MAJOR ISSUES

The national cry of anguish went up Friday from baseball fans outraged that players dared to set an Aug. 30 strike date. Fans are disillusioned by the possibility of the second strike in eight years and enraged that neither owners nor players appear to place a higher priority on playing games than fighting over money. From peanut vendors to President Bush, fans told both sides to shut up and settle their dispute now, to act in the best interests of the sport. Those sentiments evoke a chuckle from Barry Axelrod, a longtime player agent from Encinitas. He can sympathize, to be sure. But he looks at baseball’s perfect record--in the last 30 years, no labor agreement has been reached without a players’ strike or owners’ lockout--and suggests fans might be wasting their breath. “I have never seen either of these sides care one iota about the court of public opinion,” he said. “That’s indicated by what we’ve done the past 30 years.” For fans numb to the sights or sounds of Commissioner Bud Selig and union leader Donald Fehr, and for fans lost in a sea of tax thresholds, local revenues and split-pool vs. straight-pool revenue sharing, The Times spoke with two Southern California baseball figures not involved in the current negotiations and asked them to discuss the issue fundamental to each side.

*

Barry Axelrod represents such stars as Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio of the Houston Astros, Rich Aurilia of the San Francisco Giants and Mark Grace of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Axelrod, an agent for more than two decades, represented Darryl Kile, the St. Louis Cardinal pitcher who died in June.

From a union point of view, Axelrod said, the issue is simple.

“They’re not asking for anything new,” he said. “All they want is the status quo.”

That’s perfectly understandable, in a year in which the average salary is $2.4 million.

But, with United Airlines on the verge of filing for bankruptcy, unions representing its machinists understand they might be required to make wage concessions for the business to remain viable. Major league owners would like to see players exhibit a similar sense of responsibility to an industry that no one disputes will pay healthy salaries under any labor agreement.

In a May interview with The Times, Commissioner Bud Selig said six to eight teams could go out of business within 18 months, in the absence of economic reform. He declined to name the teams. He also said owners were a collective $4 billion in debt.

In July, one day after Selig said an unnamed team might not meet its payroll the following week, president and chief operating officer Bob DuPuy said every payroll would be met that week.

Three months after Selig testified before Congress that nine of the 30 teams turned an operating profit last season, Forbes magazine reported its figures showed 20 teams did.

“We have a commissioner who has not one ounce of credibility,” Axelrod said. “If there were really those dire circumstances, of course players should say, ‘What can we do to help save this?’

“Show us your books--especially in this era of Enrons and WorldComs. If you prove it, of course we won’t let this industry fold up.”

The union skepticism only mounted after two lawsuits that could have forced Selig’s office to reveal confidential financial data were settled out of court. In one suit, a co-owner of the New York Mets had accused Selig’s office of conspiring with the other co-owner and an appraiser to “manufacture phantom operating losses” that would lower the value of the team.

The union also believes that the constant drumbeat of an economic doomsday has discouraged some fans and sponsors from investing in an industry with $3.5 billion in annual revenues.

“All we ever see and hear about are the horribly negative things that come out of baseball. No one ever promotes the good part,” Axelrod said.

“The greatest example of that is our commissioner starting to talk about contraction two days after the greatest World Series some of us have ever seen.”

Four decades ago, then-NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle convinced owners in his league to share virtually all revenue. Major league owners never contemplated--let alone agreed to--such a concept. Over the past decades, skyrocketing revenues have led to skyrocketing franchise values as well as skyrocketing salaries.

If Fox pays top dollar to buy the Dodgers and makes enough money to buy pitcher Kevin Brown for $105 million, how can the guy who bought the Kansas City Royals for less than one-third of what Fox paid for the Dodgers complain when the Royals can’t afford Brown? The answer, owners suggest, is that fans of small-market teams lose hope and interest if their team has no chance to win.

Because revenue sharing and a luxury tax affect wages, the players must approve those measures as part of a new collective bargaining agreement.

“The underlying, most divisive issues are small-market, small-revenue owners vs. large-market, large-revenue owners,” Axelrod said. “One side or the other has to get the players’ approval. The players are naturally going to come down on the side of the large-market owners. They’re the guys that pay the big salaries.”

Had the owners’ proposed economic structure been in effect when the Dodgers signed Brown, the team could have been liable for millions in a luxury tax and millions more in revenue sharing.

“That’s a full frontal attack on large-market ownership,” Axelrod said. “It’s the small-market guys going after the large-market guys, and they’re trying to get the players to agree.”