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From: david@fisher.UUCP (David Rubin)
Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Impending strike (A Correction For Mark Modig)
Message-ID: <720@fisher.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Aug-85 08:34:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: fisher.720
Posted: Mon Aug  5 08:34:43 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Aug-85 09:02:04 EDT
References: <481@sftri.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Princeton University Department of Statistics
Lines: 50

The owners, too, rejected Ueberroth's proposals.  As for serious
proposals, the only one put forth by the owners makes a slight
concession on the pension fund, but undoes its purpose by allowing the
owners to deduct from the fund any salary increases over a certain
amount.  Thus, the owners inability to discipline themselves would
result in money being transferred from players who spend years in the
minors only to break through to the majors for a few years to players
who command the large contracts -- hardly something the union could
accept.  The owners also gave no ground on arbitration.  Thus, one
step forward and one step back is what it represents.

The players have made an offer to reduce their pension demands
(amount: unspecified) in return for

	(1) Preservation of arbitration as is, and
	(2) Guarantees that the amount "foregone" by the pension fund
	    would only go to those teams losing money.

The players could give up something on arbitration, but at least they,
unlike the owners, are actually conceding something.  The second point,
in particular, points out the owner's continuing charade: in the name
of the few teams that really do have financial difficulties, the owners
make proposals that will bring financial return to the wealthy and the
solvent teams as well.

The owners are caught in a contradiction: on one hand, they would have
us consider the finances of the most endangered individual franchises
as the standard by which to judge what concessions the players ought
to make; on the other hand, they demand that those concessions be
applied to ALL franchises, whether they merit it or not.  If the
financial status of the Pittsburgh Pirates is to be invoked, the
consequent labor concessions should apply to only the Pittsburgh
Pirates.  If the concessions are to made to MLB as a unitary
enterprise, then the only relevant standard is the status of MLB as a
whole.

A final note: virtually any owner can sell his baseball franchise at a
tremendous real profit from the price paid for it even a few years
ago.  For example when Doubleday's group bought the Mets in 1980, they
paid the highest price ever paid for a franchise up to that point --
$20 million.  Teams now trade hands for about $50 million, and it was
recently confirmed that Doubleday had turned DOWN an offer of $100
million for the Mets.  Some teams cannot command these prices (if they
are restricted to their present markets), but, presuming the owners
are rational men, if baseball were really in financial trouble as a
whole, I'd expect a lot more owners to exploit the available capital
gains...

					David Rubin
			{allegra|astrovax|princeton}!fisher!david