
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 12, 1994                   TAG: 9408120110
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From The Associated Press and The Washington Post
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                 LENGTH: Medium

FOR BASEBALL, IT'S BOTTOM OF THE 9TH

Major-league baseball players packed their gear and said their goodbyes Thursday as they prepared to go on strike after six months of sporadic and often-bitter negotiations failed to produce a new labor agreement with the game's owners.

The strike officially began after Seattle's 10:05 p.m. game at Oakland, but during the afternoon and evening, lights were turned off at ballparks around the country for perhaps the final time in 1994.

Signs of division and worry appeared among baseball team owners, who discussed last-minute ways to avert the sport's eighth work stoppage since 1972.

Talks between players and owners broke off Wednesday and no further meetings were scheduled, union head Donald Fehr said.

Players say they are striking because they fear owners will impose a salary cap after the season if there isn't a labor agreement to replace the one that expired Dec. 31. A salary cap would limit what teams could spend on players' salaries.

The owners argue that they need control over player costs, and that a salary cap would do it. Players contend the owners are trying to resolve their revenue-sharing problem - basically, that teams in different size cities have vastly different amounts of money - by making the players pay for it.

Anxiety was evident in a comment by New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in Thursday's Philadelphia Inquirer.

Steinbrenner said management's argument - that a cap is needed to keep rich teams in big cities from outspending poorer teams to gain a permanent advantage - ``doesn't wash.''

``Look at Montreal,'' Steinbrenner was quoted as saying. ``The best record in baseball is the team with the second-lowest payroll. So you can shoot that theory right in the butt. Look at Minnesota, they've won twice since we won. He's got to get off that argument.''

Steinbrenner said owners should be allowed at the bargaining table. Management negotiator Richard Ravitch said teams had voted to stay away.

Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos said Thursday that owners should pledge not to implement a salary cap after this season in exchange for the union agreeing not to strike this season or next. He said both sides should pick accountants to examine teams' finances.

``The problem with Mr. Angelos is he's new in the game and not fully aware of all the things that have been going on,'' Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf replied.

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