League Baseball Players

The sign at Legends Field said everything you need to know about the New York Yankees, a team so used to having its way in the economically imbalanced world of Major League Baseball that owner George Steinbrenner (or one of his lackeys) was simply not capable of hiding the franchise's Big Apple-sized sense of entitlement. Of course, I'm talking about the sign that was visible Saturday on the main concourse of the Yankees' fancy spring training site in Tampa, Fla., which apologized to fans for the absence of several of the club's biggest stars during the World Baseball Classic.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - In a clubhouse where one year ago, Steve Bechler took a dietary supplement that led to his death, Orioles right fielder Jay Gibbons wore an expression that told the story of baseball that won't go away this spring: Agony mixed with a little dread, frustration and anger. "We should be talking about Opening Day," he said. Instead, as it turned out, the Orioles' annual meeting with a representative from the Major League Baseball Players Association took place on the very day Congress held another hearing in Washington on steroids.

Baseball's four-year-old labor dispute remained unresolved last night, as a mutually agreed-upon midnight settlement deadline passed and both sides prepared to spend another winter under the rules of the previous collective bargaining agreement.Owners made no effort to save a proposed contract as midnight passed, but put off a decision to OK next year's schedule without interleague play.Interim commissioner Bud Selig failed this week to persuade the Major League Baseball Players Association to agree to changes in a contract proposal that was hammered out by management negotiator Randy Levine and union chief Don Fehr, leaving the industry in limbo and apparently canceling a 1997 experiment with interleague play.

From 1920 to 1950, 12 baseball teams -- six American League and six National League -- played among themselves, attracting 15,000 to 30,000 spectators to a game.There was nothing unusual about that -- except that all the players were black. The 12 teams, owned by individuals in cities east of the Mississippi, made up the Negro Leagues Ballplayers Association."We played each other, not as many games as the other organized players, but we had playoffs between the American and National leagues and a World Series, just like the others," said Wilmer Fields, president of the Negro Leagues Ballplayers Association, based in Manassas, Va.,Today, the association has 228 members, about 70 of whom played between 1920 and 1950.

Astrodome committed to political conventionThe Houston Astros committed the Astrodome for the 1992 Republican Convention without approval of the National League and intend to leave the stadium for a month, baseball officials said yesterday.Astros chairman John McMullen, who is attempting to sell the team, said the Astros are considering playing part of their 1992 home schedule at the Superdome in New Orleans, which lost out to Houston in bidding to host the Republicans.The 1992 convention is scheduled Aug. 17-20, but GOP officials have reserved the Astrodome July 27-Aug.

Harry Connolly's photographs of Little League baseball players in Patterson Park speak to us on more than one level. In his recently published book, "Heading Home: Growing Up In Baseball," they speak of summer, of The Game, of the aching memory of when we were young and the world was all before us.But on the walls of the Gomez Gallery, which is currently showing a selection of the book's photographs, they also speak to us in the tradition of portraiture....

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]

Sterling F. "Sheriff" Fowble was known for influencing many Major League Baseball players from the Baltimore area.He also touched thelives of many who never made it big.Fowble was known for developing baseball talent as a longtime amateur coach and major league scout. Yet for every major league star like Rob Swoboda or Al Kaline, there were others like Al Miller, Bill Pfeiffer, Dave Dolch.Swoboda helped lead the New York Mets to the 1969 World Series, and Kaline is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- The Homestead Sports Complex, situated along the highway that leads to the Florida Keys, just might be the perfect location for the Major League Baseball Players Association three-week free agent training camp.Baseball can't go much farther south than this.The eight-month baseball strike is over, but the financial damage to the industry -- estimated at more than $800 million -- has diminished the market for veteran players and created a free agent surplus that has forced the union to open a training facility for the guys who were left behind when regular camps reopened earlier this week.

Baseball's greed spoils the fun of national pastime Larry Atkins' column about the potential baseball strike mirrored the sentiments of many fans, and non-fans, as well ("Final out is 1 strike away for baseball," Opinion Commentary, Aug. 16). The average salary of a major league player is about $2.38 million. The average person can't even relate to that salary. Yet the players have the nerve to threaten to strike because the owners want a 50 percent luxury tax on excessive payrolls, revenue sharing and a drug-testing plan to deal with steroids.