Players Union

HAVANA -- Orioles owner Peter Angelos and a large contingent of officials representing Major League Baseball and Catholic Relief Services arrived here last night to begin negotiations for a humanitarian home-and-home exhibition series with a team of Cuban amateur players.The delegation, headed by Angelos and Major League Baseball executive vice president Sandy Alderson, also includes Louis Angelos, Orioles left fielder B. J. Surhoff, MLB counsel Bill Schweitzer, players union representative Tony Bernazard, CRS representative Tom Garafalo and several lawyers and advisers to assist in the complex negotiations.

Major League Baseball's disciplinary summit failed to produce any change in the way the sport handles unruly players, but representatives of the Major League Baseball Players Association and the umpires union agreed to form a study group to examine baseball's disciplinary system.The meeting, held yesterday in West Palm Beach, Fla., was part of an agreement reached in federal court last October to prevent a postseason boycott by umpires, who were outraged that Orioles second baseman Roberto Alomar was allowed to postpone the five-game suspension he received for spitting on umpire John Hirschbeck.

The Major League Baseball Umpires Association has announced that its members will be much quicker to eject players, coaches and managers who get out of line during the 1997 season.That announcement, made early this month, was the latest fallout from the Roberto Alomar/John Hirschbeck spitting incident last September in Toronto. The umpires still believe that Alomar was dealt with too leniently and are trying to flex their combined muscle the only way they can - on the field.Off the field, the umpires union does not have nearly the same clout as the Major League Baseball Players Association, a fact that became obvious when American League president Gene Budig suspended Alomar for only five days after the second baseman spit on Hirschbeck at SkyDome during the Orioles' final regular-season series.

An on-again, off-again agreement between the players' union and Major League Baseball designed to resolve Wil Cordero's playing status was agreed upon last night after a day of intensive negotiations.Cordero and his wife, Ana, met in New York with doctors retained by Major League Baseball and the players' union who will oversee his future counseling program.Under terms of the agreement between the union and the owners' Player Relations Committee, Cordero will spend seven days in New York meeting with Dr. Robert Millman and Dr. Joel Solomon.

The Boston Red Sox are in a no-win situation with troubled outfielder Wilfredo Cordero, who stands accused of assaulting his wife, Ana, with a telephone last month and is reeling from recent allegations that he has engaged in a pattern of domestic abuse that dates back nearly a decade.If they allow him to return to the starting lineup, they will be viewed as being soft on the highly charged issue of domestic violence. If they release him, they are further downgrading a team that already is playing well below expectations.

Interim commissioner Bud Selig seems optimistic about the meeting that will bring together representatives of Major League Baseball, the players association and the umpires union today in West Palm Beach, Fla., though the likelihood that it will produce any concrete change in baseball's disciplinary system is considered very slim."

NBA players yesterday voted overwhelmingly against decertifying their union, clearing the way for the season to begin on time.In voting tallied in the New York office of the National Labor Relations Board, the players, by a margin of 226-134, decided not to decertify their union, raising hope that the league will begin its regular season as scheduled Nov. 3."The players want to play basketball," said Portland Trail Blazers forward Buck Williams, president of the players union. "We believe we got a fair agreement."

NEW YORK -- On a day when the baseball players union took what the clubs view as a fantasy step in their ongoing labor dispute by filing 123 players for salary arbitration, a union official also raised a possibility yesterday that would provide all-too-real consequences for major-league managers, coaches and trainers.Eugene Orza, the Major League Baseball Players Association's associate general counsel, said union officials soon will talk to managers, coaches and trainers about their intentions of working with the replacement teams that clubs are forming.

Barely a week from what should be the start of baseball's spring training, major league owners and players are no closer to settling their labor dispute than they were six months ago. When the president of the United States can't jawbone a settlement in a labor dispute with high public interest, a voluntary agreement is nowhere near in sight. And Mr. Clinton's call on Congress to impose binding arbitration holds little promise.Union leaders have long seemed to be relying on eventual federal action of one sort or another to break the deadlock with the owners.

The Major League Baseball Players Association began this strike year with a formidable war chest at its disposal: more than $170 million in cash and securities, largely raised through the sale of trading cards.According to the union's annual financial disclosure filed last month with the Labor Department, the 1,000-member players union ended 1993 with $174.8 million in assets, including $155.6 million stashed away in Treasury securities and $18.5 million in cash.That money -- about $175,000 a player -- represents a strike fund of historic proportions and no doubt has grown since the filing was made.

Matt Stover, the Ravens' veteran place-kicker and the team's representative to the NFL Players Association, has urged his fellow reps that longtime executive director Gene Upshaw be replaced. Stover wrote in the e-mail that he was part of a conference call Friday of players representatives who discussed the possible ouster of Upshaw, the head of the NFL players union since 1983, ESPN reported yesterday. "I am not the only rep who listened and felt that it was time for a change," Stover wrote in the e-mail, which was obtained by ESPN.

RICHMOND, Va. - Dwight Howard has had a pretty good year. Last June, he went from high school all-star to the NBA's No. 1 overall pick, and then, as a teenage power forward for the Orlando Magic, he proved himself a world-class rebounder, a promising scorer and a man who would steer clear of anything resembling trouble. Yesterday, Howard recounted the thrills of battling his idol, Kevin Garnett, to the best high school players in the land, those who would succeed him on the fast track to pro glory.

MAJOR LEAGUE Baseball players will report to spring training camps in Florida and Arizona in just five weeks, and clubhouse managers across the show are apt to be busy finding smaller jerseys for not a few pros. Even with baseball's toothless stab at drug testing last season, some ball players showed up with noticeably deflated physiques, the apparent result of having forsaken the juice of steroids. This season, with baseball now having been shamed into the tougher testing protocol announced last week, look for the games to be played on a much more human scale.

WASHINGTON - Pressure mounted on baseball to toughen its steroid-testing regimen, as the White House yesterday urged "strong steps" to combat the drugs and a well-placed senator said it was time for the players union to end its history of "stonewalling." "The president has made it very clear that he believes Major League Baseball needs to act to address the problem," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said at his daily press briefing. "Players who use drugs undermine the efforts of parents and coaches to send the right message to our children.

PHILADELPHIA - In a surprising turn of events, there is a growing feeling that Terrell Owens' trade to the Ravens will be rescinded if a settlement between the NFL and the players union can't be reached, a source close to the arbitration hearing said last night. The lawyers for the NFL Players Association presented an unexpectedly strong case yesterday to support the Pro Bowl receiver's claim that he voided his contract with the San Francisco 49ers in time and should become a free agent.

If the NFL Players Association fails to get his trade rescinded, Pro Bowl receiver Terrell Owens said he would end his protest and play for the Ravens. An NFL spokesman confirmed that Gene Upshaw, executive director of the players union, spoke yesterday with Harold Henderson, the league's executive vice president for labor relations, of his intention to try to void Thursday's deal that sent Owens from the San Francisco 49ers. There has been no resolution on that matter, the spokesman added.

VERO BEACH, Fla. - Two weeks into his annual information tour through spring training camps, Major League Baseball Players Association director Donald Fehr is still playing defense. Baseball owners have used the heatstroke death of Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler to justify a new effort to restrict the use of products that contain the weight-loss aid and stimulant ephedrine. The Senate, which held hearings last June to examine claims of widespread steroid use in Major League Baseball, is pondering a new inquiry to take a similar look at the way professional sports deals with ephedrine and other potentially harmful legal supplements.

WASHINGTON - The last time his old team, the Raiders, reached the Super Bowl, Gene Upshaw was a newly hired labor chief desperately trying to save the football union. The Raiders will once again appear in the championship tomorrow, but Upshaw is in a better position to enjoy the game. The NFL Players Association he has led for two decades has not only averted disaster but grown into the richest union in sports, largely due to a pioneering subsidiary that he founded. Players Inc. goes beyond the commercial endeavors traditionally pursued by players associations.

Major League Baseball may be hell-bent on contraction, but the decision to fold two franchises before the start of the 2002 season faces so many obstacles that the final outcome could be much different than baseball owners intend. The Major League Baseball Players Association, the strongest union in professional sports, has made it clear that the players will fight to preserve the 30-team configuration that ownership now considers unworkable. The owners already face a restraining order and a court hearing aimed at preventing them from folding the struggling Minnesota Twins that was scheduled for today and rescheduled for Tuesday in Minneapolis.

HAVANA -- Orioles owner Peter Angelos and a large contingent of officials representing Major League Baseball and Catholic Relief Services arrived here last night to begin negotiations for a humanitarian home-and-home exhibition series with a team of Cuban amateur players.The delegation, headed by Angelos and Major League Baseball executive vice president Sandy Alderson, also includes Louis Angelos, Orioles left fielder B. J. Surhoff, MLB counsel Bill Schweitzer, players union representative Tony Bernazard, CRS representative Tom Garafalo and several lawyers and advisers to assist in the complex negotiations.