Selig concerned
Latest spending spree prompts special owners meeting
Posted: Thursday December 03, 1998 12:36 AM
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In their place: A small-market team like Kansas City has no chance at landing any top-flight free agents Rick Stewart/Allsport |
NEW YORK (AP) -- Amidst concern about the latest escalation in salaries,
baseball owners will hold a special meeting Thursday in Chicago.
Commissioner Bud Selig intends to tell the teams the widening disparity
among the sport's rich and poor is damaging the game. Latest estimates have
the top earning club with $170 million in revenue this year and the bottom
team taking in only $35 million.
"We have a myriad of subjects to discuss," Selig said Wednesday.
"Certainly the disparity question is a primary one. I wanted to have a
meeting before that January meeting. That's why we're gathering."
Anaheim, Arizona, Atlanta, Baltimore, the New York Mets and the New York Yankees all
have signed players to deals worth $40 million or more, with the Mets
giving Mike
Piazza $91 million over seven years, the Yankees giving Bernie
Williams $87.5 million over seven seasons and the Angels giving Mo Vaughn $80
million over six years.
Top baseball officials, speaking on the condition they not be identified,
already have concluded 15-18 of the 30 teams have been eliminated from
contention for the eight playoffs spots next season -- simply because they
can't generate enough revenue to field a lineup to compete with the big
boys.
Selig says he will steer clear of anything that approaches collusion.
When commissioner Peter Ueberroth preached "fiscal responsibility" in the
mid-1980s, teams stopped signing free agents, resulting in arbitrators
finding the clubs violated the anti-collusion provision of their labor
agreement. The case eventually was settled for $280 million, and the
current labor agreement has a provision for triple damages.
"I have said, and I will say it again, I know what I can do and I'm also
acutely aware of what I can't do," Selig said. "Anything that will be done
will be well thought out and within what legally we can do."
Union head Donald Fehr said he didn't have collusion concerns at this
point.
"It would violate not only the letter but the spirit of the agreement if
anything that happened at this meeting in any way affected the individual
nature of club decision-making with respect to free agent players," he
said. " I have been assured that it won't, and I'm prepared to take that
assurance at face value unless or until elements suggest otherwise."
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