The Boys of Summer Return

By E. Graydon Carter

In the bottom of the ninth, the players'strike is settled

If ever there was a propitious time for the baseball strike to end, it was surely last week. The team owners' $50 million in strike-insurance payments from Lloyd's of London was due to run out by the end of this week. For the season to amount to anything at all, each team would have to play at least 100 games, and that meant starting up the action by mid-August at the latest. Moreover, professional football was thundering into its exhibition season, giving sports-hungry fans an alternative--perhaps a permanent one --to the national pastime. Sure enough, at 5:45 last Friday morning, after a fierce 16-hour bargaining session, Federal Mediator Kenneth Moffett appeared before reporters in Manhattan and wearily announced the result: "It's over." Nodded an equally drawn, but clearly pleased, Marvin Miller, head of the Players Association: "It's a new day. We have indeed reached an agreement." Summed up Ray Grebey, the owners' representative: "It was a victory for nobody, a loss for nobody. It was a good collective-bargaining agreement for everybody."

For baseball addicts around the nation, it was the first good news since box scores disappeared from the sports pages. The walkout was the third,* and by far the most devastating, in the sport's history. It lasted 50 days and forced the cancellation of 713 games. The players lost an estimated $28 million in salaries. Even after collecting $44 million in insurance benefits, the owners stood to lose some $72 million --although their $15 million strike fund, collected from a percentage of gate receipts, should ease the sting. Within hours of the settlement, team managers and officials were manning telephones, waking up players and telling them to report for workouts right away. By Saturday afternoon, ballparks across the country were alive with the blessed whack of hardwood hitting horsehide. The first ball of the second summer of 1981 will be thrown out this Sunday at the All-Star Game in Cleveland. The next day, regular play resumes. The owners will decide this week whether to split the season in two and hold an extra round of playoffs before the World Series; a deft, some might say cynical, play to get a bit of their money back. Under this plan, the division leaders on June 11 (the New York Yankees, Oakland A's, Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers) would be guaranteed spots in the playoffs, something the teams never dreamed of as they played the last games of the first "season." So would the winners of the division races from Aug. 10 through Oct. 4.

The pivotal issue in the settlement was the same one that has been troubling baseball for the past five years: Just what sort of compensation should an owner get when one of his players becomes a free agent and then signs with another team? Under the new agreement, the best free agents will be ranked in two groups, according to past performance. The top 20% will be designated as Type A players, the next 10% as Type B. If a club signs a Type A free agent, it must place all but 24 of its players in the compensation pool. When a team loses a Type A free agent, it not only receives an extra amateur draft choice but is allowed to dip into the compensation pool for a seasoned regular--not necessarily from the free agent's new team. When a club loses one of its pool players in a compensation deal, it is paid $150,000 by the player's new team. When a Type B free agent is purchased by another club, his original team will be allowed two additional amateur draft choices. At any given time, up to five clubs can exempt themselves from the compensation pool by agreeing not to bid on Type A free agents for three years.

The overall settlement bears the players' cleat marks. The compensation formula will seemingly have little effect on the owners' bidding wars, so the players should be able to maintain their bargaining power as free agents. Even so, they are slightly worse off than they were when the walkout began. Said Rusty Staub of the New York Mets: "It was a take-away strike. The players had nothing to win."

They did, however, defeat the owners on an important issue that arose out of the strike: whether the days lost would be considered time spent on the roster. According to the settlement, the down time will count toward the six seasons a player needs in the majors before he can qualify as a free agent. The issue is important to a player like Yankee Pitcher Ron Guidry, 30, who, at the start of the 1981 season, needed 168 days of service before he could offer his talents on the open market.

Baseball's off-field problems began heating up in 1975, when an arbitrator, backed by an appeals court judge, threw out the then 86-year-old reserve clause that bound a player to his club until he was either traded or retired from the game. In the most recent round of negotiations, the owners were determined to increase the compensation for lost free agents. Their former arrangement with the players simply called for the team that signed a free agent to give up one of its amateur draft choices to the player's old team. Unconcerned about losing amateurs--few of whom make it to the majors--the owners went on a free-agent binge. Over four years, beginning in 1976, average player salaries rose from $52,300 to $143,756. Now even middling free agents command $300,000 a year. The owners' frenzied bidding hit a peak last year when the Yankees signed Dave Winfield, a .279 career hitter for the San Diego Padres, for a cool $23 million over ten years. The lords of baseball obviously needed something to protect them from themselves. They demanded that a team be able to protect just 15 to 18 of its players--little more than its starting line-up and pitching rotation --with the rest of its roster going into a compensation pool. Convinced that the rule would limit their salaries, bargaining power and ultimately their freedom, the players voted to strike.

During much of the walkout, some teams, notably the Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves, did better financially --thanks to reduced costs and strike insurance--than they would have under normal circumstances. But as the time dragged on and losses began to mount, a number of "moderate" owners, including the Baltimore Orioles' Edward Bennett Williams, the Yankees' George Steinbrenner and Eddie Chiles of the Texas Rangers, pressed Grebey to reach a settlement. The agreement, which must be ratified by both owners and players this week, extends through 1984. Says Williams: "We now have three years of labor peace in which we can prepare for the future."

With only ten days to get ready for the second-season opener, hitters may have a slight edge over pitchers, who must be in top physical condition to perform effectively. But the batters are not exactly ready to pound on the poor pitchers. Says Detroit Tigers Leftfielder Steve Kemp: "Hitting is a precision thing. No matter what anybody did during the strike, it's still going to take time to get back and start hitting the ball."

Though owners and players are excited at the prospect of the season getting back on track--"I feel like a rookie again," enthused Bill Robinson of the Pittsburgh Pirates--their elation is tempered by understandable bitterness. Says Orioles Owner Williams: "The strike was unnecessary. It should never have happened. This must never, never, happen again." Expos Pitcher Steve Rogers sums it up: "Anytime you stand toe-to-toe with illogical viewpoints and you try to use logic, there will be frustration, and frustration breeds bitterness."

In the end, the settlement produced no winners, only losers. The cities lost--New York City alone an estimated $8.4 million --and so did the teams, players, fans and the game itself. Baseball will probably regain the almost mystical hold on its fans. "They may have a negative reaction during the first few days," says Cleveland Infielder Alan Bannister. "But once baseball gets going again, things will get back to normal." Some fans, however, will not be won over so easily. Says St. Louis Police Officer Jerry Brindell: "The spring fever is gone." Others have sworn off the game forever. "I learned I could live without it," says former Yankee Rooter Carmen Santuzzi, 28. "I'll follow football, basketball, hockey, maybe even soccer, but you'll never catch me paying for a seat in Yankee Stadium again.'' --By E. Graydon Carter. Reported by Jamie Murphy/New York, with other U.S. bureaus

* Earlier strikes occurred in 1972, when the players canceled the first 13 days of the regular season, and last year, when a walkout caused the cancellation of eight exhibition games.

With reporting by Jamie Murphy

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