Baseball blues
Small-market teams still bristling over Brown's deal
Posted: Saturday January 23, 1999 12:29 PM
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Break the bank: Brown (right) will comprise more than 15 percent of the Dodgers' $80 million payroll in 1999 AP |
NEW YORK (AP) -- Peter Magowan seemed to be speaking for half the major
league owners.
"I think the Dodgers misled everybody in baseball," the San Francisco Giants
boss said. "I feel somewhat stabbed in the back by what they told us and
what they've done."
More than a month after Kevin Brown
agreed to a $105 million, seven-year contract with Rupert Murdoch's Los Angeles Dodgers,
baseball is reeling from the fallout from a deal that has galvanized
small-market teams into demanding change.
Competitive imbalance dominated hallway talk earlier this month at the
owners' meetings in Carlsbad, Calif. Even though the next round of
collective bargaining likely won't begin until after the 2001 season,
salary-cap talk filled the air.
"We're midway through a baseball deal that doesn't work well for a number
of teams," said Stan Kasten, president of the Atlanta Braves and the
NBA's Atlanta Hawks.
In the last agreement, players agreed to a 35 percent luxury tax on the
teams with the five highest payrolls, a figure that drops to 34 percent
this year. But the amount given to players by baseball's big spenders has
slowed only slightly because the tax starts at such a high level -- the
midpoint between the fifth- and sixth-highest payrolls.
"I thought the tax would have no impact whatsoever and that has proven to
be the case," Kasten said.
Anger among the low-revenue teams has been brewing for years. With
Brown's contract, it burst into the open at its highest level since the end
of the 232-day strike that wiped out the last two months of the 1994
season, the World Series and the first three weeks of the '95 season.
Many teams have raised ticket prices in order to maintain high payrolls
-- the top regular ticket at Yankee Stadium has gone from $25 in 1996, to
$35 in '97 to $45 in '98 to $50 this year.
In addition, teams are adding premium seats. The Yankees last year built
an extra 60 first-row seats that sell for $16,000 a season ($197.53 per
game). The Mets are adding 90 premium seats that will sell for $150 and
$100 per game.
"It's impacting the affordability of baseball to the fans," San Diego Padres
president Larry Lucchino said. "It's impacting families. It's impacting the
competitive balance that's at the heart of baseball."
Among the 12 teams with payrolls of $48 million or higher last year,
eight made the playoffs and all but one had a winning record. The Baltimore Orioles, who
spent a major league-high $74.2 million, were the exception, stumbling to a
79-83 record.
Among the 18 teams who spent less than $48 million, only three had
winning records: San Francisco (89-74), St. Louis (83-79) and Toronto
(88-74). And the Giants and Cardinals each spent more than $47 million.
Increasingly, you get what you pay for.
"The symbolism of a $100 million contract has brought it into focus, but
it's been building for a long time," Lucchino said.
The players' association, which negotiated the landmark agreement
creating free agency in 1976, successfully withstood assaults during a
50-day strike in 1981, a two-day strike in 1995, a 32-day lockout in 1990
and the 1994-95 strike, which caused a 20 percent drop in attendance that
hasn't entirely been erased.
Union head Donald Fehr has repeatedly told commissioner Bud Selig the
problem has nothing to do with players. In his view, it's all about the
refusal of high-revenue teams to share more of their money with their
low-revenue partners.
Fehr made clear the owners' hope for a salary cap in baseball is a pipe
dream. While NBA owners negotiated a salary maximum of $14 million,
baseball would have to lose one or two seasons to get its players to even
consider a similar provision.
"We haven't seen anything so far that suggests we're going to," Fehr said
Thursday. "Baseball players have historically behaved in very different
ways than basketball players."
The union and agents have warned teams not to even think of asking for a
salary cap. Some agents have said players already are beginning to get
ready for another long war -- just in case.
"At least through today, the memories of what we went through four years
ago remain reasonably vivid," Fehr said. "If that remains when we get to
bargaining, that should have a beneficial effect."
Owners hope the increased competitive imbalance will cause players on the
have-nots to push for change. The popular phrase of this offseason seems to
be "young and exciting." It seems to be a euphemism for "100-game loser."
Cincinnati, Florida, Kansas City, Minnesota, Montreal, Oakland and
Pittsburgh all appear likely to start the season with payrolls of $20
million or lower and have little hope to compete.
It's hard to envision scenarios in which the Chicago White Sox,
Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle, Tampa Bay and Toronto
can contend for a playoff spot.
That's half the major leagues eliminated or virtually eliminated. And
spring training is still a month away.
"It's gotten worse each year," Pirates outfielder Brian Giles said. "The
players have to be willing to sit down and work out something that will
work for everyone.
"Anytime you're on a winning team, you don't think about those things.
But reality hits (when a player comes to a smaller market). ... The players
have to sit down with the owners so we don't have a mess like we did four
years ago."
That is a distinct minority viewpoint among the players' association, a
group that has seen its militant defense of the free market raise the
average salary from $51,501 in 1976 to $1,398,831 last season. For them,
players can choose wherever they want to be after six seasons in the major
leagues. If they're stuck on a low-revenue team early in their career,
that's the price to be paid.
"I think the most important word in sports is hope, that fans have the
hope that their team has a chance to be competitive," Magowan said.
"Something has to be done. I don't think fans want to know two-thirds of
the teams have no chance to win. For players on these teams, what are they
playing for? For themselves? To entertain? Or do they want to compete?"
Magowan and former Oakland Athletics
president Sandy Alderson, now executive vice president of baseball
operations in the commissioner's office, have said low-revenue teams have
seen they can't win with $40 million payrolls and are slicing them to $20
million. That frees up even more good players for the high-revenue teams to
gobble up, increasing competitive imbalance.
Selig hasn't given any solutions, other than saying he is going to
enforce the rule requiring teams not to have debts of more than 40 percent
of their net worth. Given increased corporate ownership, it's not clear how
he intends to enforce the rule.
Other than that, his primary action has been to establish a committee to
examine the situation.
"It's going to need a lot of planning," Houston Astros owner
Drayton McLane said. "It didn't get in this shape overnight -- it took
years."
For their part, the Dodgers say they're blameless, that they paid what
others were willing to pay for Brown -- a notion scoffed at by Lucchino.
Other teams have blamed Murdoch for raising the cost of all future players.
"From our perspective, we're trying to run the business on a stand-alone
basis," Dodgers president Bob Graziano said. "We felt we needed to make a
commitment to winning, and that's what we did."
With Minnesota, Montreal and Oakland facing uncertain futures, some in
baseball are talking for the first time in years about contraction --
rather than moving a team, folding it and dispersing its players.
That's one fewer team to split broadcast money with. There's no prime
city for a move -- unless Charlotte, N.C., reverses course and decides to
finance a ballpark, or someone is willing to move into Northern Virginia
and pay for a court fight with Orioles owner Peter Angeles, who would try
to block a move.
Selig, who will lead owners in the next round of negotiations, says his
priority is to avoid a strike or lockout. But he doesn't say how.
"I don't think we can take another work stoppage," he said.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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