Even as some MLB owners continue to lobby against certain
provisions of a proposed labor deal with players, some owners and
others in management "are growing increasingly frustrated by the
delay initiated by [acting MLB Commissioner] Bud Selig,"
according to the N.Y. TIMES. One owner: "Bud moves too slowly.
He's listening to Reinsdorf and a few others." That owner was
referring to White Sox Chair Jerry Reinsdorf and other hard-line
owners opposed to granting service time. With Selig reportedly
ready to vote, "the No. 1 question being asked now is, does he?"
Another owner: "I think he doesn't think the votes are there
yet. He's working on that. He has a deliberate style." Selig,
on the criticism: "Sometimes I am too deliberate; I admit that.
... In this particular matter, there's a lot of work to do,
especially with the clubs that haven't been involved in the
process. I don't want anyone to be able to say they were forced
to do something they didn't understand. To do it differently
could create a lot of problems later on" (Murray Chass, N.Y.
TIMES, 8/29).
TWO SCENARIOS: If Selig does have at least 21 of 28 owners
on board for the deal (as Chass notes, Selig "always knows he has
the necessary votes before he calls for a vote"), he could
authorize Randy Levine, MLB's chief labor negotiator, to complete
talks with the MLBPA in order to present a deal at the owners'
quarterly meetings in Seattle on September 10-12. However,
others are floating the scenario that Selig "could take the
elements of a deal that have been negotiated and the open issues
and let the owners hash them out at their meetings" (N.Y. TIMES,
8/29).
THE ART OF THE DEAL: SI's Tom Verducci writes the owners
have left on the table "the best deal they had ever been offered"
and that the players "have offered unprecedented concessions."
Still, concerns over service time and the second tax-free year
hinder any agreement. One owner: "If this deal blows up, we all
should be worried about what's on the other side. If it's not
exactly Armageddon, then it puts us right at the precipice of
it." The prospect that a final no-tax year would set up owners
to negotiate "off a platform of zero" in 2001 to keep the tax, as
one owner put it, is one reason Reinsdorf has been arguing, "A
bad deal is worse than no deal." Verducci concludes, "It's
people such as Reinsdorf who virtually preclude a real
partnership between the owners and players from ever happening.
The antagonism and the fixation with winning and losing are too
deeply rooted to go away. ... That's why you cannot expect labor
peace. This is about labor truce" (SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, 9/2
issue).
