Baseball Mess: Stupid Owners, Greedy Players - tribunedigital-dailypress
Baseball Mess: Stupid Owners, Greedy Players
February 11, 1995|By WARNER HESSLER Daily Press
It's become fashionable for members of the media to take the side of the players in the baseball stalemate.
Sure, the players are greedy, they say, but the owners are more greedy. Sure, they say, it's absurd for a backup shortstop in New York to make $2 million per year. But the owners are still greedy.
Sure, they insist, baseball is a league of overcompensated overachievers, but the owners forced this strike with talk about correcting the problem with a salary cap. It's all the owners' fault.
So they say. To be sure, the owners have played a role in the longest and nastiest strike in sports history. But the problem has more to do with stupidity than greed.
Since 1966, when Marvin Miller took over as the players' union chief, until the present with Don Fehr calling the union's shots, the owners have been grossly overmatched.
In the beginning, when the average salary in 1966 was $19,000, Miller suckered the owners into the best benefits package of any corporation in the world. Average salaries didn't hit six figures until the late 1970s, but a player with 10 years of service could retire with a pension of over $100,000.
The union was making strides under Miller and didn't need any help from the owners, but they got it in the late 1970s when the owners suggested impartial arbitration to help settle contract disputes.
Arbitration, which began with the best of intentions, soon blew up in the owners' faces. It's the primary reason average salaries climbed from $19,000 in 1966 to $589,000 in 1990 to $1.2 million in 1994. And it's the reason the owners are holding firm today.
It's a system in which the market value for players is set by the dumbest general manager's decision. If the backup shortstop on a wealthy team like Toronto is given $2 million per year, an arbitrator will award $2 million to the backup shortstop on a low revenue team like San Diego.
During the early years of arbitration, the system worked to the owners' benefit. Salaries were low, and it didn't hurt when a player making $40,000 was awarded a $7,000 raise.
But when the owners began giving the stars multimillion contracts, the price rose for the backups. And the arbitrators, who knew little about the sport, looked at salaries in New York and Toronto rather than an individual's statistics and the market in which he played.
Owners tried to hold the line on salaries during the 1988 and 1989 seasons, lowering the league's total payroll by nearly five percent. The players charged collusion, the arbitrators agreed, and the free agents from those two seasons divvied up $280 million in damages.
In the following three seasons, arbitrators handed out average salary increases of 71 percent in 1989, 101 percent in 1990 and 104 percent in 1991.
The owners' problem has less to do with greed than with stupidity, allowing people outside their business to mind their business for them.
Several weeks ago, there was hope the strike would end if the owners' dropped their salary cap and the players gave up arbitration. Last week, the owners reluctantly dropped the salary cap, but the players held on to arbitration. And the stalemate continues.
The players union needed no help in improving salaries and benefits for its members, but it received a lot from an ownership group that suggested arbitration and has yet to devise a plan to spread the wealth and prop up its small revenue franchises.
Baseball is in the shape it's in because of greedy players and stupid owners, not the other way around.
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Baseball Mess: Stupid Owners, Greedy Players - tribunedigital-dailypress
Baseball Mess: Stupid Owners, Greedy Players
February 11, 1995|By WARNER HESSLER Daily Press
It's become fashionable for members of the media to take the side of the players in the baseball stalemate.
Sure, the players are greedy, they say, but the owners are more greedy. Sure, they say, it's absurd for a backup shortstop in New York to make $2 million per year. But the owners are still greedy.
Sure, they insist, baseball is a league of overcompensated overachievers, but the owners forced this strike with talk about correcting the problem with a salary cap. It's all the owners' fault.
So they say. To be sure, the owners have played a role in the longest and nastiest strike in sports history. But the problem has more to do with stupidity than greed.
Since 1966, when Marvin Miller took over as the players' union chief, until the present with Don Fehr calling the union's shots, the owners have been grossly overmatched.
In the beginning, when the average salary in 1966 was $19,000, Miller suckered the owners into the best benefits package of any corporation in the world. Average salaries didn't hit six figures until the late 1970s, but a player with 10 years of service could retire with a pension of over $100,000.
The union was making strides under Miller and didn't need any help from the owners, but they got it in the late 1970s when the owners suggested impartial arbitration to help settle contract disputes.
Arbitration, which began with the best of intentions, soon blew up in the owners' faces. It's the primary reason average salaries climbed from $19,000 in 1966 to $589,000 in 1990 to $1.2 million in 1994. And it's the reason the owners are holding firm today.
It's a system in which the market value for players is set by the dumbest general manager's decision. If the backup shortstop on a wealthy
 team like Toronto is given $2 million per year, an arbitrator will award $2 million to the backup shortstop on a low revenue team like San Diego.
During the early years of arbitration, the system worked to the owners' benefit. Salaries were low, and it didn't hurt when a player making $40,000 was awarded a $7,000 raise.
But when the owners began giving the stars multimillion contracts, the price rose for the backups. And the arbitrators, who knew little about the sport, looked at salaries in New York and Toronto rather than an individual's statistics and the market in which he played.
Owners tried to hold the line on salaries during the 1988 and 1989 seasons, lowering the league's total payroll by nearly five percent. The players charged collusion, the arbitrators agreed, and the free agents from those two seasons divvied up $280 million in damages.
In the following three seasons, arbitrators handed out average salary increases of 71 percent in 1989, 101 percent in 1990 and 104 percent in 1991.
The owners' problem has less to do with greed than with stupidity, allowing people outside their business to mind their business for them.
Several weeks ago, there was hope the strike would end if the owners' dropped their salary cap and the players gave up arbitration. Last week, the owners reluctantly dropped the salary cap, but the players held on to arbitration. And the stalemate continues.
The players union needed no help in improving salaries and benefits for its members, but it received a lot from an ownership group that suggested arbitration and has yet to devise a plan to spread the wealth and prop up its small revenue franchises.
Baseball is in the shape it's in because of greedy players and stupid owners, not the other way around.
Nfl Achieves What Baseball Can't, Or Won't
Winfield And Olson Explain The Fundamentals Of Mistrust
Myopic Players And Owners Hurt Baseball