NEW YORK, SEPT. 14 -- The once-unthinkable for baseball had become the inevitable by the time the game's acting commissioner, Bud Selig, made matters official today. Selig announced the cancellation of the remainder of the 1994 major league season -- including the World Series, which won't be played for the first time in 90 years because of the bitter labor dispute between the team owners and on-strike players.
"There's an incredible amount of sadness," Selig said during a late- afternoon news conference in Milwaukee. "It's hard to articulate the poignancy of this moment. There's been failure on so many fronts. ... We can only hope now we constructively move forward to solve our problems, rebuild the damage and take the game to the heights it can reach.
"We felt pragmatism dictated this," added Selig, the Milwaukee Brewers' owner. "I know the short-term pain is intense. But if this can serve as the impetus to a long-range solution, then maybe there will be some good that comes from this."
The strike, which reached the 34-day mark today, will wipe out the final 52 days and 669 games of the regular season, plus the postseason. It also is threatening to spill over into the 1995 season.
Ownership representatives from 26 of the 28 major league teams signed a resolution calling off the rest of the season; the statement was faxed to each club Tuesday. The two owners who declined to sign the document were Peter Angelos of the Baltimore Orioles and Marge Schott of the Cincinnati Reds. Angelos drafted his own resolution with reworked language, and Selig said that Schott wanted to continue this season with replacement players.
The two sides continued to blame one another for the negotiating stalemate.
"I think what's interesting today is that when we got the announcement from Bud, as well as being disappointing and tragic, it seemed to me it was anticlimactic in the extreme," Players Association chief Donald Fehr said during a news conference at a Manhattan hotel. "From what we've seen from the owners over the past few weeks ... there appeared to be no urgency, no desire to go to any extraordinary lengths to find an agreement."
Said owners' negotiator Richard Ravitch: "I hope the tragedy of the past 34 days has taught everyone that this cannot be repeated next year. We need to get down to some earnest collective bargaining as soon as possible. ... Threats of strikes and strikes do not produce solutions. Only earnest bargaining does."
Selig spoke of a "cooling-off period," while Ravitch said an owners' meeting could take place in the "not-too-distant future" and indicated that he'll contact the owners Friday and be in touch with Fehr soon. Fehr will begin conducting a series of regional player meetings next week. He said the union would not necessarily oppose participating in binding arbitration, but Selig responded: "This will only be solved at the bargaining table."
The owners have offered the players 50 percent of baseball's revenues in a proposal that calls for a payroll floor and ceiling for each club. The players vehemently oppose any sort of salary cap and say they want to maintain the free-market system in which the average player salary has soared to nearly $1.2 million a year. Late last week, the union made a proposal to the owners that would increase the degree to which the teams share their revenues -- and subsidize the game's small-market clubs -- but the owners rejected the plan, saying it contained no mechanism for curbing salaries. Face-to-face talks broke off Saturday.
The economic and commercial law subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to conduct a hearing on the owners' longstanding exemption from federal antitrust laws next Thursday. A procedural block already has kept a bill to limit the antitrust exemption -- and permit the players to sue if the owners attempt to declare an impasse in negotiations and unilaterally impose a salary cap -- from reaching the Senate floor. But union officials say they believe congressional scrutiny of the antitrust exemption will increase dramatically if the owners impose a salary cap.
During an interview with wire service reporters President Clinton said of the antitrust exemption: "I don't see how we can avoid a serious examination of it in light of what has happened now to the American people. If this has just turned into another business in America, then that's an issue that has to be examined."
The World Series first was played in 1903. It was canceled in 1904 because Manager John McGraw of the National League champion New York Giants refused to play the Boston Pilgrims (now the Red Sox) of the upstart American League, largely due to McGraw's feud with AL President Ban Johnson. The Giants did participate in 1905, beating the Philadelphia Athletics, and the sport's crown jewel event has taken place every year since then -- being played through the Great Depression, two world wars and the Bay Area earthquake of 1989.
This year's World Series, however, will be one of the many victims of the great strike of 1994. This is baseball's eighth work stoppage in 23 years, and it will supplant the players' 50-day strike of 1981 (which wiped out 712 games) as the longest shutdown in baseball history.
There are many casualties. Until the players went on strike Aug. 12, this had been shaping up as one of the most invigorating seasons in memory. San Diego's Tony Gwynn had a chance to become baseball's first .400 hitter since Ted Williams batted .406 in 1941. San Francisco's Matt Williams, Seattle's Ken Griffey Jr. and the Chicago White Sox' Frank Thomas had opportunities to challenge Roger Maris's single-season home run record of 61.
The New York Yankees likely were en route to breaking the longest postseason drought in franchise history. The beleaguered Cleveland Indians had opened a magnificent new downtown ballpark and were having their best season in 40 years. The Montreal Expos at last had won over the town's hockey fans and had the best record in the major leagues.
"I'm just sick about this," said Expos General Manager Kevin Malone, adding that the franchise expects to suffer operating losses of approximately $20 million this year and probably won't be able to keep the nucleus of its team together for whenever baseball is played again. "... Who knows when -- or if -- we'll ever have the same opportunity we had this year. Winning over the fans again will be a real uphill struggle."
Said Orioles General Manager Roland Hemond: "It's a sad, somber day."
Estimates are that the players will lose roughly $230 million in income this year because of the strike. Disbursements from their approximately $175 million strike fund -- stockpiled from withheld licensing dividends -- will begin this week. The players, who haven't received paychecks since Aug. 15, will be mailed checks of up to $10,000 apiece from this disbursement, and have made plans for supplements of up to $10,000 each on Oct. 1 and as much as $5,000 apiece on Oct. 15. Major league managers, coaches and trainers also receive payments from the players' strike fund.
The 28 teams reportedly could miss out on somewhere between $500 million and $600 million in revenues this year due to the strike. The clubs have no strike insurance but do have lines of credit. Sources say that Fehr already has warned Selig that the real labor war begins now, and that as many as six teams could be out of business by the time the next big league game is played -- perhaps as late as next June, some union officials say privately.
The owners conceivably could attempt to unilaterally impose a salary cap at any time. But sources say they're not ready to take that step. If they do, the union almost certainly would file an unfair labor practices charge with the National Labor Relations Board. A flurry of litigation would follow. Players already have begun talking about forming a new league as soon as next year. The owners, if a salary cap is imposed, probably would attempt to open spring training camps next year with major leaguers who break ranks and minor leaguers willing to step in.
Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro said today he doesn't believe the players will return to work if a salary cap is unilaterally imposed. "From what I hear and what I've seen, the owners are not going to be able to break the union," he said from his Texas home. "... We've lost a hell of a lot of money, but I believe we'll stick together."