’s tragedy won’t swallow millionaire owners bickering with millionaire players again in a Manhattan hotel conference room only a few blocks from where thousands died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement-barring what now may be the enhanced possibility of a one-year extension-expires Nov.1.

Serious negotiations on a new agreement won’t begin until the World Series ends, which, under the revised playoff schedule, may not be until Nov. 4.

There has been speculation that owners, determined to change the economic system, will implement a winter signing freeze and/or a spring lockout.

Players won’t accept a salary cap or a payroll tax that is tantamount to a salary cap.

With storm clouds on the horizon again, it is recommended that both sides consider the climate, turn the perspective that has become their favorite word in the last week into reality, find a way to compromise while keeping their rancor out of the news and avoid a possibly ruinous work stoppage, which would be their ninth in nine labor negotiations.

The last, resulting in cancellation of the 1994 World Series and a federal court ruling that cited the owners for illegal labor practice, spanned 232 days and shortened the 1994 and ’95 seasons.

The game survived, enjoying what Commissioner Bud Selig describes as a remarkable renaissance, largely because fans were lured back by Cal Ripken Jr.’s attempt to break Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played and the 1998 home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

History documents that fans tend to come back no matter what they say about those greedy owners and players.

But this time--should there be another strike by players whose average salary has risen to more than $2 million or a lockout by owners raking in more than$3 billion in annual revenue--those fans may run out of patience.

Of course, that may have happened even without Tuesday’s tragedy coloring the climate.

Now?

Well, there is no doubt that the game holds a special place in America’s psyche, annually drawing more than 70 million fans.

But that psyche has been dealt a shocking and painful blow, and those wounds will not have miraculously healed in two months, when the owners and players return to the bargaining table.

Will they remember that?

Will they remember how importantly unimportant baseball is, maintaining the perspective burned into their consciousness on Sept. 11, or will they spit into the face of fans again, arrogantly thinking they are above the fray?

Time will tell, of course.

Maybe the respect and support that players have expressed for Selig’s decision to postpone the weekend games after postponing games Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday will last, mutating into something bigger.

Maybe all of the compassion that owners and players have expressed for Tuesday’s victims, all of the comments about perspective, will prove more than lip service, helping maintain their perspective at the bargaining table.

Maybe the memory of the previous bitter dispute, combined with that perspective of the last week, will produce a measure of common sense absent in previous negotiations.

It is generally agreed that there has been an improved relationship since 1994-95, but whether that lasts is problematic.

Industry sources say Selig, preparing for the next crisis, has aligned with a group of smaller-market (or smaller-revenue) hawks who include John Moores of the San Diego Padres, Drayton McLane of the Houston Astros, David Glass of the Kansas City Royals, Carl Pohlad of the Minnesota Twins and Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox.

He is also said to have pulled the negotiating rug on Paul Beeston, his chief operating officer and the management figure most respected by the players’ union, but Selig is noncommittal when asked about that, observing his own edict to level a $1-million fine on any owner talking about the labor situation.

Clearly, there are complex issues at stake, and Selig holds the key as to how hard and far the owners choose to drive the stake. As usual, there is also division among the owners, and the big-market clubs will be watching their consensus-minded commissioner closely. Then again, all of that is weeks away.

Whether influenced by the NFL or swayed by his own sensitivities, Selig ultimately made the right decision in postponing weekend games after initially informing owners that they should be ready to play Friday. No one was really ready, mentally or logistically, to play on the weekend. It will be difficult enough on Monday, and it’s just as obvious that no one in the industry even wants to think of the pending labor talks during this difficult time.

Maybe they should. Maybe they need to recognize that the national climate doesn’t figure to change much by November, and the public can’t be expected to react warmly or forgivingly to quarreling millionaires who suddenly lose the perspective they claim to have suddenly and recently regained.