Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 29, 1990 TAG: 9003290703
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: From Associated Press reports
DATELINE: PORT ST. LUCIE, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
The oral agreement on roster expansion between the players and the owners collapsed Wednesday.
Also, the agreement to return major league umpires to spring training games fell apart over the choice of an arbitrator.
The umpires were scheduled to begin working spring training games Friday but that now appears impossible after Wednesday's fallout. Judge Stanley Greenberg withdrew as the independent arbitrator at the request of management.
The sides were due back in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia today, when baseball will pursue a preliminary injunction from Judge Norma Shapiro to force an end to the work stoppage.
The umpires decided to boycott spring training games as a protest when they were not consulted over rescheduling of regular season games following the settlement of the 32-day spring training lockout.
Baseball took the matter to court, but the sides averted a hearing when they agreed to arbitrate the issue. That appeared to clear the way for umpires to return on Friday.
But a dispute arose over the choice of Greenberg to hear the case. Shapiro refused a management request to disqualify him as arbitrator but when the sides later appeared before Greenberg, he withdrew.
That sent the umpires and management back to Shapiro's courtroom, where she proposed a number of other possible arbitrators, including former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth and former Vice President Walter Mondale.
In each case, one side or the other would not accept Shapiro's suggestions and the day ended with no agreement and management back to seeking the injunction.
That means minor league umpires, who have been working since exhibition play began on Monday, will remain on the job as arguments before Shapiro resume.
"The umpires are disappointed in the owners," said Richie Phillips, head of the umpires' union. "Nevertheless, we will continue to try our best to reach a resolution."
Also in dispute were increased living expenses incurred by the umpires who gave up apartment leases when the lockout started and fewer days off during the season because of the compressed schedule.
After the arbitration matter had apparently been settled, Phillips said he would continue to press charges of unfair labor practices which had been filed last week with the National Labor Relations Bureau.
The oral agreement to expand rosters to 27 for the first three weeks of the season ended with each side accusing the other of trying to change the terms of the deal.
"Their sense of romance is very, very strange to me," Eugene Orza, the associate counsel of the player's union, said of the owners. "They should be ashamed of themselves."
Rob Manfred, a lawyer for management's Player Relations Committee, said Orza "wanted to make a different deal which wasn't as good" for the owners.
Since the roster expansion won't happen, a change in the scoring rules that would have allowed starters to get victories by pitching only three innings also won't happen. The two were tied together, both the result of management's 32-day lockout, which cut spring training to three weeks.
"We both thought that we had an agreement," Bill Murray of the commissioner's office said. "When the attorneys started to draft it up, we found there were differences of opinion over what we thought we had agreed to. So we decided to drop it."
The sides couldn't agree on two points: whether outright assignments would count against the limit of two for the three additional roster players, and whether the names of the extra three players on each team would be released.
"Gene actually raised the question of outrights," Manfred said. "Gene said that if guys were outrighted during this 21-period, the outrights shouldn't count."
Under the new collective bargaining agreement, a player can elect to become a free agent after he has been sent outright to the minors twice.
"They heard what they wanted to hear," Orza said. "When faced with the need to address a legitimate safety concern in absence of getting a concession, they aren't going to address it."
Teams did not want the names of the extra players known because they were fearful those players might feign injury to get on the disabled list and accumulate major league service time. Injured players cannot be sent down.
by CNB