Clutch Compromise in the Ninth

A last-minute deal averts a major league player strike

As the major league baseball contract talks moved into the bottom of the ninth last week, the deadlock took on a fantastical quality. Here were the owners demanding in effect an agreement that would protect them from themselves. Here were the players, who make an average of $130,000 a year, threatening to strike like a bunch of coolies. Fans everywhere could only hope that both sides would come to their senses before a summer's entertainment was dashed.

Shortly before 5 a.m. Friday, a bleary-eyed Marvin Miller, executive director of the Players Association, and Ray Grebey, the owners' negotiator, shook hands on what Miller called a "miracle" agreement that averted a walkout by the players. Left unresolved was the pivotal question of how a club should be compensated when one of its players turns free agent and is hired away by another team. But it appeared that the owners left the bargaining table with a narrow victory on this point, while losing gracefully on pensions and salaries. Admitted Phil Garner, second baseman and player representative for the Pittsburgh Pirates: "We had to give up a great deal to get a settlement. We don't know if it's going to be worth it in the long haul."

The current compensation procedure, under which a team losing a free agent is awarded an extra pick in the annual draft of amateur players, will remain in effect this year. The issue will be renegotiated next January, after a review by a committee of player and management representatives. If no agreement results, the owners can impose their own compensation formula. The players reserved the right to strike in response.

Under the owners' proposal, any club signing a "premier" free agent (basically, one drafted by eight or more teams) would have to compensate the player's old team with someone from its own 40-man roster (up to 18 players could be protected). But few clubs would risk signing any free agent but a superstar under that condition. The proposal is designed to damp the salary explosion that has occurred since the reserve clause, which bound players to their original teams, was overturned by an arbitrator in 1975. Today even middling players are being given $300,000 contracts. Unable to restrain themselves, the owners demanded statutory relief. Said Houston Astros Owner John McMullen: "You just can't permit salaries to keep escalating like this." The players won some major pocketbook concessions. The minimum salary for a first-year player, now $21,000, goes to $30,000 this season and $35,000 by 1983. The ball clubs' annual pension contribution rises from $8.3 million to $ 15.5 million, boosting retirement benefits 60%. At age 50, a ten-year player can now collect $1,488 a month. Both the players' Miller and the owners' Grebey expressed satisfaction with the accord. "It's good for everybody," said Grebey. "The fans are going to see ball games, and that's really what counts." Indeed, the fear of sharply adverse public reaction to a strike kept both sides plugging away until a solution was found. Said Chicago White Sox Owner Bill Veeck: "We have enough disasters--Iran, Afghanistan, Miami, the economy. People need something that is stable. A strike would have been disastrous for the game and a disservice to the country." qed

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