If you don’t think Donald M. Fehr (pronounced as in fear), the head of the players’ union, is the most powerful man in major-league baseball, consider this:
If the 28 club owners, when they met Thursday at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare, had voted approval of any of their revenue-sharing plans, they would have hastened to Fehr’s plush Manhattan office. The following dialogue, in effect, would have ensued:
“Great Donald, we did it! Revenue sharing has been approved.”
“That’s very nice. I’m proud of your charitable concern.”
“Great Donald, will you now agree to a salary cap? We must put a lid on player salaries. They are out of control.”
“But you have already established a ceiling. Let’s see, now. Ryne Sandberg of the Cubs earned $6.4 million last season. Bobby Bonilla and Doc Gooden of the Mets were paid $6.2 million. And soon Barry Bonds of the Giants and Frank Thomas of the White Sox will be at $7 million. So, the way I see it, you have established a $7 million ceiling.”
“Great Donald, we are not talking about individual compensation. We want a team cap so each team cannot exceed a specified salary limit.”
“If I endorse that, the union is agreeing to limit the salaries of its members. You shouldn’t expect us to do that.”
“But Great Donald, after lengthy and heated discussion, we voted unanimously, 28-0, for a revenue-sharing proposal in the belief this would help us get a cap.”
“It’s nice to see the owners agreeing on something.”
“Great Donald, but our vote was conditional. Revenue sharing won’t go into effect unless you agree to a cap. If you don’t approve, our 28-0 vote is meaningless.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“But Great Donald, what you’re doing, your single vote overrules all 28 owners. Who do you think you are? The commissioner of baseball?”
“No, let’s just say I’m the commissioner of the players.”
So there you have it: Don Fehr (as in fear) is the most powerful man in baseball.
And there is more. The owners, for example, have approved realignment for the 1994 season. Henceforth, each league would be divided into three divisions, with the companion condition of an extra round of pennant playoffs. Instead of four, eight teams would qualify. The additional playoff games would enlarge the owners’ take from network television.
But wait. Schedule changes can’t be made without the approval of Mr. Fehr and the players association. Again, the owners had it backward.
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They handed Fehr a gun and said, “Go ahead, put this to our head.”
Which, of course, is what he has done. The association wants to adjust the distribution of playoff revenues. In the existing system, the players receive 60 percent of the gate receipts for the necessary games to win: the first three games in five-game series, four in a seven-game series. This procedure protects the integrity of the game.
But Fehr and his associates now want a share of the additional television revenue. Also, they want to expand their guaranteed take from ticket sales to correspond with the length of the playoffs of the previous season or the previous two or three seasons combined. If the average, for example, was six games, they want their slice increased to include the first six games.
It seems to me management’s first concern should be the disposition of the realignment and/or playoff dispute. The championship season will be opening soon, but the fans still don’t know if the Cubs and White Sox will be in their leagues’ Central Divisions or whether the old two-division system will be in force.
Instead, the owners have been doodling with their computers to determine the size of the welfare rewards in the various sharing proposals. And, of course, the big-market clubs, which will be financing the subsidies, want to know how much the various proposals cost.
Whatever, three divisions or two, the owners have agreed to conduct the 1994 season in compliance with the collective union contract, which expired Jan. 1. So there will be a full 162-game championship season-unless Fehr calls for a strike in September, sacrificing the last month of the regular schedule and all postseason play.
The strike would be in anticipation of a bargaining impasse in January or February 1995 that would prompt the owners to diminish the players’ gains in such crucial compensation areas as salary arbitration, free agency, etc. Fehr is correct in assuming the worst.
Unless the air suddenly is charged with owner-player peace, which isn’t likely, the prediction here is that a strike will wipe out the first third or possibly the first half of the 1995 season. Unless he bends and throws the owners a bone, the reign of the Great Donald could be in jeopardy.