IT’S ALREADY BEEN a long day when Don Fehr walks into his corner office at union headquarters and plunks down behind his cluttered desk. He’s just come from taping the Charlie Rose show, where he barely controlled his disdain for Dick Ravitch for the 60 minutes that baseball’s lead negotiators sat at their host’s round table and debated the reasons why baseball is about to go over the cliff.
This was their third television appearance together in the past week, and baseball writers, bored and annoyed with following another baseball labor battle, have dubbed this the Dick and Don Show. A few of the more clever writers are calling the appearances Fehr and Loathing, which, given the nature of their talks, is far more fitting.
It’s Monday, August 1, exactly 17 years to the day since Fehr joined the staff of the Players Association, and he’s never felt more frustrated. Or helpless. The strike date is just 10 days away, and he’s convinced Selig is all but daring the players to walk out.
Fehr also knows that many of the owners are confident the players will give up and agree to their demands, no matter how many times they’ve been proved wrong. It’s always been the owners who cave, but this time there is a difference. This time Selig and Reinsdorf only need six more owners to join them in blocking a deal—and they have those from the small markets alone. Fehr is convinced these owners are all willing to sacrifice this season to get what they want.
Barring a miracle, this season is soon going to end.
Fehr flips through the letters in front of him until he sees one from Ravitch’s office. That’s strange, he thinks as he slices through the top of the envelope and pulls out the two-page letter. He and Ravitch just shared a limo back to their respective offices, which are just a few city blocks apart. If Ravitch had something to say, Fehr wonders, why didn’t he just bring it up then?
The letter is dated July 29, just one day after the players set their strike date. And it’s addressed to Leonard Gray, the players’ pension fund administrator, with a copy going to Fehr. What the hell?
As Fehr begins to read, he can feel his anger mount.
“As you know, the agreement to contribute to the Major League Baseball Benefit plan expired March 19,” he reads. “Thus, there is no existing contribution obligation on the part of the Clubs.… We are now providing notice that the Clubs are temporarily suspending contributions to the Benefit Plan pending the outcome of negotiations with the MLPBA.”
Fehr is stunned. The pension plan, the very thing that prompted players to unionize four decades ago, provides for the health care of players—past and present—and their families. This payment—$7.8 million—is historically the quid pro quo for the players’ participation in the annual All-Star Game. A game they played 20 days ago.
How long have Selig and Ravitch known about this? How many times has Ravitch sat across from Fehr without bringing this up? Charlie Rose had asked Fehr about the lack of trust the players have for the owners. “There’s a long history of bad dealings” by the owners, Fehr told him.
The owners just added another chapter.
If this is yet another ploy to undermine Fehr, it’s an ignorant one at best. Nothing unites Major League Baseball players more than their pension.
Fehr marches down the hall to the union’s main conference room, where he finds Lauren Rich and Michael Weiner. Mark Belanger and Tony Bernazard, former players now working for the union, and Gene Orza hear the commotion and arrive moments later. All are as outraged as their boss when they hear the news.
“Dirty pool,” Weiner calls it.
“True, but this is a gift,” says Orza. “The players will never listen to them now.”
Fehr discusses trying to move up the strike date (doubtful) and filing a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (absolutely). He asks his staff to set up a conference call with the Executive Board for tonight, so he can break the news to the player reps.
Two days later, Fehr sits down and writes a pair of letters. One is to all the players, assuring them the union can and will cover the missed payments and continue their benefits.
The other is to Ravitch, for whom he has lost what little respect he ever had. He accuses the owners of purposely misleading the players about their All-Star Game participation, only to take their money and run. Far worse, he says, the owners are guilty of playing with the health and well-being of the players and their families.
“Why the players would want to be ‘partners’ with people who do that is beyond imagination,” he writes.
Don Mattingly sits in the Yankees dugout, arms spread across the ledge of the cushioned blue bench. The Yankees captain’s eyes are fixed on his two oldest sons, Taylor and Preston, who are running around the Stadium’s lush green outfield. It’s four hours before the Yankees’ game against the Orioles, early even by Mattingly’s standards, but he wants to give his sons a chance to enjoy the Stadium.
It’s August 9, and Mattingly’s not sure when—or if—they’ll have this chance again.
“It could be my last game,” he tells a few reporters who ask him what he thinks will happen if the players strike. “If this thing goes through the winter and into the spring, and they do something I don’t agree with, I don’t know if I would play. This could be my last day of baseball.”
The sense of shared uncertainty is clear two days later when Mattingly walks into the clubhouse, where all his teammates are emptying their lockers into large cardboard boxes. Players are milling about, trading phone numbers, exchanging autographed baseballs. It looks and feels like a clubhouse on the day a season ends.
George Steinbrenner and Buck Showalter walk into the room, and all activity comes to a halt. “Men, I don’t want you to take this dispute personally,” Steinbrenner tells his players. Nineteen of them do not have a contract for next season, and many of them are wondering if today is their last day as a Yankee. “This is business,” their boss says. “Just stay in shape in case there is a settlement.”
Showalter, an intense, driven man in the best of times, is a tight fist of emotion as he steps forward. “I want to thank you all for playing so well this season,” the manager says. “This is the best chance this organization has had to play in the postseason since 1981. You all should be proud of what you have done here, even if the strike prevents us from going any further.”
A crowd of 37,333 shows up on this gloomy, gray afternoon and watches a seesaw game destined to go extra innings. Toronto jumps ahead, 2–0, then Danny Tartabull belts a three-run, 3rd-inning homer after a Wade Boggs sac fly to put the Yankees up 4–2. The lead changes hands twice more before the Jays tie it at 6–6 in the 8th. But it’s the music playing over the Stadium sound system that tells the real story:
The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go.”
KWS’ “Please Don’t Go.”
R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It,” the Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out,” and Elton John’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.”
Writers work the phones as the innings slip by. Baltimore owner Peter Angelos tells the New York Times he thinks there’s a little bit of movement, but says, “I don’t know where it’s coming from.” Colorado owner Jerry McMorris says he believes the salary cap is negotiable. Bud Selig says McMorris is dead wrong.
A handful of writers walk over to the owner’s box to seek out Steinbrenner, who creates a mini stir. “Ravitch needs to drop the competitive balance argument given [that] Montreal has the second-lowest payroll and the game’s best record,” says Steinbrenner. But the Yankees owner is beginning to get worked up when he’s asked if he’s breaking ranks with Selig.
“I do not intend to show any split in this group,” says George. “Bud Selig is leading this ship, and I’m tired of the harpooning and hits he’s taking. My interests are being represented.”
The game is almost four hours in when Ed Sprague leads off the 13th with a line drive over the wall in left, putting Toronto up, 8–7. When New York’s Matt Nokes flies out to center, the Yankees walk off the field with their fifth loss in the last six games. Still, if this is the end of the season, their 70–43 record is second only to Montreal (74–40) for the best in baseball.
The players and coaches finish packing in a quiet clubhouse. O’Neill, whose .359 average leads the league, stuffs baseball cards in his duffel bag and leaves. Showalter asks writers if he’s supposed to give away his hat, a season-ending baseball tradition. Mattingly puts three gloves in his bag, looks around the clubhouse one last time, and walks out.
The scene is the same in clubhouses across the country, a season full of sterling performances cut short. In Denver, Greg Maddux wins his 16th game, a three-hit shutout that lowers his ERA to 1.56. In Houston, the Padres’ Tony Gwynn raps out three hits to raise his average to .394, the highest since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941.
Matt Williams, who hit his major league–leading 43rd homer in the Giants’ final game in Chicago yesterday, cleans out his locker in a somber Candlestick Park clubhouse. Frank Thomas is doing the same in Chicago. Thomas’ line: 38–101–.353. “I picked the wrong season to have a career year,” he says.
The Mariners-A’s game, last on the schedule, gives baseball fans one final glimpse of what they will be missing. Seattle’s Ken Griffey Jr. is the game’s crown jewel. Already a six-year veteran at 24, Junior has 171 career home runs, putting him on track to join the big three: Mays (660), Ruth (714), and Aaron (755).
Home run No. 172 comes in style: a grand slam to deep right-center field, giving him 40 home runs and 90 RBI to go with his .323 batting average. The runs are more than enough to nail down Randy Johnson’s 13th victory. The Big Unit strikes out 15, giving him a major league–leading 204 in 172 innings.
It’s 9:45 p.m. PDT when Ernie Young swings and misses Johnson’s final pitch. As the fans file out of Oakland Coliseum, no one knows when they’ll see another pitch thrown. But most of them know whom they will blame for laying waste to this terrific season.
Bud Selig and Don Fehr.
Nothing Selig and Fehr do over the next few weeks will endear them to baseball fans. Selig immediately issues a gag order—enforceable by a $100,000 fine—to keep his side in line. He sees no reason to give Fehr any help holding the players together. Negotiators on both sides agree to bring owners and players to a meeting in New York with federal mediator John Calhoun Wells in late August, but after two days the discourse is so rancorous that Wells says he has no intention of holding another meeting any time soon.
Selig ratchets up the pressure on September 2 by declaring he’ll have to cancel the season and World Series unless a deal is reached within the next seven days. Four meetingless days later, Fehr announces he’s filing a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board over the owners’ failure to make their $7.8 million pension fund payment.
“It is not unexpected,” says the owners’ outside counsel Chuck O’Connor. Though Ravitch has not been formally fired, Selig has pushed him aside in favor of O’Connor, a lawyer from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. “We feel we are well within our legal rights,” O’Connor says.
As time runs short, Selig shoots down rumors that 19 owners are ready to drop their salary cap demand—two less than the number needed to end the strike. On September 7, he sends a small contingent to New York to meet with Fehr. Most of the talk focuses on a luxury tax plan, an idea that first emerged in late August as a replacement for the salary cap. The plan penalizes teams with payrolls over a predetermined threshold, with much depending on where the threshold is set and the size of the tax. Some on both sides leave the meeting believing—praying?—that a hint of progress may be emerging.
At 11 a.m. the next day, Dodgers pitcher Orel Hershiser, Pittsburgh shortstop Jay Bell, Texas pitcher Kevin Brown, and Oakland catcher Terry Steinbach meet Lauren Rich, Michael Weiner, and Steve Fehr at union headquarters. Together they walk the four blocks to MLB headquarters at 245 Park Avenue—the media in tow—and hand-deliver a new proposal. The offer places a tax on payrolls and revenues, transferring about $50 million from big market teams to small market teams. There is no mention of a cap.
But what little optimism these talks generate quickly fades. Selig flies into New York the next day—September 9, his deadline for a new agreement—and attends his first bargaining session. He listens while Colorado owner Jerry McMorris, Boston’s John Harrington, and others discuss the tax plan with Fehr and his lawyers.
When he’s heard enough, Selig tells Fehr he’s not ready to cancel the season, but the union’s offer just isn’t good enough. Moments later, Selig says the same thing to the media. “Unfortunately,” he says, “it’s our judgment that this proposal was unresponsive to the long-term interests of baseball.”
Then he slips off for a private meeting with Fehr, Molitor, and Rich. But he has nothing new to say. “We want cost certainty,” Selig tells Fehr. “You have a few more days to give us what we need. If you don’t, the season is over.” The meeting lasts a matter of minutes.
His message delivered, Selig leaves for the airport, where a private jet awaits to take him back to Milwaukee. His wife only has to look at the stress etched on Bud’s face when he arrives home to know where things stand. Selig is determined to win, but going down in history as the man who shut down baseball—even though he thinks it’s Fehr who deserves the blame—weighs on him heavily.
Selig spends the last weekend of the baseball season at football games. He’s at the Packers game on Sunday, telling reporters that fans at County Stadium are urging him not to give in. One night later, he’s interviewed at halftime on Monday Night Football and delivers the bad news.
“We’re either very close to the end or within a day or two,” Selig tells Al Michaels.
Selig continues to work the phones, making sure his side remains united while keeping track of back-channel talks between Fehr and McMorris over a luxury tax plan. The Rockies owner carries the conflicting hopes of both sides—Selig thinks McMorris can talk sense into the union leader; Fehr thinks McMorris can talk sense into the Acting Commissioner. Sadly, McMorris never bridges the gap.
Fehr spends Monday in a four-hour meeting in New York with the players on the Executive Board. He makes sure the first checks from the $200 million strike fund—as much as $10,000 to almost 1,400 current and former players—are ready to go out on September 15. He double-checks that the conference-call network will remain intact when the season is shut down and that players know about the meetings he’ll hold across the country in the coming weeks.
When this meeting comes to a close, Fehr delivers his own message. “It doesn’t matter what I say—Bud will do what he wants to do,” he tells the media. “The notion that he cares the slightest about what we say is nonsense. It’s all pretense.
“It’ll be tragic if the playoffs and World Series go down. But this has not been of the players’ making.”
With Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, looming on Thursday, it is obvious the owners will cancel the season on Wednesday, September 14. Selig makes two important calls on September 12. One is to Steinbrenner, letting George know the Executive Board is preparing a statement announcing that the season will be canceled the next day. He tells Steinbrenner how disappointed he is that it’s come to this, especially with the Yankees in first place.
The other call is to Fehr. It’s over, he tells the union leader. We’ve run out of time.
“I’d like to make this a joint announcement,” Selig tells Fehr.
“Bud, I’m not going to help you do this, you have to do it yourself,” Fehr says. “Our job is to get an agreement. If you want to pull down the World Series, that’s your responsibility, not mine.”
All that remains now is a conference call with Selig’s fellow owners. In an effort to shield Bud, they decide to issue a joint statement from New York and then conduct media conferences in their own cities. One thing they won’t discuss: Harrington’s suggestion in the Boston Globe that ownership will use replacement players next spring if the strike isn’t over. There will be time for talk like that soon enough.
It’s just past noon on September 14 when Selig walks into the Gilles Frozen Custard stand and orders his hot dog and Diet Coke. This meal will be eaten on the drive back to his office at County Stadium. By now the four-paragraph statement announcing the end of the season has been released, signed by 26 of the 28 clubs. Marge Schott refused to sign; she wanted to finish the season with minor leaguers. Angelos refused as well, explaining in a letter to Selig that while he agrees with the decision, he feels it is counterproductive to place all the blame on the players.
Which is precisely what Bud does.
The clubs, Selig says in the statement, made a reasonable offer to the players for $1 billion in salary and benefits. “The union refused to bargain with us over costs and took a hard-line position that the clubs would fold, as they had in past negotiations,” Selig says. “That was a terrible mistake, one for which all of us must pay.”
Selig makes his way to County Stadium’s executive dining room, the only place in the ancient building large enough to hold all the reporters and camera crews who showed up to record history. Players have missed 669 games. The sterling seasons by Gwynn, Griffey, and so many others are now faded memories. Upwards of $800 million has already been lost by both sides combined, with far more losses to come.
And for the first time since 1904, the World Series will not be played.
“It is very hard to articulate the poignancy of this moment,” Selig says. “This is a failure of so much. Lest anybody not understand, there can’t be any joy on any side.”
The Acting Commissioner insists that the game could not go on without solving its problems. Yes, the short-term pain is intense. But when a solution is finally found, it will all be worth it. And no, shutting down the season was not the owners’ strategy from the start.
“Despite the view that it was some predetermined plot, it was far from that,” Selig says. “We have to make a deal soon and start playing baseball again.”
In New York, the man Selig blames for baseball’s problems is delivering his version of what’s just transpired. It’s hard to escape the irony of the location Fehr has chosen—the InterContinental Hotel, site of so many fruitless bargaining sessions. The union leader walks up to the podium, shakes his head, and wraps up the day’s event succinctly.
“Anticlimactic,” says Fehr, squinting into the bank of TV lights. “Anticlimactic in the extreme.”
No, Fehr is not surprised. He’s been planning for this day for months—years, really—hoping it would never arrive. But now that it has, it’s almost impossible to think that what happened today was not inevitable.
“Bud Selig’s words and behavior in the last several days have been accompanied by such expressions of finality that it’s obvious he wants you and I—and all the fans—to understand the Lords of Baseball have had their say,” says Fehr, sounding more resigned than angry.
“When people think back to what the final image of the 1994 season will be, it may be Bud Selig at a press conference in Milwaukee, protesting pain and gnashing teeth, but nevertheless going ahead and dashing the hopes and dreams of so many people.”