Baseball Owners

MAJOR LEAGUE baseball has created major-league trouble for itself. That dastardly strike seems to have triggered a steep decline in popularity.Attendance is down dramatically. So is the television audience -- and the all-important advertising revenue. Even sales of major-league tee-shirts and other logo-stamped clothing and equipment are plummeting.Pretty soon, the national pastime could become just one of many sports occasionally viewed by fans.Why this plunge in the game's fortunes?Here's one reason overlooked so far: The greedy owners picked a commoner to run the game.

It's no longer a pipe dream. The day when major league baseball is played in the state of Virginia may not be far off.If it does happen, we say welcome! The Baltimore-Washington region remains two distinct entities, both large and prosperous enough to support their own baseball and football teams. It would be a sound rivalry.A confluence of factors makes major league baseball more likely in Virginia. League owners would dearly love to punish the Orioles' Peter Angelos for his outspoken opposition to the league's hardline anti-union position in the long baseball strike.

RYE BROOK, N.Y. -- Baseball owners may have suffered a significant setback in their attempt to implement a new economic system when the National Labor Relations Board announced yesterday that it soon will issue a pair of complaints charging management with unfair labor practices.The complaints both stem from the owners' decision to withhold $7.8 million in All-Star Game revenues that traditionally go into the Major League Baseball Players Association's pension and benefits fund.The announcement couldn't have come at a worse time for the ownership bargaining committee, which has been using the threat of a declared impasse to pressure the union into accepting a drastically altered player compensation system.

This is the season for forgiveness, which explains why I have the nerve to send out holiday greetings and expect you to pay for them. So, forgive me.(And please forgive Kurt Schmoke, too, for sending holiday greetings at taxpayer expense. Mayors who get $100 million grants are easy to forgive.)Happy holidays:To the remaining Beatles, for yesterday.To Ollie North, for reaffirming my faith in the American people.To Woodstock II, for remembering to rain.To Michael and Lisa Marie, for showing us what true love is all about.

In a gesture to one of its stellar members, the Major League Baseball Players Association has advised Cal Ripken of the Orioles it might not object if he resumed his quest for baseball's all-time consecutive game streak while other major leaguers were on strike.But Mr. Ripken has flatly refused to consider the possibility.Mark Belanger, a special assistant to players' union chief Donald Fehr, said he approached Mr. Ripken with the idea at a union meeting in New York last October."I pulled him [Ripken]

The NFL labor agreement makes perfect sense, but forget about using it as a blueprint for baseball. The sports are different, the histories are different, everything is different. All the NFL breakthrough does is underscore the immense problems confronting the Grand Old Game.The football owners persuaded the players to accept a salary cap as a trade-off for free agency. What do the baseball owners have left to offer? They've bargained away every possible advantage in the past 20 years, granting the players not only free agency, but also salary arbitration.

Now, it's serious.They wanted a few of our movie studios, OK. They wanted Rockefeller Center, fine. Pebble Beach, be our guests. Heck, we wish they'd buy Macy's.But not, not, NOT, no sir, never, one of our baseball teams.They're trying, though. You probably heard Nintendo of Japan actually wants to buy the Seattle Mariners. Is nothing sacred?Before you could say Sadaharu Oh, they'd be pushing sushi instead of hot dogs at the ball yard. That wouldn't be so bad, except did you ever try to put mustard and relish on raw fish?

PHILADELPHIA -- By the time it plays its All-Star Game on July 13, Major League Baseball probably will have a new cable TV contract.Phillies president Bill Giles, a member of the owners' television committee, said the owners are close to cutting a deal with either ESPN or Liberty Media, which owns Prime Ticket Sports Network and SportsChannel America.ESPN is the front-runner. Sources close to the negotiations say the all-sports network has offered between $150 million and $200 million to broadcast three games a week for the next four years.

WASHINGTON - The head of the baseball players union yesterday told Congress that players should not be tested for steroids without reasonable grounds for suspicion, and he warned against new policies that would "smear" athletes. "This discussion can be summarized in a single word: privacy," Donald Fehr, executive director and general counsel of the Major League Baseball Players Association, told a Senate Commerce subcommittee. The players union has "always believed that one should not, absent compelling safety considerations, invade the privacy of someone without a substantial reason," he added.

YOU CAN'T blame fans for their skepticism about the long-overdue accord between baseball owners and players. So much has been lost during this dispute.Two strike-shortened seasons. A year without a World Series. Utter contempt for the public shown by both sides. Losses of $1 billion for owners, $400 million for players. Sagging attendance and TV ratings. Fans angrily turning away from the former national pastime.Salvaging a labor agreement at least prevents matters from getting worse for a few years.