AS THE FIRST autumn without a World Series in 89 years gives way to the final two months of 1994, Americans shift their attention to events that will reshape the nation. On November 8, an unknown backbencher from Georgia ushers in the first Republican majority in the House of Representatives in 40 years. New Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich will go toe-to-toe with President Bill Clinton, shut down the government in a battle over the budget, and turn compromise into something akin to treason.
On the same day, George W. Bush topples popular incumbent Ann Richards to become the 46th governor of Texas. It’s not even inauguration day before W’s chief strategist Karl Rove is talking about putting another Bush in the White House. The newly elected governor announces he’ll place all his assets into a blind trust except his $600,000 stake in the Texas Rangers, which just four years later will be worth $14.9 million, the down payment on turning Rove’s prophecy into reality.
But it’s the trial of former football star O. J. Simpson, charged with the gruesome murder of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman, that grabs the nation’s attention. The case puts America’s race relations squarely on trial, and views on Simpson’s innocence or guilt often break down along racial lines. And it’s Judge Lance Ito’s decision to allow cameras into his courtroom that turns the Simpson trial into must-see TV, transforming nightly cable news shows into cultural heavyweights. The era of televised celebrity prosecutions is born, a phenomenon that will one day envelop several of baseball’s biggest stars.
But right now, no one is happier to escape the daily media scrutiny than Bud Selig, who is greatly disappointed to discover that many Americans blame him for the abrupt end to the baseball season. He gives baseball’s public relations man Rich Levin a standing order to comb the media for stories that lay the blame at the Acting Commissioner’s feet. Levin doesn’t have to look too hard.
In San Diego, the Union-Tribune’s Wayne Lockwood writes, “Bud Selig? Canceled the World Series. Hardly the way any of us would choose to be remembered.” Steve Milton of Ontario’s Hamilton Spectator tells Canadian readers that Selig “killed the World Series. Gunned it down in cold blood and plain daylight, then mourned its passing with crocodile tears.”
No writer cuts deeper than San Francisco Chronicle columnist Bruce Jenkins. “It wasn’t Hitler, the Depression or a major earthquake that killed the national pastime,” Jenkins writes. “It was Bud Selig.”
But as hard as the thin-skinned Selig takes the criticism, he can’t dwell too long on these attacks. Not when his long battle with Fehr is about to reach a tipping point.
It’s been clear for months—if not years—that the union will not accept a salary cap. And it’s increasingly obvious that the same is true for the luxury tax plan the owners offered up as an alternative in mid-November, a scheme it took the union all of one day to reject. The tax was just a cap in another form, the union said, one that would have cost the Yankees $20 million—on top of their $47 million payroll—had it been in effect for the 1994 season. With penalties that steep, who needs a cap?
By now, both sides know it is inevitable that the owners will declare an impasse and implement their salary cap and revenue sharing plan. And the union will answer by taking the owners to court. So as Selig’s second full year as Acting Commissioner enters its final month, only three real questions remain:
Can Selig keep the owners united until they decide to implement their cap?
Will a federal judge agree that MLB has bargained in good faith?
Will the players end their strike when Selig brings in replacement players?
If the answer to all three questions is yes, Selig will have his new economic system, the owners will have control over their game, and the union—for all intents and purposes—will be crushed.
This is why Selig so eagerly embraced Bill Usery, the well-regarded mediator President Clinton inserted into this dispute back in mid-October. A genial 70-year-old who favors loud sweaters and insists on keeping both sides tied to the bargaining table until a deal is done, Usery has a long history of resolving difficult labor disputes.
Not that Selig thinks Usery can broker a deal. There’s no reasoning with Fehr, he’s sure of that. But Selig understands the politics of Usery’s position and has worked hard to curry favor. Turning down the mediator’s services—$120,000 a month, split evenly with the union—would only have hurt the owners’ chances of beating the unfair labor practices charge the union is sure to file. And gaining Usery’s support can only make it easier to bring back the players once the owners implement their new system.
Selig is quick to follow the mediator’s advice in early November and replace Dick Ravitch at the bargaining table, handing the reins—at least publicly—to Red Sox CEO John Harrington and Rockies owner Jerry McMorris. Selig had quietly brought back Chuck O’Connor as his main adviser anyway, so cutting Ravitch loose was no real sacrifice. Ravitch will submit his resignation December 5, effective at year’s end, and he’ll be gone a day later.
But Selig decides he’s given Usery enough care and attention by late November, and he’s ready to make his big move. Jerry Reinsdorf, Carl Pohlad, and Kansas City’s David Glass have been lobbying hard for implementation, and on November 29, Selig authorizes Harrington to make two big announcements. First, the owners will implement their salary cap and revenue sharing plan, effective December 5. Second, they will hire replacement players if the union remains on strike.
What happens next will stick in the craw of many owners—especially the one who lives and dies with his White Sox—for years to come.
Usery begs Selig for more time, and the Acting Commissioner gives the mediator until December 15 to get an agreement. When Usery gets nowhere, both the owners’ negotiating team and Executive Council meet in Chicago to plot their next move. Clinton’s mediator again asks for one more chance, and this time he receives support from O’Connor, Harrington, and McMorris.
O’Connor lays out his case for granting Usery’s request. The NLRB just announced it would issue an unfair labor practices complaint against the owners for withholding the pension payment back in August, giving the union an edge in proving the owners bargained in bad faith. And Lauren Rich, the architect of the union’s proposals, called O’Connor’s junior partner Rob Manfred late last night with word that the union was preparing another offer, which argues against an impasse.
Then there are financial risks to consider. If you lose in court, O’Connor explains, the players will be owed wages they would have earned under the old contract, a bill that will be tripled by the contract’s anti-collusion provision. That, he says, would dwarf the $280 million the owners paid for collusion.
“We are at an impasse, and you have the legal right to implement now,” O’Connor says. “But it’s my recommendation that we tell the union they have another week to make a deal or we will implement.”
Reinsdorf speaks up immediately. “What if the union makes some minor moves?” he asks. “Don’t we run the risk of losing the impasse?”
“No,” O’Connor answers. “We only lose the impasse if they make a significant move.”
“I’m not a labor lawyer,” Reinsdorf says, “but I think we risk losing the impasse and we should implement now.”
Reinsdorf is full of passion and fire, and his attacks on Fehr usually rally the owners. But not this time. Selig sees where the consensus lies, sides with the moderates, and sets one more deadline: 12:01 a.m. on December 23. “If there is a scintilla of a chance to have a reasonable solution at the table, for God’s sake we’ve got to do it,” Selig announces. “If not, a week passes quickly.”
It’s left to McMorris to meet with Fehr to find a solution. The two men sit down in Washington on December 20, with the Rockies owner offering a two-tier tax plan, the second tier designed to hit the Yankees and other big spenders. But the two men part without an agreement, prompting McMorris to complain that the union has failed to offer a plan of their own. Fehr disagrees.
“There’s a difference between ‘They won’t give us a counterproposal’ and ‘They won’t give us what we want,’ ” he says.
At 2 p.m. on the day of Selig’s deadline, the union delivers a proposal: a three-tiered tax plan that hits the highest spenders the hardest. It takes Selig’s bargaining team six hours to pull it all apart, and when they’re done, all optimism disappears. The combined taxes, McMorris says, would generate $600,000 from all 28 teams—a mere $57 million less than the owners’ proposal.
The hard-liners are irate. Everyone else is just tired of it all. “It’s very clear there is no basis for an agreement or even meaningful dialogue,” says Wendy Selig-Prieb, who’s been part of these talks from the start.
Selig says he will not put together a counteroffer; the time to make a deal is over. And this time, no one on his side is suggesting otherwise. It’s been six months since Selig put management’s first offer on the table, and they’re no closer to an agreement now than they were when the players walked out 133 days ago. All they’ve done is run up almost a billion dollars in losses from both sides.
“Make the announcement,” Selig tells Harrington after everyone has had their say on a tension-filled conference call.
Selig hangs up. Reinsdorf was right—Fehr was never going to agree to anything. Now they’ll implement the system they wanted four years ago, the one they thought they could have had if Vincent hadn’t undercut their lockout by dealing directly with Fehr behind their backs.
Not that this is going to be easy. No one is eager to use replacement players. But Selig is betting that using replacements will be a short-term solution, if this thing even gets that far. The players are approaching $300 million in lost wages. Even with the union’s $200 million strike fund to help mitigate their losses, how much more can they afford to lose? And how will the players react when they see other men taking the field wearing their uniforms?
It’s almost 11 p.m.—midnight on the East Coast—and Selig is just about done with his marathon of phone calls. He’s thanked the negotiating team for its hard work. He’s shared his disappointment with the media. “To get the kind of offer we got is extremely disappointing,” he says.
And he’s heard all about Fehr’s tough talk at the union’s press conference. “The owners will come to regret this sooner than they realize,” Fehr defiantly told reporters. “Not only is this not over, it may not even be halftime yet.”
Halftime, indeed! Selig knows he’s done what no one thought possible—pulled the owners together and kept them united. And because he did, there will be a new system in place tonight at one minute past midnight, 19 years to the day since the introduction of free agency. Let the writers say whatever they want now. When history is written, they will look back on this day and realize it was Bud Selig who saved Major League Baseball.
A tired Don Fehr is sitting in the plush lobby of the Mayflower Renaissance hotel in Washington, D.C., suffering from the flulike symptoms that always hit him during a long and stressful labor crisis. And none has been longer or more stressful than the current crisis, now in its 178th day. It’s late on Sunday afternoon, February 5, six weeks since Selig made his big move. With Fehr is his inner circle: his younger brother Steve, Gene Orza, Lauren Rich, and Michael Weiner. The union officials are picking apart the bizarre turn of events of the last few days when a hotel clerk approaches Fehr.
“Mr. Fehr?” the young clerk says. “We have an envelope for you.”
“Okay, thanks,” Fehr says as he rises. He gives a “Now what?” look to his staff and follows the clerk to the front desk.
It’s been five days since President Clinton called both sides to Washington for one more try at a negotiated settlement. The President had a warning for them, too. If the owners and players could not come up with a solution, Clinton said, he’d ask Bill Usery to find one for them.
But Fehr arrived in Washington unconcerned. He had sent word through sources close to the President that the union had little confidence in Usery. Clinton signaled back that he had no plans to pressure the union into a settlement. Fehr was content to wait for the NLRB ruling, confident his contract proposal from December 22—and the owners’ failure to counter—eliminated any chance of an impasse.
He’d met with Harrington last Wednesday, February 1, listened to the owners’ latest plan—another luxury tax scheme—and simply shrugged. The tax rates, he said, are “extraordinarily heavy.” The next day, Harrington announced that the owners would make good on the missed $7.8 million pension payment. That didn’t draw much of a reaction from Fehr, either.
But what happened on Friday did.
That’s when NLRB general counsel Fred Feinstein summoned O’Connor to his office to deliver important news. “I’m going to issue an unfair labor practices complaint against the owners,” Feinstein told O’Connor. Left unsaid was whether Feinstein would also be seeking an injunction to stop management from implementing and hiring replacement players, but O’Connor knew the chances of that coming next were high.
But Feinstein also offered O’Connor a way out: reinstate the terms of the last contract, return to the bargaining table, and he’d withdraw the complaint. It was nothing short of a giant do-over. O’Connor relayed the news to the owners, who quickly voted to comply, effective Monday, February 6.
And just like that, everything the owners put in place on December 23 disappeared. “We’re back under the old system,” Fehr told reporters on Friday.
It was a huge win for Fehr and his staff. There was just one problem: not one of them believed the owners would keep their word.
Which is what they were discussing just moments ago, when the hotel clerk interrupted. Fehr is convinced there’s no chance Selig will allow baseball to play another season under the old contract. And with spring training set to open in nine days, they all expect his next move will come soon.
Just how soon is clear the minute Fehr returns from the front desk, a plain white envelope in hand. It’s from O’Connor, addressed to “Donald M. Fehr, Esquire.” Fehr tears it open and pulls out the letter.
It is all of three paragraphs, but it’s a shocker.
This letter is to inform you that the Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee—the PRC—shall be the sole authorized representative of the 28 Major League clubs.
The MLBPA is now on notice that individual clubs are not authorized to negotiate or execute individual player contracts.
Consequently, the MLBPA should notify its players and certified agents that the PRC is the Clubs’ exclusive bargaining representative and they may not lawfully attempt to negotiate with the individual clubs.
Fehr always believed the owners would try to break the union. Now he’s convinced the proof is in his hands. Individual teams are no longer allowed to sign players. Only Selig, still head of the PRC—the owners’ labor committee—can do that, putting an end to the free market for players. The owners are also eliminating arbitration, as spelled out in a memo accompanying O’Connor’s letter. Both actions violate the agreement made with Feinstein only 48 hours earlier.
None of this will hold up in court, Fehr thinks, but he doubts the owners care. It took the NLRB six weeks to evaluate the union’s charges and issue the first complaint. With the maneuvers of this weekend, Selig has reset the clock. The legal process will start over again when the union files new charges tomorrow, giving the owners five weeks, maybe more, to use replacement players in spring training games.
Fehr can all but hear Selig telling owners the strike will end just as soon as the players see replacements take the field. This is exactly what the NFL owners did in 1987, when the players ended their strike after fans showed up and tuned in to watch replacement games.
This is a war of attrition. And Fehr doubts there is anything the President and his mediator can do about it.
“What am I supposed to tell the 95 players who just lost their arbitration rights?
“Am I supposed to tell them you have gone blind?
“Am I supposed to tell them you forgot how to read?”
The union’s Gene Orza may be short and a bit round in stature—a shade over five feet six, pushing 200 pounds—but his sharp mind and acid tongue make him the perfect weapon when Fehr wants to launch an attack. And that time is now, in a crowded guest room in the Mayflower Hotel. And as Bill Usery, the target of Orza’s assault, absorbs each blow in stunned silence, Fehr lets his deputy unleash one more punch before calling him off.
“What am I supposed to tell them?” repeats Orza, his voice dripping with indignation. “That you have gone senile?”
Fehr motions Orza to stop, leaving Usery staring numbly around the tense, silent suite filled with union officials, players, Usery’s two assistants, and the man Fehr most wanted to witness Orza’s performance—Steven Rosenthal, an adviser to Clinton’s Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.
The union had been briefed on Usery’s proposal just before walking into this room to hear it from the mediator himself. Fehr’s instruction to Orza was clear: once Usery finishes his presentation, leave no doubt that the union will never accept these terms.
Orza did his job well.
And now it is Fehr’s turn to drive home the same point. When Fehr is angry, as he is now, his voice doesn’t rise. Instead, he is controlled and speaks firmly, with an ever-increasing level of sarcasm.
“How much would be raised by this tax?” Fehr asks.
“I’m not sure, Don,” Usery says.
“How do you come up with these numbers?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“How much money do the players lose or gain? How much money do the clubs lose or gain?”
“I don’t know, Don. I’m not an expert in economics.”
The questions keep coming, rapid fire, until it is painfully obvious that Usery relied on his assistants to craft the proposal. Fehr knows there is a very good chance the NLRB will issue another complaint and seek an injunction. Feinstein has already announced that the owners are implementing their new plan “at their own peril.”
And Fehr is also confident the players will hold together, all of which means there is zero chance he would ever accept this proposal—whether Usery can explain it or not. Satisfied that Rosenthal’s report to the White House will accurately reflect the union’s position, Fehr has one last thing to say to Usery.
“You’re not helping these negotiations,” Fehr tells the veteran mediator. “You’re setting them back. I think it’s time you should leave.”
The large, windowless Roosevelt Room in the White House dates back to 1902, when the West Wing was built. Now situated across from the Oval Office, it occupies the original site of the office of the President. Richard Nixon gave the room its current name to honor Teddy Roosevelt, who built the West Wing, and FDR, who expanded it. Portraits of both men decorate the room, along with the Nobel Prize given Teddy for brokering peace between Russia and Japan in 1906, the first Nobel for an American.
On the evening of February 7, the room serves as the nerve center for President Clinton’s last-ditch attempt to settle baseball’s labor crisis. The meeting starts shortly after 6 p.m., with Vice President Al Gore offering ideas while each camp sits on opposite sides of the conference table—Don Fehr, Gene Orza, Tom Glavine, Cecil Fielder, Jay Bell, David Cone, and Scott Sanderson on one side; Bud Selig, John Harrington, Jerry McMorris, Chuck O’Connor, Rob Manfred, and St. Louis’ Stuart Meyer on the other.
Clinton arrives at 7:20 p.m. It hasn’t been an easy few months for the President. The sting of the midterm election disaster is still palpable, with his failed health care plan being blamed for the Democrats’ loss of both the House and the Senate. He continues to be dogged by Kenneth Starr’s ever-widening Whitewater investigation. And just yesterday he delivered a $1.6 trillion budget he knew was dead on arrival.
He’s aware the polls show Americans think he should stay out of the baseball conflict. And his handpicked mediator has saddled him with a plan Selig’s grudgingly accepted but Fehr rejected completely. When was the last time a Democratic President went against a union, even one as rich as the MLB Players Association?
All he has left is the prestige of his office and his considerable powers of persuasion. But even Clinton has to know that finding a solution tonight is a long shot.
“I am a believer in collective bargaining, and I don’t want to impose a solution on anyone,” says Clinton, his raspy southern drawl dragging out the sentence for maximum effect. “And I know that I am getting criticized for getting involved in sports. But there are a lot of Americans who really love baseball, and I feel an obligation to them.”
Clinton pauses, letting the 13 baseball men take in the full force of their surroundings. Baseball players are used to a big stage, but sitting in the Roosevelt Room with the President and Vice President of the United States can be more than a little intimidating. And Clinton needs every edge he can find.
“So I am urging all of you,” he says. “Let’s try to figure out a way to solve this tonight.”
As if on cue, chief of staff Leon Panetta, communications director George Stephanopoulos, and other administration officials march in. Small groups form around the room, each reviewing the many proposals rejected by one side or the other over the past six months. None of the groups includes anyone from the opposing side.
Eventually, Selig and his people move into Panetta’s office, Fehr holds forth in the Roosevelt Room, and members of Clinton’s staff go back and forth between the two camps, engaging in baseball’s version of shuttle diplomacy. Usery hasn’t said much, but Selig only has to look at the downcast mediator to realize Clinton is not going to support his proposal in the face of union opposition. And if any doubt remains, all Selig has to do is glance out into the hallway, where Glavine is helping the President with his golf swing.
As the discussions approach the four-hour mark, the President has a few basic questions:
Will the union reconsider Usery’s proposal?
No, says Fehr.
Will both sides accept binding arbitration?
Yes, Fehr says.
Absolutely not, Selig answers.
Will both sides play this season while a presidential fact-finding committee crafts a framework for negotiations at season’s end?
Once again, Fehr agrees.
Once again, Selig refuses.
There are no more questions to be asked and answered, so Clinton calls everyone back to the Roosevelt Room. “I’m going to ask Congress to pass legislation to settle this dispute through binding arbitration,” says a clearly exasperated President.
But everyone knows it’s an empty gesture. Even before this meeting was called to order, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich put out a statement making it clear they wanted no part of this problem. “We maintain our view that Congress is ill-suited to resolving private labor disputes,” they said. No, the Republicans have little intention of giving Clinton a high-profile victory. Baseball’s players and owners are not the only ones at each other’s throats.
“Both of you have a lot at stake,” Clinton tells them. He takes the measure of the 13 men sitting at the table, then says he has rarely seen the level of hostility he’s witnessed tonight.
“I’m afraid you are all going to wind up losers,” he says.
There is nothing left to do now but meet with the media in the White House briefing room, admit defeat, and make a public plea for Congress to save baseball from itself.
“I had hoped that tonight I’d be coming out to tell you that baseball was coming back in 1995,” Clinton says as the hour approaches 11 p.m. “Unfortunately, the parties have not reached an agreement. Clearly they are not capable of settling this strike without an umpire. Congress has to step up and pass the legislation.
“Unless they do, we may not have baseball in 1995.”