08/16/2002 11:10 am ET
Players set Aug. 30 strike date
By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com


The Major League Baseball Players Association, in a unanimous vote by its executive board, set a strike date of Aug. 30 on Friday morning.
The decision, set by the board in a 90-minute conference call, gives the collective bargaining process two more weeks before the players, if not satisfied with the offer on the table at that time, would start baseball's ninth work stoppage since 1972. The last three strikes -- in 1981, 1985 and 1994 -- began during the regular season.

"The players are committed to reaching a fair and equitable agreement, one which takes into account their views, and not just those of the owners," said Don Fehr, executive director of the MLBPA, in a four-paragraph news release. "Needless to say, we are prepared to meet and bargain with the owners' representatives until an agreement is reached."


By all accounts, discussion of a competitive balance tax represents the biggest hurdle. The owners are trying to revamp an economic system in which player salaries have more than doubled to $2.38 billion since the last strike wiped out the 1994 postseason and delayed the start of the 1995 season.

The owners want to raise locally shared revenue from 20 percent to 50 percent and, with competitive balance in mind, have proposed a 50 percent tax on the portion of each team's player payroll that exceeds $102 million. The players are receptive to increased revenue sharing but are opposed to the tax level proposed by the owners, if not the tax itself.

Negotiations slowed this week when the sides couldn't bridge the gap on the tax.

"The baseball owners and baseball player must understand if there is a work stoppage, a lot of fans are going to be furious, and I'm one of them," said President Bush, former owner of the Rangers, speaking to reporters in Texas.

Other key issues such as a worldwide draft of amateur players and a program to test Major League Players for steroid use have been agreed upon in principle. The sides must only hammer out differences in the details.

Economics is the key. The owners say baseball lost $519 million last season and will lose even more this season. Since the strike, they say the sport has lost $1 billion and accumulated $3 billion in debt.

The owners also want to redistribute enough money among the teams to address on-field disparity. Since 1994, no lower revenue team has won a game in the League Championship Series or World Series. The New York Yankees, with baseball's highest revenue and highest payroll, have won four of the past six World Series and have been to five of them.

The other two teams to win during that period, Florida and Arizona, were among baseball's highest revenue and highest payroll teams during the seasons in which they won.

The Aug. 30 strike date is the Friday of Labor Day weekend. If the players choose to walk out, they stand to lose nearly 17 percent of base salaries. In other words, on the high end, Texas shortstop Alex Rodriguez, whose base salary is $21 million this season, would stand to lose more than $3.5 million.

The players set the strike date, theoretically, to force a deal while they have leverege (with playoff TV and in-season revenue on the line) and to safeguard -- they say based on a precedent set in pro basketball -- against the owners implementing new work conditions once the games have been completed. The owners have promised not to implement new work conditions during the season, but have not extended that pledge into the offseason.