Those three "wise men," known as Selig, Harrington & Fehr, are hoping to return baseball to its earthly state. They ride not on the backs of camels nor follow a star in the heavens. It's the money machine that drives them.
Still another meeting is scheduled this week between the owners of the major-league teams and the Major League Baseball Players Association. If a settlement is reached, they'll describe it as a "Christmas present for the fans." Believe that and you deserve to be institutionalized, taken off to a padded cell where you won't be a danger to yourself or the lives of others.
Bud Selig, who is working both sides of the foul line as both an owner and commissioner, reveals by his actions how easy it is to become a total zero. If he played, the number on his back would be "00."
The other owner who has taken a "leadership" position is John Harrington of the Boston Red Sox, who unfortunately would be considered well-spoken except he speaks in a sleep-inducing New England accent. Then there's the bright but robot-like Donald Fehr, chief potentate of the players, who never met a club owner he couldn't beat -- individually or collectively.
Against Fehr, the ownership establishment is overmatched. He's JTC too good for them. His hero, Marvin Miller, who preceded him in the job, never lost a decision to the owners. Fehr continues the rout.
Another figure in the proceedings is the master negotiator, William J. Usery, who tries to bring the two rivals together but so far hasn't hit the ball out of the infield in attempting to score with a settlement.
But remember, though, if peace comes about, the three "wise men" and their henchmen will take deep bows and claim the "spirit of Christmas" moved them to coming to an agreement because they wanted to be so considerate of you, the public.
How can the players expect any kind of a fair trial in the matters of finance when Selig is an owner and, while serving as commissioner, is earning a reported $1 million annually for helping to put baseball in the shape it's in? It was Selig and his compatriots who started off crying that 19 of the 28 teams were losing money.
That proved to be false information. Then the number was downgraded to 14. Meanwhile, an editor of Financial World magazine said he had figures to prove it was more like six. And it was the owners, don't forget, who held back the $7.6 million payment that was to go to the players association pension fund at the time of the All-Star Game.
Right now, it appears Fehr is going to pitch another shutout against the owners. In previous labor negotiations, the owners are 0-for-8. They ought to put themselves on waivers. The feeling over the last week has been the owners are turning soft and will, per usual, crumble under the players' demands.
Meanwhile, the owners, pleading poverty while defeating their own case, are going about signing the likes of Gregg Jefferies at $20 million for four seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies, Kevin Gross for $9 million over the next three years with the Texas Rangers and a possible contract promise of $5.8 million by the New York Yankees to sign Jack McDowell, whose best pitching years are behind him.
Then the Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees and Colorado Rockies made it known that season tickets were going up in price. Orioles owner Peter Angelos, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and Rockies owner Jerry McMorris picked themselves off base with that one. The ticket checks go to the teams so they can put it in the bank and draw interest off your money.
Another trick they like to use is to raise some seats an appreciable amount and then reduce a percentage of others. This is a smokescreen since they realize it's easy to put one over on the public with this kind of chicanery. When all the money is counted at the end of the game, it works out to more income for the owner.
It's the kind of caper the National Football League has been getting away with for decades because the press and public refuse to take a stand against such outlandish practices. Clubs create an early deadline for buying season tickets and make you pay up months before the opening kickoff. Baseball had adopted the same plan. This enables management to get your money in its hands so it can make deposits and then collect the interest payment.
We once knew an NFL owner who had a way of falsifying the manifest and keeping all the ticket money himself on two sections of stadium seats instead of giving the visiting team an honest count. That kind of larceny should have had him thrown out of the league and, furthermore, got him time in prison. What a grubby white-collar crime.
Regarding the baseball problems, sports reporter Jim Litke, writing out of Chicago for the Associated Press, put the impasse between the two sides in perspective when he wrote: "Most players are arrogant, unreasonable, ungrateful and out of touch with the rest of the world in a way only rich people can afford to be. Almost all the owners are all of those things, only more so. . . . "
If the owners want to institute their salary cap, get on with it. If they back off, then their entire plan of shutting down baseball last summer was a failure. The players are willing, it's said, to part with $30 million from their licensing fee on cards and merchandise to appease the owners in some kind of a taxation process. Here again, they would be beating the owners at their own game, maintaining the status quo while giving up non-contract money.
Get ready for the "spirit of the season" to assert itself. The owners and players -- but especially the owners -- want to save face. Get ready for the revealing pronouncement. They'll try to tell us they're Santa Claus.