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

DATE: THURSDAY, December 22, 1994                   TAG: 9412230055
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BASEBALL, HOCKEY

And for National Hockey League fans, will a season that hasn't been become the season that isn't?

The threat in each case arises from a labor-management impasse between players and team owners. At the heart of both impasses is the issue of salary caps. Labor doesn't want the caps, believing - rightly, judging from the history of free agency - that unfettered competition for their services will continue to bid up salaries. Management wants them, arguing that the economics of their respective sports cannot withstand the continued escalation of player pay.

The bigger threat to these sports-businesses, however, may be the strikes themselves. The fact that the players are generally well-heeled does not help win much sympathy from the games' customers. The fact that the owners are generally of fabulous wealth doesn't help, either.

Moreover, the industries of major-league baseball and the National Hockey League are in business to provide a service that, in the final analysis, can be done without. Man may not live by bread alone; he can, however, find other means to divert and entertain himself - as the strikes have forced baseball and hockey fans to do.

For morale purposes, the government encouraged major-league baseball of a sort to continue through World War II. In the 1940s, such a decision could make sense. In the 1990s - what with baseball's recent history of walkouts and lockouts, culminating in 1994 in a World Series wipeout - making such a claim for the sport, or supporting major government intervention, would be ludicrous.

Both the baseball and the hockey talks, it was reported this week, have shown signs of inching forward. Perhaps, but signs of progress have been spotted before, only to prove deceptive.

Meanwhile, 30 percent of the 1994-95 NHL schedule already has been lost. The 1994 baseball season was a waste, with its truncation before division, league and World Series winners could be determined. If player-owner truces are negotiated, business as usual probably would resume. But it's not unthinkable that agreements could come too late to save these industries.