Baseball Heads for the Showers

By B.J. Phillips

The owners balk, the players walk and the fans squawk

Precisely at 1:35 p.m. C.D.T., starting time for last Friday's game between the Chicago Cubs and the visiting San Diego Padres, the stands at Wrigley Field were empty. A few hours later, when games were scheduled to begin at other big league ballparks across the U.S., no fans showed up. After nearly two years of acrimonious bargaining between team owners and the Players Association, major league baseball was shut down by a strike, a month short of the season's midpoint. Though the players had walked out just before the start of the 1972 season, last week's strike marked the first in which the sport had been interrupted after a season was under way.

Fans across the country were dismayed. The rituals of baseball are a mainstay of American life, and some lifelong habits were disrupted by the strike. Said Lester Wilson, an optometrist from East Point, Ga.: "An old man like me, baseball's all I get a kick out of. I'm sick about it. I won't have anything to do at night."

The strike was the final twist in a long and complicated battle between the men who play baseball and the men who own it. The roots of the conflict lie in a 1975 decision in a case brought by former Los Angeles Dodgers Pitcher Andy Messersmith and Baltimore Orioles Pitcher Dave McNally challenging baseball's reserve clause. Under that 92-year-old provision, a player had been bound to the club that initially signed him until he was traded or quit the game. When an arbitrator (and later an appeals court) ruled in favor of the players, the free-agent era began. Players who completed their contracts were free to offer their services to the highest bidder. The first free-agent re-entry draft was held the following fall. Reggie Jackson came away the big winner, signing a five-year contract at a reported $3 million with the New York Yankees.

In subsequent contract negotiations between the Players Association and the owners, the players agreed to limit free-agent status to those who had spent at least six years in the big leagues (the average major league tenure is slightly more than four years). The players also agreed to give a team that loses an athlete to free agency one of his new club's picks in the annual draft of amateur players. Even with these limitations, free-agent bidding quickly soared into the stratosphere, and owners found themselves throwing millions at sore-armed pitchers and journeyman outfielders. The owners' solution: force the big spenders to give up a working big leaguer, not an untried amateur, whenever they signed a free agent.

On that issue, the negotiations foundered. To maintain competitive balance, the owners argued, clubs had to receive a player comparable in stature to the departing free agent. Under their proposal, a team that signed a free agent would be allowed to exempt 15 players from its major and minor league rosters; the player's original team would be able to pick a compensatory player from those who remained.

The players argue that such a requirement would drastically limit their movement on the open market; 15 players, they point out, constitute merely the starting lineup, the pitching rotation and a pair of relievers on a major league roster of 25 men. The players contend that teams forced to pay such a high player tax would be unwilling to bid for all but a select few free agents. Said Philadelphia's Pete Rose, who left Cincinnati two years ago when the Phillies offered him a reported $3.5 million for four years: "I was 38 when I played out my option with the Reds, and they didn't want to offer me a contract because I was too old. I would never have had a chance to play today if it hadn't been for the free-agent system."

In his final game before the strike, Rose, now 40, tied former St. Louis Cardinal Slugger Stan Musial for the alltime National League record for base hits at 3,630. Rose's quest is but one casualty of the strike. Baseball was off to one of its biggest years ever.

Attendance through the first week in June was 13,758,214, vs. 12,773,367 last year and 9,289,799 in 1975. Tight pennant races were thrilling fans in all four divisions. A crop of dazzling young rookies--notably Dodger Pitcher Fernando Valenzuela and Montreal Expos Leftfielder Tim Raines --found their brief careers jarringly brought to a halt. What's more, the players' salaries will be docked for each day they remain on strike. Rose, for example, will lose more than $5,000 a game.

The owners, who faced self-imposed fines if they spoke publicly about the negotiations, refused comment on why the talks collapsed.

But they were prepared for a lengthy walkout: clubs had been contributing a percentage of gate receipts to a strike fund for two seasons, and $50 million in strike insurance had been taken out through Lloyds of London.

The players were just as resolute--and more outspoken. Said Yankee Rightfielder Reggie Jackson: "I won't get anything out of a strike. But how do I tell [centerfielder] Jerry Mumphrey or [catcher] Rick Cerone or [pitcher] Ron Guidry that he can't have the same opportunity I had, that now that I've made my money, it's all right to change the free-agent rule?"

Talks were set to resume this week, but many players headed for far-off beaches and trout streams. Said Baltimore's Ken Singleton: "I'm taking my kids to the zoo." A few expressed regret about the effect of the strike on the fans. "I don't think there's a single player on this club who wants to go on strike," said Oakland Designated Hitter Cliff Johnson. "Baseball's such a great game. I hope it doesn't deteriorate in the fans' minds."

Johnson may be onto something. The greatest casualty of the strike, no matter what its outcome, may not be the owners or the players or even the fans, but the national pastime. Baseball and summer, after all, were invented for each other.

Over the past century, Americans have not had to worry too much about how to fill those sultry days and lengthy evenings.

Now they will drift away from the ballparks and the TV sets and find other pursuits. No one can be sure how many will be back. --By BJ. Phillips

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