Yes, but what is the owners’ deadline?
Now that major-league baseball players have issued Aug. 12 as the moment at which they will stop honoring us with their presence, rest assured there also is a date to be discovered later when the strike must end, or else.
Only management knows for sure, but if this season is to be saved, it will have to be resumed according to some sort of timetable devised by the caretakers of this great game that is being held hostage by greed, stubbornness and mistrust.
During his press conference Thursday, union chief Donald Fehr said he and his constituents detected little interest on the owners’ part in settling this impasse thus far. He also theorized that two weeks of discussions would be enough to resolve differences if-and only if-owners suddenly become serious and enlightened before Aug. 12.
Don’t hold your breath. By establishing a strike date, the union indeed has increased pressure on both sides. But the owners, who say they’ve given all they can give and who claim to be more united than ever, were well aware that players would walk, sooner or later, because negotiations to this point have yielded virtually nothing but the usual rhetoric.
White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, who has promised to turn from a dove into a hawk if necessary, says he was flabbergasted to see Fehr on TV the other night mentioning the possibility that players might not strike until mid- to late September. Reinsdorf found that idea absurd, for it would have endangered the postseason playoffs and World Series. Reinsdorf says he and his fellow entrepreneurs need those games to survive.
By establishing an earlier strike date, the union seems to have increased the chances of a work stoppage but perhaps also enhanced the probability of a new Basic Agreement in time to rescue whatever might be left of the 1994 season. There is more elbow room, if only both sides would roll up their sleeves and get it done lest they dare enter a long, cold winter of increased hostility.
If the last game is played Aug. 11, there is no telling when the next one would be. Reinsdorf, powerful and well-heeled, already has warned that the entire 1995 schedule could be a casualty. Asked if he would sacrifice a World Series featuring his White Sox now for, as he puts it, a system that would work, Reinsdorf replied, “This is the best team we’ve had since I’ve been here, but I’m looking for long-term sanity and solutions.”
When will the gentlemen in charge start their engines? In 1990, owners locked out players from spring training. Only after a month of grim tidings and ominous vibes did the tenor veer from war to peace. The lads were back in uniform 32 days later and the regular season began, albeit slightly beyond its scheduled opening. Both factions warned us about tomorrow.
Well, tomorrow is here, and despite this summer in the sun, baseball threatens to remove a popular product from the shelves.
The union resists “artificial restraints” such as a salary cap, maintains a platform of status quo and cannot imagine that a sport is in trouble when franchise values routinely double every five years. Owners wonder how players with an average income of $1.2 million can go on strike and not comprehend that if teams fold, jobs will be lost.
But it has been two decades that owners and players have fought this fight, and the only way they ever seem to shake hands is by first taking away baseball from fans. It’s sick but true, and neither side would be gambling on your emotions if they didn’t have your money to fund their whims. Their strike and lockout insurance is your love of the game they’re merely renting.
The owners won for 70 years and the players have won for the last 20, and now the next bout begins Aug. 12. If only we could be guaranteed an athletic rarity, the double knockout.
They deserve each other.
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