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Midnight oil Sides inch closer as talks continue into the morningPosted: Thursday August 29, 2002 12:00 PMUpdated: Friday August 30, 2002 7:51 AM
NEW YORK (AP) -- With a strike deadline looming and progress coming in "baby steps," baseball negotiators worked nonstop into Friday morning hoping to reach a settlement in time to avoid a walkout later in the day. Boston Red Sox players were told to wait at Fenway Park when they arrived at 7:30 a.m. to board buses for Logan International Airport and a charter flight to Cleveland. "We have been asked by the parties in New York to delay our departure for at least an hour," interim general manager Mike Port said. "I think that gives us reason for optimism. We're not there yet." As the hours dwindled, lawyers for both sides shuttled between the commissioner's office and union headquarters, crunching numbers and exchanging revised proposals. Management and player sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the sides were inching toward an agreement, but they did not know if Friday's schedule could be saved. "Baby steps, back and forth," Tampa Bay player representative John Flaherty said. As of 6:30 a.m. EDT, there were still "significant differences" between the sides, said one negotiator, who also spoke on condition he not be identified. There was no set time for the start of a strike, which would be the sport's ninth work stoppage since 1972. The first game affected would be St. Louis at Chicago, scheduled to begin at 3:20 p.m. EDT. Fourteen games are scheduled at night. With billions of dollars at stake, players and owners were extremely cautious in describing even the smallest concession and said little on the progress of talks. Fans, meanwhile, tossed about a half-dozen foul balls back onto the field during Anaheim's 6-1 win over the Devil Rays, the last game played Thursday night. Many of the 18,820 fans chanted "Don't Strike, Don't Strike" during the seventh-inning stretch, and when the game ended, some of them threw debris on the field. After scores of meetings over 234 days, the sides remained apart on the key issues: levels for a luxury tax and revenue sharing. Other unresolved issues were the owners' desire to fold two teams and the union's desire to move the expiration date of a new deal from Oct. 31 to Dec. 31, a key shift under baseball's free-agent rules. Union head Donald Fehr and his top aides went to the commissioner's office along with Atlanta's Tom Glavine and B.J. Surhoff just before 9:30 p.m. Thursday. Fehr and the players met with commissioner Bud Selig for about 10 minutes before the start of the negotiating session, then returned to the union office. Two lawyers from each side bargained until 2 a.m. before the sides broke for caucuses. Players gave owners a proposal during a meeting that began at 4 a.m. That session ended in 20 minutes. Another meeting began at about 6:30 a.m. and also lasted 20 minutes. "Negotiations are really sensitive now. It's hard to express optimism or pessimism," Texas Rangers player representative Jeff Zimmerman said. The walkout threatens the final 31 days and 438 games of the regular season, and imperils the World Series -- canceled by a strike in 1994 for the first time in 90 years. If a strike drags into mid-September, the postseason would be in jeopardy. Anaheim wasn't the only place where fans vented their frustrations.
"Both sides are being awfully greedy, considering what is happening economically in this country," said Mary Anne Curran, a fan at the Pirates-Braves game in Pittsburgh. "I find it disgusting they can't find a happy medium when they're talking about millions of dollars." The White House wasn't getting involved. "The owners and players need to keep in mind not only what a strike would do to the future of baseball, but also what it would to America during a time of national unity and national spirit," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. At the Arlington, Texas, ballpark President Bush helped build as a controlling owner, the clubhouse was filled with boxes for players' belongings. "It doesn't sound real good from what I've heard in the last few hours," said Rangers shortstop Alex Rodriguez, who would lose the most of any player, $114,754 a day. "You just have to prepare yourself for the very worst." One hardline owner hoped an agreement would reform baseball's economics. "We want a deal that will return competitive balance and stop fiscal insanity," San Diego's John Moores said in Houston. The old contract expired after the World Series last November, and talks for a new deal began in January. Players, fearful owners would lock them out after the postseason, decided to force a confrontation late in the season, when more revenue is at stake. The key argument involves levels of increased revenue sharing and the luxury tax. Selig, upset in recent years by the domination of the New York Yankees and other wealthy teams, wants to increase the amount of locally generated revenue teams share from 20 percent to 36 percent. Players have proposed 33.3 percent and want to phase in the increase. To slow salaries, owners have asked for a luxury tax that would penalize high-spending teams. The sides got closer Thursday, with owners increasing the proposed threshold for the tax in 2003 to $115 million, the player and management sources said. The union lowered its threshold to $118 million, they said.
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