Talk Turns Tough as Each Side Digs In

NEW YORK — The rancorous process of baseball labor talks moved into public view Tuesday with San Diego Padre owner John Moores saying he was prepared to sit out a season if the Major League Baseball Players Assn. follows through on its Aug. 30 strike deadline and union head Don Fehr accusing owners of attempting a “wholesale attack on the salary structure” in memos to major leaguers and agents.

While negotiators focused on the core hurdles of a payroll tax and revenue sharing, Moores became the most recent owner to defy Commissioner Bud Selig’s $1-million gag order. He followed Texas Ranger owner Tom Hicks, who has publicly preached for even stronger cost containment than management has proposed, in echoing the sentiment of hard-line owners prepared to pay a high price for greater salary restraint in the next agreement.

“The hawks are circling,” said owner Jerry McMorris of the Colorado Rockies.

Yankee owner George Steinbrenner also recently violated the gag order, and a high-ranking major league official said Selig is expected to fine Moores, Hicks and Steinbrenner after reviewing their actions.

“The commissioner wasn’t at all happy and plans to deal with all three cases,” the official said. “In fact, he expressed his displeasure in a conversation with Moores [Tuesday]. The only thing comments of that type do is create a lot of heartache for the negotiators.

“They do not reflect the universal thinking of owners or any change in negotiating strategy. The goal is what it has always been. We need to create a system reducing the competitive and revenue disparities and to do it through a negotiated settlement.”

Moores said he did not understand the reaction to comments published in Tuesday’s editions of the New York Times.

“All I’m saying is that we have to be prepared for a walkout,” said Moores, who believes eight to 10 other owners were prepared to have a similar reaction in the event of a walkout. “It’s the players’ strike. We have to be prepared for however long it lasts. As I’ve said many times, there are serious problems with the system and they have to be resolved. We can’t keep asking fans to pay higher ticket prices, and we can’t keep shutting our eyes to the problems.

“We need a meaningful deal, not just any deal, and I’m confident the commissioner will not bring a deal to ownership that he doesn’t believe is in the best interest of the game. I’m confident he will not offer us a deal that doesn’t look a whole lot like the blue ribbon committee’s report. I have a lot of confidence in Selig. He’s been very clear about what’s needed, and I’m 100% prepared to support him. I think most owners feel the same way.”

Moores would not discuss the specifics of his Tuesday conversation with Selig (“I call Bud a lot and he’s probably the premier telephone caller in the U.S.”) and denied that he’s part of any militant clique, or has participated in any private conference calls between that group and Selig.

“I was very critical of the way baseball handled the negotiations in 1994,” he said. “I told Bud there were too many cooks, that he needed to centralize control and communication, that he needed to keep his own counsel. I’m very pleased that he seems to have taken my advice.”

Meanwhile, Fehr accused owners of moving to “lower salaries” in briefing union membership, reaffirming his position that management’s economic proposal is tantamount to a salary cap. “Simply put,” one memo read, “the clubs’ proposed tax is designed to and would apply enormous pressure to reduce payrolls.”

Contacted Tuesday night, Fehr reiterated the union wouldn’t agree to a system that turns back the clock.

“I’m obligated to make reports to my constituents and that’s what I did,” Fehr said of the memos. “As for the comments of Moores and Tom Hicks, well, you’ll have to judge them for yourself. It is what it is.”

Rob Manfred, baseball’s lead labor lawyer, responded that Fehr’s portrayal of the owners’ tax and revenue sharing proposal as a salary cap was “a baffling characterization.”

“I assume the memorandum was sent out in order to brief the players and get them prepared to engage in a work stoppage,” he said. “If [Fehr] went out and said, ‘Gee, I agree with Rob Manfred, this really is a modest set of proposals,’ they probably wouldn’t be all that hot about the idea of going on strike.”

Manfred continued to express disappointment that the union has brought the sport to the verge of its ninth work stoppage in 30 years after owners vowed not to lock out players through the World Series, but he remained hopeful a deal could be completed to avert a strike.

“If the owners really wanted a salary cap, they know how to propose a salary cap, and they would have instructed me to do so,” said Manfred, who declined to reveal specifics of the economic proposal he made Tuesday to the union. “Instead, we approached this negotiation with a modest set of proposals that alone or in combination cannot be fairly characterized as a salary cap.

“What they are is a set of proposals designed to reduce revenue disparity in the industry. A salary cap is an aggregate limitation on what players can earn and an absolute limitation on what any team can spend. Neither of those are in our proposal.”

The New York Yankees are watching the process closely.

Club executives have met with major league officials to express concern that management’s proposed increases in revenue sharing and payroll tax would create an onerous burden on their industry-high resources. The Yankees have also retained noted attorney David Boies and are considering filing a lawsuit against baseball if they are displeased about the amount of their obligation in the next agreement.

In a memo Saturday sent to agents and players, Fehr wrote that under the owners’ tax and revenue sharing proposal, the Yankees would give up $86.9 million, the New York Mets $35.8 million, the Boston Red Sox $34.2 million and the Seattle Mariners $32.3 million. Those projections are based on revenue figures from last season and payroll figures from this season. Fehr said players had agreed to raise the amount of money to be transferred in revenue sharing from $169 million to $235 million, and said owners are proposing $282 million be transferred.

Owners are also proposing that any club exceeding a $102-million payroll threshold be taxed at 37.5% the first time, 42.5% the second time, 47.5% the third time and 50% the fourth time. The union, hoping to limit the restraints on spending, has proposed taxing the portions of payrolls over $130 million and using a tax rate between 15% to 30%.

Fehr said seven teams currently have 2002 payrolls above the owners’ threshold, with the Yankees at $171.2 million, followed by Texas ($131.4 million), the Dodgers ($118.8 million), Boston ($114.8 million), the Mets ($112.9 million), Arizona ($112.1 million) and Atlanta ($110.4 million). These figures include the average annual values of players on 40-man rosters plus benefits.

Just below the threshold, according to Fehr, are Seattle ($98 million), St. Louis ($96.3 million), San Francisco ($94.5 million), the Chicago Cubs ($93.2 million) and Cleveland ($92.3 million).

“Obviously, we have had a difficult last six, seven days, including the setting of the strike date,” Manfred said. “Having said that, my goal remains to get an agreement before any days are lost due to the union strike.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.