IT’S THE FIRST of five days of All-Star festivities in Milwaukee, and Bud Selig, the man most responsible for this grand show coming to his hometown, is once again playing the gracious host. Selig kicks it all off on Friday, July 5, personally welcoming the first wave of fans to MLB’s FanFest, where fans young and old can face life-size images of Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire in state-of-the-art batting and pitching cages, take a seat in a replica MLB dugout, and, of course, get free autographs from current Brewers and star old-timers like Rollie Fingers, Fergie Jenkins, and Rusty Staub.
The ESPN star-making machine showcases the game’s home run hitters in the popular home run derby Monday night before the All-Star Game. Jason Giambi belts 24 balls into the Miller Park grandstands to beat Sammy Sosa by six. Barry Bonds, the game’s foremost home run hitter, manages just two, then laughs about it with Selig while sitting at the Commissioner’s table at the All-Star banquet a few hours later.
But no one is laughing the next night—least of all Bud—when an entertaining and well-played All-Star Game is tied 7–7 in the middle of the 11th inning and both teams are out of pitchers and players. The camera zooms in on the perplexed Commissioner as he talks nervously with managers Joe Torre and Bob Brenly from his box near the NL dugout. Finally, Selig throws up his hands and tells the umpiring crew the game is over even if the NL fails to score in the bottom of the inning.
The sellout crowd of 41,871 erupts as soon as the public address announcer relays Selig’s decision. With tickets priced at $175 and $125, it’s hard to blame them. Forgotten are Torii Hunter’s spectacular catch to rob Bonds of a home run in the 1st inning and the monster shot Barry hit off the facing of the second deck for a two-run homer in the 3rd. Instead, a visibly distressed Selig endures a half inning of continual boos and chants of “Let Them Play,” and more than a few calls of “Bud Must Go!”
Selig’s crowning-achievement-turned-nightmare ends when Giants catcher Benito Santiago looks at a called third strike for the final out, leaving the Marlins’ Mike Lowell stranded at second. It’s the first time the Midsummer Classic has ended in a tie since 1961, back when baseball played two All-Star Games a year. “Clearly, this is not the ending I had hoped for,” the embarrassed Commissioner says a few moments later. “I can’t articulate how tough it is.”
The writers can. Ken Daley of the Dallas Morning News calls the tie “the most serious black eye for his staggering sport since Selig canceled the 1994 World Series.” Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times asks, “Is it just us, or has baseball’s Bud Selig Era just been one never-ending Bad Hair Day?” The New York Post’s Tom Keegan writes, “It went on forever and solved nothing, following the same path as labor strife during Bud’s tumultuous reign as baseball’s Commissioner.”
But the action that really matters took place earlier that day. That’s when four men—the union’s Michael Weiner and Steve Fehr, MLB’s Bob DuPuy and Rob Manfred—met at the Milwaukee law office of Foley & Lardner. The Gang of Four talked for 40 minutes with one goal in mind: jump-starting contract talks, which have been stalled amid the usual accusations of bad faith from both sides.
All four quickly agreed that the shutdown everyone is now predicting would be nothing short of disastrous. How can baseball tell America it can’t figure out how to share revenues of more than $3.5 billion when the country is mired in a recession, unemployment is rising, and the stock market is cratering? And no one wants to think about pictures of empty stadiums on the first anniversary of September 11.
They all understood both sides have a lot to lose. The owners are projecting $3.6 billion in revenue and 68 million in attendance. The players hit a record-high $2.4 million average salary this season. Baseball would be forced to give Fox a $500 million refund if another postseason is lost. And a recent poll showed baseball a strong No. 2 in the hearts and minds of sports fans, a long way from its fifth-place ranking—right behind women’s figure skating—after the shutdown in ’94.
Are they really going to put all that at risk again?
Yes, there are areas of great disagreement. The union thinks Selig’s revenue sharing demands would depress salaries and discourage big market teams from working to increase revenues—why take risks when you’d only keep about half the reward? They question changing from a split revenue sharing pool to a straight pool, which benefits baseball’s middle class instead of teams with the least revenue. Weiner and Fehr made it clear that the players are still opposed to contraction. And there’s no way the union will ever agree to Selig’s request for a $100 million fund to use as he sees fit. Distrust of this Commissioner still runs deep—very deep.
DuPuy and Manfred were adamant that the owners need to tax the highest payrolls. Sure, call it a Yankees tax, but they have to rein in the big spenders—especially Steinbrenner, who pays backups more than some teams pay their stars. They want an international draft to keep George from driving up the price of foreign talent. They want to establish a ratio of assets to debt—a debt service rule—so no team can follow the Diamondbacks’ example and borrow so heavily they have to beg players to defer salaries just to make payroll.
And the Commissioner’s men make it clear that a drug testing agreement is a must—Selig is no longer willing to risk a scandal on his watch. (Little did any of them know that an anonymous IRS agent in San Francisco is already working hard to turn steroid use into the biggest scandal the game’s ever seen.)
DuPuy, Manfred, Weiner, and Fehr all know the clock is ticking, even though the union decided against setting a strike date at their Executive Board meeting yesterday in Chicago. The Gang of Four left Foley & Lardner agreeing on only two things: they would keep the lines of communication open and they’d keep their talks out of the press. It wasn’t much, but at least they could report back to Selig and Don Fehr that negotiations have started again.
Selig gets out of a limousine in front of baseball’s Park Avenue headquarters, rushes past a man yelling obscenities at him, and takes the elevator up to his office on the 31st floor. It’s August 28, and there is reason to believe that a new collective bargaining agreement with the players might be at hand. It’s also less than 48 hours before the union’s strike date, set two weeks ago, and history is not on their side. The time has come for the Commissioner to leave Milwaukee and be where the action is.
Selig has no intention of sitting down at the bargaining table himself. Like Don Fehr, Selig has allowed the Gang of Four to do the heavy lifting, signing off if and when he’s satisfied with the results. And the results have been positive, even if the process has often been two steps forward, one step back.
A pair of major breakthroughs came in early August, when the two sides agreed on Gene Orza’s survey testing proposal and then came to an understanding on a debt service rule. Both sides gave ground on revenue sharing, but talks stalled over the luxury tax, and on August 16 the union finally set a strike date: August 30, the Friday of Labor Day weekend, traditionally one of baseball’s biggest gates of the season.
Once more, a season of record-setting performances was put in jeopardy, leaving baseball fans—from teenage girls in Jeter jerseys to the man in the Oval Office—in an uproar. “The baseball owners and baseball players must understand if there is a work stoppage, a lot of fans are going to be furious,” President Bush said when the strike date was announced. “And I’m one of them.”
The Gang of Four almost cleared the luxury tax hurdle when the union proposed a fundamental change. If the tax is really about reining in big spenders rather than holding down salaries, Weiner said, lower the tax rate but allow it to increase each time a team crosses the threshold. Management agreed. But progress again stalled when Don Fehr sent a letter to agents—leaked to the New York Times—claiming the owners’ proposal would greatly increase both the Yankees’ and Mets’ revenue sharing and tax bill. The plan, Fehr wrote, is “tantamount to a salary cap.”
George Steinbrenner is more than aware of the damage Selig’s plan will do to his bottom line, and the two old friends have been arguing over the Commissioner’s proposals for most of the season. The Boss, whose payroll is now a record $135 million, has already hired star lawyer David Boies and threatened Bud with a lawsuit if Selig doesn’t scale back his demands. Yankees President Randy Levine has been all but living at MLB headquarters, pounding away at Selig’s lieutenants for a deal that would treat George’s team more kindly, an outcome that seems increasingly unlikely.
The Gang of Four continued to narrow the differences in the days following Fehr’s letter. But on August 24, Fehr attended a bargaining session at MLB and told management negotiators—now including Peter Angelos and Cubs CEO Andy MacPhail—that the players wanted to phase in revenue sharing. The meeting devolved into a shouting match, and Manfred shared his frustration in a conference call with the media.
“We could not have been more disappointed,” Manfred said. “I don’t think the proposal they made will help us. I don’t think Don getting angry helped us, and I must admit I don’t think these conference calls are going to help us.”
The next morning Steve Fehr received a call on his cell phone. “Okay,” Manfred said, “where do we go from here?”
And now it’s almost 6 p.m. on August 28, and Manfred and DuPuy are briefing Selig on where negotiations stand. The union has accepted the luxury tax. Management has agreed to phasing in revenue sharing. But the two sides remain apart on the numbers, including the percentage of players who must fail the drug test in order for penalty testing to kick in. “The same issues still exist,” Selig tells reporters when he leaves MLB offices late Wednesday night. “I think today’s meetings have been very constructive. But I can’t say we’re any closer on those issues.”
The next day is a marathon of meetings, conference calls, and rumors as the Gang of Four works to beat the clock. Manfred and DuPuy say they are willing to lower the owners’ revenue sharing number, and Weiner and Steve Fehr say they can live without the last year of the five-year deal being tax-free. An agreement is reached on drug testing: if 5 percent of the players test positive for steroids next year, drug testing with penalties will start in 2004.
Selig holds a series of calls to update the owners. Don Fehr is five blocks away at union headquarters with the Braves’ Tom Glavine and B. J. Surhoff, debriefing his brother and Weiner, then updating player reps around the country by phone. But both Atlanta players, like everyone else in baseball, are still wondering whether they will be playing tomorrow.
In Washington, Bush says he won’t get involved but asks players and owners to think about what a strike would do to America’s national spirit. And Senator Arlen Specter says Congress will again hold hearings on revoking baseball’s antitrust exemption if the players go out on strike.
Steinbrenner and Levine take turns calling Selig to air their concerns. The Yankees are playing in Toronto, where a sign saying SAVE BASEBALL. CONTRACT THE YANKEES hangs from the upper deck. “They’re blaming the Yankees because other people don’t make money. That doesn’t make sense to me,” Torre says before the game. His shortstop agrees. “We have an owner who wants the best team on the field to win,” Jeter says. “You can’t fault him for that.”
Both sides hold late-night conference calls. The payroll figure at which the tax would kick in remains the key issue. It’s past midnight when Selig leaves to catch some sleep at his hotel while the Gang of Four practices shuttle diplomacy. They meet at MLB at 1:30 a.m., with tax levels still the biggest of several sticking points. At 4:30 a.m. Manfred and DuPuy leave for a meeting at the union, taking a freight elevator to a rear exit to avoid the four dozen or so reporters waiting in a light drizzle for a decision.
Weiner and Steve Fehr are back at MLB at 6 a.m. to hear another management offer. The session lasts 30 minutes, and as Fehr pulls on his backpack over the same yellow shirt he’s worn for two days and begins his walk back to the union, a new thought occurs to him: unless something goes wildly off track at the last minute, there is not enough left in dispute to justify a work stoppage. A deal, Fehr realizes, is inevitable.
Not everyone back at union headquarters agrees. Both Don Fehr and Gene Orza are toying with the idea of going out for the weekend. The small market teams pushing the hardest line are in no position to take a financial hit, they reason, and a short break in play could lead to a better deal. But Glavine makes it clear the players have no desire to strike, especially with the two sides so close. Instead, it’s time to make two important calls.
“We’re coming over,” Weiner says when Manfred answers his phone. “Don and Gene will be with us. Glavine and Surhoff are coming, too.”
The next call is to Red Sox player rep Tony Clark, a rising star in the union who has told his teammates to gather at Fenway Park rather than meet at the airport for their flight to Cleveland, where they’re scheduled to play at 7:05 p.m. It’s almost 7:30 a.m. when Steve Fehr calls Clark with news that an agreement is all but done. “Stay near a phone,” he says.
Selig has returned by the time of Weiner’s call, and Manfred and DuPuy walk to his office with the news. “It’s over,” DuPuy says. “They cannot come over here with Don and the players, with all the reporters downstairs, to tell us anything other than they are accepting the deal.”
It’s just past 9 a.m. when the union contingent arrives. DuPuy and Manfred show the delegation into a big conference room, where Angelos and MacPhail await, then ask the Fehr brothers and Weiner to join them in Selig’s office down the hall.
“It’s good to see you again, Don,” Selig says from behind his desk.
“Glad we are here before the deadline,” Fehr says.
Everyone takes a seat, and there is a quick review of where negotiations stand. The deal is oh-so-close, with a few details on tax thresholds, free agent compensation, and the minimum wage still unresolved.
“We have made a lot of progress,” Selig says. “There are only a few things left to get done. Let’s get this deal done today and finally avoid a work stoppage.”
And with that all but Selig rise and walk down to the conference room to work out the final details. Each time a decision is reached, DuPuy and Manfred get up, walk back down the hall, and run it past Selig.
The three men had discussed refusing to make any changes before the union arrived, but they also realized there was no reason to draw a hard line, not with a deal so close. An hour later, Manfred and DuPuy take one last proposal to Selig. “Is this it?” Selig asks. Yes, his two lieutenants tell him.
“Well, let’s bring everyone in.”
There is a palpable sense of relief as both bargaining teams assemble in Selig’s office.
“I am delighted that we have reached an agreement before the deadline,” Selig says.
“I’m happy we were able to get this done,” Don Fehr says. “And relieved.”
There are few pats on the back and much work still to be done. A joint media conference is set a few blocks away, at the InterContinental Hotel. Selig wants to start calling the owners in his inner circle. Fehr will be talking to player reps.
Weiner walks out and calls Clark in Boston. “It’s done,” Weiner tells the veteran, and at 11:30 a.m. the Red Sox are aboard a bus and on the way to Logan Airport for their flight to Cleveland. Not a single inning of a single game will be missed for the first time since—well, since forever.
At 1 p.m., Fehr and Selig stand side by side at a podium, banners for MLB and the union hanging behind them. Their crisp dark suits, dress shirts, and ties—red print for Selig, gold print for Fehr—can’t mask each man’s fatigue as the televised media conference begins.
“I think a lot of people never believed they would live long enough to see these two parties come together, make a very meaningful deal, and do it without one day of a work stoppage,” Selig says. When Selig strains to hear a reporter’s question, Fehr leans over and whispers the question in Bud’s ear. It’s the closest the two men have been in years.
“The thing that makes me the happiest is we can now once again turn our complete attention to the field,” Selig says.
“All streaks come to an end,” says Fehr, “and this is one that was overdue.”
By any measure, the deal is a win for the owners—especially those in small markets. There’s a substantial increase in revenue sharing—from 20 percent to 34 percent of local revenue—which will be phased in and reach $258 million when fully implemented in the third year of the four-year deal. Fehr says the union accepted a permanent competitive balance tax that will increase from 17.5 percent to a maximum 40 percent depending on the number of consecutive times a team crosses the graduated thresholds.
Contraction is off the table until the deal runs out on December 19, 2006, but the union has agreed not to stand in the owners’ way if they choose to contract two teams in 2007. Teams will have three years to comply with a new debt service rule, and the minimum salary increases to $300,000.
And drug testing is now part of baseball. Every player will be tested at least once in 2003, with management allowed to randomly test up to 240 players a second time. All results will be anonymous. If 5 percent of players fail the test, penalty testing will start in 2004. If 2.5 percent or less test positive for two consecutive years, testing will end.
“I think the deal is sensitive to the concerns I’ve raised over the years,” Selig says. “Both sides feel comfortable with what’s been done here. I certainly do.”
The team hit hardest: Steinbrenner’s Yankees, who will pay an estimated $50–$55 million in revenue sharing and taxes in 2003. To no one’s surprise, Steinbrenner is the only owner who votes against the deal. The Boss is still considering a lawsuit against baseball.
The big winner: Selig’s Brewers, who’ll receive a $16.3 million payday under the new revenue sharing plan. It’s the biggest win in years for Milwaukee. The Brewers’ response: cut the payroll by $10 million.