There are gathering indications that the major-league owners, eager to get on with the show, are seriously contemplating opening the 1995 regular season with minor-league players-if all or enough of the striking big-leaguers don’t return.
Said Gene Orza, general counsel for the Players Association:
“If they did that, it would be like putting the St. Rita High School Band in Orchestra Hall and telling people, `Come see the Chicago Symphony.’ “
Still, if the strike isn’t settled within two or three weeks before the end of spring training, there is more than a mere likelihood minor-leaguers will be performing in Cubs and White Sox uniforms at Wrigley Field and at Comiskey Park, as well as the other big-league stadiums.
Ticket prices would be reduced accordingly, probably as much as 50 percent.
“It’s very premature to be thinking those kind of thoughts,” insisted Bud Selig, the acting commissioner. “Right now all we’re talking about is how we can get the major-league players back. I’m optimistic there will be an agreement.”
Two owners, Jerry McMorris of the Colorado Rockies and David Glass of the Kansas City Royals, are on record as saying they will open their spring camps to minor-leaguers. A third, the influential John Harrington of the Boston Red Sox, has admitted “it’s something that must be considered.”
Marge Schott of Cincinnati, in a telephone interview Monday, said: “All the teams would have to make that decision. I don’t know what the rules are. But I would ask if we couldn’t bring up the younger players. I just don’t want to lose another season.”
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When Selig called off the season Sept. 14, Schott and Peter Angelos of the Baltimore Orioles were the only owners who refused to sign the agreement that terminated the season. Schott suggested play continue with minor-leaguers.
“I wanted to go ahead and have a World Series,” she said. “I just didn’t want to break a 90-year tradition.”
The owners, should they decide to open with farmhands, would have a vast pool of lesser professional talent to fill up their rosters. There are 5,000 minor-league players who last season competed in five minor-league classifications.
“Bear in mind there are two types of minor-leaguers,” Orza said. “There are the players on the 40-man rosters of the major-league clubs. As soon as they’re put on the 40-man roster, they’re members of the association. We represent them for collective-bargaining purposes. They won’t come to work. If the owners think they will, they’re simply mistaken.”
Once the championship season begins and until Sept. 1, the big-league clubs are allowed to carry only 25 players. The remainder are sent to the minors on option.
John Westhoff, an attorney for the owners’ Player Relations Committee, agrees players on the 40-man rosters are members of the union, but insists it is a technicality open to dispute.
“They don’t share in the licensing money,” Westhoff said. “They’re not getting payments from the players’ strike fund. They’re not credited with service time, and they don’t have a vote. They won’t be asked to ratify any agreement.”
Players in the lower minors may be more likely to cross a picket line.
“I don’t think they’ll get them, either,” Orza insisted. “Maybe some of them will say, `Gee, I’d sure like to play in Comiskey Park.’ But a lot of them will refuse. They know this fight is for them.”
Whatever, the owners’ accountants have been busy crunching numbers.
The recalled minor-leaguers would be paid the major-league salary minimum of $109,000. If they played until June 1, the big-league clubs would have an approximate payroll of $3 million, just one-tenth of the 1993 average club payroll of $30 million. If the major-leaguers returned on or about June 1, the team payrolls would soar to about $25 million to $27 million.
“Either way most of the clubs would lose, over the full season, about $5 million,” said a National League owner on the condition of anonymity. “According to our estimates, we would lose 15 to 20 percent of our gate. And, of course, we’d be getting less from national and local broadcasting.”
William Usery Jr., appointed by President Clinton to mediate the strike, met for two days last week with union representatives, and later this week will have a similar two-day session with the owners’ negotiating team.
The general assumption was that the owners would declare an impasse Tuesday and immediately attempt to implement their last proposals, including a salary cap, the centerpiece of the dispute. Dick Ravitch, management’s chief negotiator, was not available for comment Monday, but the indications are that implementation will be delayed until the second week of December.