Umpires

NEW YORK - Three "gold-badge" umpires were dismissed early from the U.S. Open because of their involvement in a credential-forging scheme at the Olympics, sources told the New York Daily News yesterday. And the early departures may have been one reason Mariana Alves - a lower-ranked official - worked the controversial Serena Williams-Jennifer Capriati quarterfinal. Sources said several officials working in Athens were involved in a plan to alter their credentials to allow them increased access.

More than 60 major-league umpires are expected to attend a meeting in Baltimore today to discuss the possible decertification of the Major League Baseball Umpires Association and the formation of a new union.The Major League Umpires Independent Organizing Committee hopes to persuade a majority of umpires to topple longtime union czar Richie Phillips and put the future of the 93 members of the existing union in new hands. Phillips is not expected to attend the meeting, which will take place at the Inner Harbor Days Inn.The dissident movement gained momentum under veteran umpires Joe Brinkman, Dave Phillips and John Hirschbeck after 22 umpires lost their jobs in an ill-advised job action in July.

Twenty-two major-league umpires are out of work today, left with only faint hope of getting their jobs back after the Major League Baseball Umpires Association reached a compromise with baseball owners last night that allows them to be replaced at least temporarily.The umpires union dropped an unfair labor practice charge against Major League Baseball and withdrew its request for an injunction that would have prevented management from accepting the resignations of the 22 umpires who gave notice in July in an ill-fated effort to force management to begin negotiations on a new labor contract.

An effort by major-league umpires to force early negotiations for a new labor contract disintegrated yesterday when they collectively rescinded the resignations they had submitted to Major League Baseball earlier this month.The move, which came late in the afternoon after a setback in a court challenge in Philadelphia, left the union membership severely split and one-third of its members without jobs. It appears too late for some of the umpires to regain their positions because the National and American leagues had already hired 25 new umpires.

The Major League Baseball Umpires Association continues to search for a way out of the ill-fated labor strategy that has left 22 members facing termination after today's games, but the clock appears to be running out on the union's legal options.Union chief Richie Phillips has asked a federal judge in Philadelphia to issue an injunction to prevent baseball management from accepting the resignations of the 22 umpires, but a hearing scheduled for yesterday was postponed until today, as U.S. District Judge J. Curtis Joyner prodded the two sides to work between themselves to resolve the dispute.

It is a battle between technology and tradition in a sport that has seldom been accused of being ahead of its time. Major League Baseball has installed a high-tech video-tracking system in 10 stadiums in an effort to standardize the strike zone and create an objective method of evaluating the performance of umpires. Both parks in New York have the system, along with those in Anaheim, Arizona, Boston, Cleveland, Houston, Milwaukee, Oakland and Tampa Bay. But QuesTec, the brand name of the monitoring equipment, has come under heavy criticism from the umpires union and from a surprising number of players who feel baseball officials are spending too much time trying to manipulate the game.

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."

Major League Baseball and the new World Umpires Association have reached a tentative contract agreement that will assure labor peace between the industry and its umpires through the 2004 season. Negotiations concluded yesterday in New York with a deal that improves wages and upgrades the umpires' pension plan while creating a new framework for performance evaluation and disciplinary action. It was long in coming - the old labor agreement expired last Dec. 31. But union chief John Hirschbeck said it was worth the wait.

County taxpayers will pick up the $8,000 tab for youth baseball league umpires who did not receive checks when the man responsible for hiring and paying game officials did not do so, Recreation and Parks officials said yesterday.Baltimore County police arrested Larry Frederick Smith, 43, of the 1000 block of Spa Road, Annapolis, on charges he stole $10,000 from the county youth baseball league. He was being held yesterday at the Anne Arundel detention center on $2,500 bail on the felony theft charge.

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.