Players And Owners

The National Basketball Association needs to make these contract talks work or do what the National Football League did years ago and hire and play temporary replacement players ("Will there be an NBA season of any kind?" Nov. 18). Maybe then these overpriced players and owners will come to agreeable terms and fully save the NBA season. Barry Apple, Woodlawn

The National Basketball Association needs to make these contract talks work or do what the National Football League did years ago and hire and play temporary replacement players ("Will there be an NBA season of any kind?" Nov. 18). Maybe then these overpriced players and owners will come to agreeable terms and fully save the NBA season. Barry Apple, Woodlawn

Negotiations resumed yesterday between representatives of the baseball players and owners, but no movement occurred.In fact, with three days left before Friday's strike deadline, the two sides didn't even address the sticking point in the talks -- the owners' proposal to institute a salary cap."No progress was made on the critical economic issue," owners negotiator Richard Ravitch said.Meanwhile, the Orioles must consider their progress. And if there is a strike, columnist Ken Rosenthal says, the Orioles should have a new manager whenever play resumes.

The labor strife gripping the NFL is actually two separate disagreements. The one between the players and owners is making headlines because it involves the salary cap and could lead to wholesale lineup changes, but the disagreement between the rich and not-as-rich owners figures to be more important in the long run. It centers on what has to be the most dangerous phrase in sports, the one that football owners have studiously avoided while watching it...

Team makes name for itselfI hope Jim Speros follows through with his announced intention of not selecting a nickname for his CFL team. If he does, he will emulate a man whose team I was a significant part of from 1941 through 1945. It was not a sport team but a team of lTC another sort. It was the U.S. Army's 4th Armored Division. While other commanders were picking nicknames for their units, Major General John S. Wood refused to pick one for his team. He said that they should be known by their accomplishments.

WASHINGTON -- This may sound vaguely familiar, but an ownership-imposed deadline for settling baseball's protracted labor dispute is just hours away, and there is no sign that the players and owners are close to a settlement.If there is no agreement by 12:01 a.m. tomorrow morning, the owners claim they will declare an impasse and impose their Nov. 17 salary cap proposal. This time, it appears, they really mean it."That is what we're planning on doing," said Atlanta Braves president Stan Kasten.

NEW YORK -- Talk about an October surprise. How about the first October since 1904 that there won't be a World Series?That possibility becomes more real every day that passes without a settlement in baseball's ugly labor dispute. The baseball strike is in its third week, and there is little reason to believe that it will end in time to salvage a credible postseason.No doubt, every attempt will be made to recoup the estimated $140 million in television revenues that were expected to spring from the fall classic, but the players and owners have set themselves up for a classic fall.

ATLANTA -- Special mediator William J. Usery said yesterday that he has urged ownership to back away from the threat to implement a salary cap, but baseball's long-running labor dispute still appears to be moving in that direction.Usery, who addressed a crowd of about 90 players during the second day of a Major League Baseball Players Association executive board meeting, said that implementation would be counterproductive to his goal of forging a new relationship between the players and owners.

WASHINGTON -- Management's removal of the salary cap could hasten the end of the 5 1/2 -month baseball strike, but the premature intervention of the National Labor Relations Board didn't do anything to clarify a very complicated situation.The players cast it as a one-sided victory. Incredibly, the owners tried to do the same. Which only proves that any attempt to predict the outcome of the dispute may be foolhardy.The NLRB, undoubtedly at the behest of the White House,moved quickly on the competing bad-faith bargaining charges that were brought by the players and owners after the salary cap was implemented in late December.

Prepare for the greatest public relations onslaught in the history of the world. Major-league baseball players and team owners are going to start apologizing profusely, more artificially, it seems, than from any genuine feeling of regret. They'll be posturing in an attempt to ease the animosity that was created when they shut down the game.Presuming that affections can be bought, both sides will try to buy back your love with such inducements as free autographs, pictures, personal appearances and assorted give-away souvenirs in an attempt at appeasement.

So, the National Hockey League's moronic players and equally moronic owners really did it. The owners have locked out the players, claiming they can't operate under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement that expired yesterday. The collective bargaining agreement, by the way, was forged in 1995 after the owners locked out the players for 105 days and canceled more than half of the 1994-95 season. That agreement had been renewed twice. Now, the owners in a sport that is struggling mightily to keep its status as "major league" have threatened to shut the game down for as long as it takes - the over-under seems to be the whole 2004-05 season - to get a collective bargaining agreement that gives them "cost certainty" (standard sports owner code for salary cap)

NEW YORK - Baseball's labor negotiations inched toward a Friday strike deadline yesterday with no concrete movement toward a compromise on management's demand for heavily increased revenue sharing and a large luxury tax on the game's highest payrolls. Negotiators met three times and reportedly finalized the details of a steroid-testing plan, but the management bargaining team still is waiting for the Major League Baseball Players Association to respond to the improved revenue-sharing and luxury tax proposal that the owners introduced on Sunday.

Dull baseball is hurt by its greedy players Sun columnist Mike Preston hit the nail on the head when he said the sometimes dull game of professional baseball is losing fan support from all age groups ["Go ahead, strike; game has been out for long while," Aug. 17]. How many times in a game does a batter let the first pitch go by, step out of the box to upset the pace of the pitcher or to get a sign from the third base coach or take time to adjust his batting gloves? And pitchers are required to throw four outside pitches for an intentional walk.

So, when's it going to be? The All-Star Game? The second week of August? The postseason? Baseball suddenly is awash in scary reports that the players will go on strike again during the second half of the season or, perhaps, on Oct. 1 to wipe out the playoffs and World Series. This is just what the game needs, more reasons for baseball fans to start thinking about football. The facts are a little less ominous. The players and owners are engaged in another battle over the revenue pie, and everything that has happened in the past few months is part of a routine exercise in labor/management bargaining tactics.

When baseball commissioner Bud Selig publicly pledged that baseball owners would not do anything to interrupt the 2002 season, it was a move intended to put fans at ease and the Major League Baseball Players Association on the defensive. It certainly accomplished the latter. Union leader Donald Fehr fired back that the announcement was a veiled threat to implement new work rules after the season, when the players would no longer be able to derive bargaining leverage from the threat of a strike.

The heart of baseball is beating strongly again. Atlanta's John Smoltz could win 25 games. Cecil Fielder probably is going to be playing in October, in pinstripes. Eddie Murray needs five more homers for 500.Four teams are contending for the NL Central title. The San Diego Padres are born again. Les Expos are exceeding expectations in spite of their small budget, again. Sammy Sosa is mashing homers at a Ruthian rate. Attendance is up, Fox is energizing baseball broadcasting.And a labor agreement seems to be on the horizon.

Baseball's paying customers, as incongruous as it seems, have failed themselves. As a result, they are ready to fall into a deep depression over the prospect of the season being taken away from them because the players and team owners can't negotiate a labor agreement.Do we, the fans, have ourselves to blame? Ponder what has transpired in the history of the grand old game.The current strike deadline for the players walking, not to first base but out of the ballpark, has been established. It's Aug. 12. The baseball "plantation" owners won't budge.

San Francisco Giants first baseman Matt Williams was on pace to hit 61 home runs. San Diego Padres outfielder Tony Gwynn was flirting with a .400 batting average. Chicago White Sox first baseman Frank Thomas had an outside shot at baseball's first Triple Crown since 1968.That's where baseball was a year ago today -- on its way to one of the most exciting offensive seasons in history. But a year ago tomorrow, the Major League Baseball Players Association went on strike and the sport headed into an economic and political storm that still has not abated.

CHICAGO -- Orioles owner Peter Angelos could have strutted around yesterday and pointed out that everything that he predicted had come to pass. Baseball's labor dispute has been put on hold. The owners' hard-line bargaining strategy apparently has gone down in flames.So, strangely enough, on a night when he could have declared victory in his internecine war with the rest of baseball ownership, he took a decidedly conciliatory tone -- much as acting commissioner Bud Selig did when he announced that major-league players would be welcomed back later this week.