RYE BROOK, N.Y. -- The baseball negotiations ran aground again yesterday. The owners headed off for Chicago, presumably to implement their salary cap proposal, and the players prepared for a legal counterattack that could embroil the game in litigation for years.
"We are still apart on the fundamental issue of cost control," said ownership bargaining chief John Harrington. "We remain flexible long as we establish a relationship between salaries and revenues. The players made it clear that they would accept no such relationship."
In short, nothing significant has changed since the owners submitted their first salary cap proposal on June 14. The players have been on strike for 125 days and the bargaining units still are worlds apart on the the only issue big enough to force such a cataclysmic confrontation.
Both sides cried foul at the end of the sixth day of meetings at the Doral Arrowwood Resort and Conference Center.
The players insisted the owners backed out of negotiations just when they were starting to move ahead. The owners claimed they were seduced and abandoned, left Tuesday night with the impression the players would return yesterday with a cost-control counterproposal.
"We're just not getting anywhere on the concept of controlling costs," said Stan Kasten, president of the Atlanta Braves. "I don't know if we were being played with or what. We had discussions that we hadn't had before. We were told we would get a proposal on the core issue. Some people told me that it was a stall, but I didn't want to believe that. I have to conclude that's what it was."
But at least one owner, the Orioles' Peter Angelos, was encouraged and said yesterday he would vote against implementation today.
"I think progress has been made," Angelos told Chicago radio station WMVP. "And I think if the two sides would continue the negotiations, re-examine their positions and try to find new areas for compromise, that a legitimate solution can be arrived at without the need for litigation or the imposition of salary caps."
Yesterday the players returned to the bargaining table with a loosely assembled proposal that did not satisfy ownership's desire to link total salaries to 50 percent of certain revenues. The owners responded predictably. They left for the Chicago ownership meeting, where Harrington said he would recommend that the full ownership vote to declare an impasse and unilaterally implement the modified salary cap proposal that was presented to the union Nov. 17.
"We put together a proposal designed to eliminate the remaining differences between their Fort Lauderdale [revenue-sharing] plan and our plan, with most of the movement in the clubs' direction," said Major League Baseball Players Association director Donald Fehr. "There were also additional elements to try and get where we need to go. Their response was, it was not good enough, they were very sad and they were going to Chicago. I agree. I think it's very sad."
If the union got a rebuff in Rye Brook, the players got a boost from Washington, where the National Labor Relations Board announced that it would pursue a pair of complaints stemming from management's decision to withhold $7.8 million in All-Star Game revenues that traditionally go into the players pension and benefits fund.
The complaint could help the players in their attempt to challenge a declared impasse, but it apparently will not keep the owners from trying to implement the salary cap.
The owners meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. (CST) at the O'Hare Airport Hilton. The bargaining unit will brief the full ownership on the progress of the negotiations and make a recommendation. Harrington left little doubt about what that recommendation would be.
Under the expected plan, the owners would impose a salary cap based on a 50-50 split of industry revenues. Teams would be required to fall within a range of 84-110 percent of the average payroll that is derived from the total revenues earmarked for salaries and benefits. In the first year of a four-year phase-in period, the Orioles, for example, would be limited to a total expenditure of $42.6 million, which includes their share of Major League Baseball's pooled contribution for non-salary employment benefits.
Union leaders could have opted instead for ownership's latest taxation proposal, but concluded that it would have essentially the same effect as a hard cap.
"We're sad," said Atlanta Braves pitcher Tom Glavine. "We're concerned about what they are doing to the future of the game. But at what price will you sell your freedom? We're not going to do that."
Still, the union felt it had made a significant concession when it upgraded its flat tax proposal to 5.02 percent on Saturday and offered to contribute at least $30 million to fund revenue-enhancing projects.
The owners made a counterproposal that called for a smaller flat tax (4.64 percent), but included an escalating secondary tax meant to produce a substantial drag on salary growth.
Special mediator William J. Usery admitted that he was disappointed in the outcome of the six-day session in Rye Brook, but vowed to bring the bargaining units back together as soon as possible -- perhaps as soon as this weekend.
"I still have a dispute to mediate," Usery said. "Just because we've hit a bump in the road -- and I admit that I thought last night we might have an agreement to announce -- that doesn't mean that we're pessimistic. We just got to a point where we couldn't go any further."
It will take an affirmative vote from 21 clubs to approve implementation, but that appears to be a fore gone conclusion. "We have a calendar that is in place," Kasten said. "We have to start making decisions about 1995 and put a product on the field. We're still in business."
Kasten wondered aloud if the union had been totally forthright during the past few days. Players wondered the same thing about the owners.
"We have been told that this is a large market/small market issue," Glavine said. "We thought this was about getting more money to their small-market teams. Our proposal was answered with one that gave money to the New York Mets. It makes you scratch your head."
YANKS GET McDOWELL
The Chicago White Sox traded 1993 Cy Young Award winner Jack McDowell to the New York Yankees last night for minor-league pitcher Keith Heberling and a player to be named.
McDowell, 28, would become a restricted free agent if owners impose a salary cap today, as is expected. He could sign an offer sheet with any team, but the Yankees would have 10 days to match any offer.