Everyone Wrong In Testy Struggle To Save Baseball

Baseball’s labor dispute is rife with thorny, complex issues that a layperson such as yourself is incapable of comprehending - unless, of course, you can prove your grasp of the situation by passing a brief multiple-choice test.

Question 1: As negotiations with William J. Usery broke down this week, players union counsel Eugene Orza angrily called the federal mediator:

a) senile

b) Barney Fag

c) the same name Old Lady Gingrich called First Lady Hillary

Question 2: Major league clubs are rounding up some unusual suspects to become replacement players should the dispute drag on, including:

a) Oil Can Boyd

b) L.M. Boyd

c) Lady Boyd Johnson

Question 3: What’s the best bet for getting the owners and players off the dime and into a settlement?

a) binding arbitration

b) binding legislation

c) binding underwear.

Sorry. Just trying to bridge the levity gap from President Clinton’s misbegotten intrusion to replacement ball, when the real laughs will begin.

That’s when we’ll need presidential intervention. Slick Bubba can send in the Marines. Cactus Storm and Grapefruit Storm. Round up the replacements into scab camps and make the real players take the field at bayonet-point, if necessary.

It would be convenient to say time and rhetoric have blurred the rights and wrongs of this dispute into the mother of all migraines, except that there are no rights short of the players heading to spring training and the negotiators being locked in a hotel with no room service or Selectavision until they find some means to reach a settlement. Strip poker would suffice.

Otherwise, everyone’s wrong.

The owners? They’re wrong because they still believe it’s the function of their workforce to let them avoid the knotty problem of equitably dividing the sport’s revenues. Sure, the owners have removed the salary cap, but only under the threat of noogies from the National Labor Relations Board. They still want a limit on labor costs and consider it only fair and reasonable. Of course, if someone would suggest to the owners a cap or limit on profits - particularly the profits from the sale of a franchise - that would be unfair, unreasonable and downright un-American.

The players? They’re wrong because they have a union that will demand Darryl Strawberry get yet another chance.

The fans? They’re wrong because more and more of them are siding with ownership. It is a peculiarly American notion - and it just won’t die - that rich folks should be allowed to do pretty much what they want, just because they’re rich. Ballplayers, of course, shouldn’t be rich folks because, well, they play a kid’s game and we’d all trade places with them in a second - which is hardly the point. I would gladly trade places with the president of Anheuser Busch, too, and I’d be much better at that than I would be playing left field for the Mariners. Alas, I was not born into the Lucky Gene Club - I can’t hit a fastball 400 feet and I’m not in Gussie Busch’s will.

And, naturally, President Clinton was wrong, even while trying to do the right thing. This thing must play out on its own, or quite likely we’ll be doing it again in five years.

There is no more room for compromise. Somebody must win this thing, and the morning line here is it’ll be ownership. Union boss Don Fehr assured his constituents the paychecks would resume this spring. They won’t. He rejected Usery’s deal out of hand and the game’s stars will demand to know why they shouldn’t cross the line. His objective now is to save face, not negotiate. The owners know it and will dig in even harder.

One last question: If Bill Clinton can’t settle the baseball strike, who can?

a) Boutros Boutros Ghali

b) Pope John Paul II

c) Nike - you know what they say, just do it

Wrong again. The answer is d) none of the above.

xxxx

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review