MLB's Players Relations Committee (PRC) sent a letter to
the MLBPA on Friday and announced that it was giving "one
year's notice, as per the basic agreement, for the owners to
take action on the DH if they so desire." PRC Chair Randy
Levine said the owners "were merely following procedure and
not threatening to do away with the DH unilaterally." But
MLBPA Exec Dir Donald Fehr responded in a letter, "Are
memories of your clients so short that the clubs are willing,
if not anxious, to go out of their way to perpetuate an
adversarial relationship with the players? Don't make us
clean your clocks again" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 3/29). In NJ, Bob
Klapisch wrote that while the owners "realize they have no
chance in a one-on-one against this powerful union," they are
hoping "to bargain" the DH into a few more years of
interleague play (Bob Klaisch, Bergen RECORD, 3/28).
AND IF THE GAME WAS SNOWED OUT? In N.Y., Phil Mushnick
notes the late 10:35pm ET start time for season openers for
AL East teams on the West Coast: "To schedule any team's
season opener at a time when one team's hometown fans can't
see it is one of those unthinking, uncaring, no-one-at-the-
wheel acts that MLB specializes in" (N.Y. POST, 3/30)....On
"The Sports Reporters," ESPN's Mike Lupica, on the opening of
the MLB season and the possibility of Mark McGwire or Ken
Griffey chasing the home run mark: "After the sport has been
Huizenga'd to death and been unioned to death and Seliged to
death, this would be a summer to get people talking about
baseball again." ESPN's Bob Ryan called the length of MLB
games "a very big problem, and nobody gets it" (ESPN, 3/29).
