Major League Umpires Reach Deal To Return

Baseball owners, who still haven’t settled with their players, agreed to a five-year deal with umpires Monday and ended their 120-day lockout.

The regular umpires will return to the field Wednesday. The agreement means the end of picket lines outside stadiums and removes the prospect of a showdown May 9, when replacement umpires would no longer be allowed to work in Toronto.

“Their scab strategy was exposed for what it was - a fraud,” umpires union head Richie Phillips said. “These people were incapable of officiating at a major-league level.”

Rookie umpires get raises this year of 25 percent, and the most senior umpire gets a raise that could go as high as 37.5 percent.

Because the contract is frontloaded and pay will remain the same during the length of the agreement, management calculated the increase at 16 percent over the five years.

The base salary for most umpires will rise by $20,000.

The deal was agreed to at 12:30 a.m. EDT Monday and approved 9-0 by the umpires’ board at about 6:30 a.m. Umpires union president Jerry Crawford said a majority of umpires already had said they would vote to ratify the deal.

Replacement umpires will wind up having worked the first eight days of the season and - barring rainouts - the first 86 games. The regular umpires will be paid 100 percent of their 1995 salaries.

A planned demonstration by reg ular umpires in Baltimore on Monday was canceled.”Everything will be back to normal,” Orioles catcher Chris Hoiles said.

Under the deal, rookie umpires - all with at least one year of major league service from their time as vacation fill-ins - will be guaranteed $100,000, up from $75,000 under the expired four-year deal.

Thirty-year veterans, guaranteed $206,000 under the old deal, can make up to $282,500 under the new contract. Harry Wendelstedt of the N.L. is the only one at that level.

“Having labor peace with the umpires for the next five years is a welcome and necessary development,” acting commissioner Bud Selig said.

Under the agreement:

The salary scale for base pay will be $75,000 to $225,000, up from $60,000 to $175,000.

All umpires will receive a postseason bonus of $20,000; under the old deal, young umpires got $10,000 and senior umpires got $20,000.

Bonuses for the All-Star Game rise to $5,000 from $2,500, for the league championship series to $15,000 from $5,000 and for the World Series to $17,500 from $5,000. Umpires working the new round of playoffs will get $12,500, and they will be allowed to work in the World Series in the same year.

Players supported the umpires during a hearing last week before the Ontario Labor Relations Board, an unprecedented alliance. Umpires, meanwhile, gave players permission to cross their picket lines.

On Friday, the board said it would enforce its law against replacement workers and ruled the regular umpires would have to be allowed back at the SkyDome starting May 9 for Toronto’s second homestand.

“It created tremendous legal problems for them,” Phillips said. “There was a chance that we could extrapolate that Canadian decision into an American unfair labor practice decision.”

Phillips and management negotiator Robert Kheel renewed talks in Toronto last week and spoke by telephone Friday and Saturday. Phillips and Crawford arrived in New York on Sunday and spent the day negotiating at Kheel’s office.

This was the third work stoppage involving the umpires. They struck during the first seven weeks of the 1979 season and the first seven games of the 1985 playoffs. In 1991, the sides agreed to a contract just hours before the first pitch, causing replacements to work seven of eight games on opening day.

In their proposal last week, owners had offered a salary scale of $70,000 to $215,000.

“The agreement passes the test of fairness,” said A.L. president Gene Budig.