Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Saturday, Aug. 31, 2002

The agreement came just 3 1/2 hours before Friday's first game, between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cubs at Chicago's Wrigley Field, where fans were lined up hoping that the season was not about to come to a sudden halt. The players had set Friday as the strike deadline on Aug. 16.

And the agreement was a milestone in the history of player-management negotiations; it was the first time since 1972 that a labor dispute between the parties did not end in a strike – always the outcome in the previous nine confrontations.

"All streaks come to an end, and this was one was overdue to come to an end," union head Donald Fehr said at a news conference with Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who called the agreement "historic."

"The important thing to me is that I think there were a lot of people who never believed they'd live long enough to see these two parties come together and make a very meaningful deal and do it without one game of work stoppage," he added.

"There is no strike," Atlanta pitcher Tom Glavine, the National League's player representative, told Reuters.

Shuttling back and forth all through last night and this morning, Selig and Fehr, both bleary-eyed from the marathon sessions, finally reached an agreement late Friday morning.

In the settlement, Major League team owners pledged not to eliminate any teams through the 2006 season. That agreement saved both the Montreal Expos and Minnesota Twins, which the owners wanted to shut down.

The tentative agreement, in which players made most of the concessions, is intended to help alleviate the financial imbalance between the financially strapped franchises and wealthy teams such as the New York Yankees.

According to MLB.com, the well-off franchises will now have to share a much larger percentage of locally generated money, and a luxury tax will be levied on high-payroll teams to discourage spending.

The amount of money transferred from the wealthy teams to the poorer ones will rise from $169 million to $258 million, using 2001 revenue figures for analysis. The threshold for the luxury tax will start at about $117 million in 2003, rising to about $137 million in 2006.

On the plus side for players. their minimum salaries will jump to $300,000 in 2003 from this season’s $200,000. In return, players also agreed to mandatory drug testing for steroid use, starting next year.

'Ripped by the Fans'

"It came down to us playing baseball or having our reputations and life ripped by the fans," said Steve Kline, the Cardinals' player representative. "Baseball would have never been the same if we had walked out," he added.

John McDonald, the Cleveland Indians' player representative, received word from Tony Bernazard, a special assistant to the players union.

"He said, 'We're playing tonight,' " McDonald told Reuters. "That's all I wanted to hear. That's all any baseball player wanted to hear. Everyone should be thrilled."

Had the strike taken place, however, fans would have been less than pleased, since most still seethe with resentment over the last strike in 1994 forced cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years. A recent poll showed a growing disinterest in the game by fans and the lowest popularity ratings in years.

That resentment burst into the open when fans tossed about a half-dozen foul balls back onto the field during Anaheim's 6-1 win over Tampa Bay, the last game played Thursday night. Many of the 18,820 fans chanted "Don't Strike, Don't Strike" during the seventh-inning stretch, and when the game ended, some of them threw junk on the field.

When he heard the good news, Cubs fan Tony Pencek was sitting in a bar across the street from Wrigley Field. He told the Associated Press that he dashed across the street and bought a ticket for the game.

'America Needs This'

"America needs this. Especially with September 11th coming up," he told the AP. "You need to get people's minds off of it. And for something good to happen is great."

While the agreement has not yet been signed, it is expected to be ratified by both parties in about a week.

"We can now turn our complete attention to the field," Selig said.

As the hours dwindled, lawyers had shuttled between the commissioner's office and union headquarters, crunching numbers and exchanging revised proposals.

"It was close. I was about to make my flight arrangements to go home," Cubs outfielder Roosevelt Brown said as he arrived at the ballpark.

Two lawyers from each side bargained until 2 a.m. before the sides broke for caucuses. Players gave owners a proposal during a 20-minute meeting that began at 4 a.m., and owners responded with a counteroffer about 6:30 a.m. The union returned with a response at 9:15 a.m.

The final meeting, which completed talks that began in January, lasted almost three hours. As soon as it ended, teams started heading to ballparks.

With the deal, owners gained concessions from one of the most powerful unions in the nation. The players' association has lifted the average salary of its members from $51,501 in 1976 — the last year before free agency — to $2.38 million this season.

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