There’s been a beautiful sound around baseball this summer–the sound of silence.
For the first time, Major League Baseball and the players’ union have negotiated a new labor contract in peace and quiet, NFL style. The result of those out-of-sight talks came to fruition over the weekend, with the sides reaching tentative agreement on a five-year deal that is expected to be announced Monday or Tuesday.
Consider this, along with a postseason leading to the seventh different World Series champion in seven years, a crowning achievement for Commissioner Bud Selig.
When Selig made a bumpy transition into power after he and MLB’s fellow owners fired Fay Vincent, there was a public outrage that the Milwaukee Brewers owner would run his sport, rather than a hired gun from the private sector.
Never mind that hired guns like Bowie Kuhn, Peter Ueberroth, Bart Giamatti and Vincent were never the independent authorities that fans wanted them to be. A lot of people wanted to pretend that the commissioner served to protect the interest of the sport–players, umpires, owners and fans–but this overlooked one small detail: The guy in that role was hired and could be fired by the owners.
Independent? Not in this lifetime.
With the emergence of Selig after Vincent’s ouster in 1992, MLB acknowledged that it could no longer pay lip service to the economic problems that were allowing baseball to fall behind football in the eyes of the consumer.
Those problems included antiquated revenue-sharing agreements and stadiums that weren’t producing enough revenue. But the biggest of those problems were spiraling salaries and the owners’ bungling attempts to bring them under control, which led to work stoppages–lockouts and strikes–every time a labor contract expired.
Selig took all the hits in the 1990s, the worst after owners and players failed to unravel the strike that led to no World Series being played in 1994, and devoted himself to rebuilding the relationship between management and players.
A deal was struck without a work stoppage in 2002, one that even included the union’s first agreement to random testing for steroids, but that one came after the usual drumbeat up to a deadline. That time Selig was forced to make 13th-hour concessions after all-night bargaining, including a weaker drug policy than he would have liked.
This was huge progress from the past, but the public contentiousness before the deal allowed executives from the NFL to remain amused about the process. This time around, Selig, labor czar Rob Manfred and union leaders Donald Fehr and Gene Orza have actually put together an agreement worthy of the NFL’s ultra-slick business operation.
While details of the new agreement are unknown, it is not expected to differ greatly from the one that has been in place for four seasons. The most significant part of this deal is that it is being made almost two months before the current one expires.
Sparky Anderson served as a manager during baseball’s labor war years. He credits Selig for changing the culture.
“Whether a lot of people like it or not, I really believe the commissioner needs a tremendous bouquet for what he’s done,” said Anderson, who threw out the first pitch for Game 2 of the Series Sunday.
The key to the new labor peace is an influx of revenue from the Internet, advertising, sponsorships and new stadiums. In an interview with the Associated Press, Selig estimates baseball will produce $5.2 billion in revenue this season. That’s an increase of 44 percent from the $3.6 billion in 2001, the last year before the current agreement.
Detroit center fielder Curtis Granderson, an Illinois-Chicago product, was a 13-year-old growing up in Chicago when a fight over revenue sharing led to the 1994 strike. He was mourning Michael Jordan’s first retirement from the Bulls and, like a lot of friends, didn’t give baseball much thought.
“I remember there was one year when baseball didn’t have a World Series, but I couldn’t tell you what year that was,” Granderson said. “I don’t think many of us gave baseball a lot of thought. We all liked the other sports. But I think it’s different now. With the Red Sox winning the World Series, the Cubs coming close, people are talking about baseball now.”
Selig has grown the sport internationally, the best example being the establishment of the World Baseball Classic. Management and union officials worked side by side in the months leading to that event, showing a sense of cooperation that would have seemed unthinkable in Selig’s first few years in office.
“There’s a good feeling around the game,” said reliever Braden Looper, St. Louis’ player rep.
The average player salary is expected to be about $2.7 million this year, an increase from $1.1 million in 1995, the first season after baseball’s worst strike. It could climb beyond $3 million within two years.
“I got a kick out of them when they used to say baseball is dying, and football is No. 1,” Anderson said. “I hate to break the sad news to football, but nothing will ever take the place of baseball, and it proved it here this year. . . . When it goes bad, call me. I won’t be around.”
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progers@tribune.com
