Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 12, 1995 TAG: 9502140062
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JIM DRINKARD ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
The pitch to Rep. Jim Moran from the owner of the only minor league baseball team in Northern Virginia came in on him like a fastball thrown at a batter's chin.
If Congress revokes the game's antitrust exemption, the team's owner warned, Moran could lose not only the minor league Prince William Cannons, but also the long-sought chance for a major league franchise in or near his congressional district.
``He persuaded me,'' Moran, a Democrat from Alexandria, said of the visit Feb. 1 from Cannons owner Art Silber, a Baltimore banker and real estate investor.
A year ago, Moran was prepared to introduce legislation that would roll back Major League Baseball's longstanding exemption from antitrust laws. Aides had even drafted a bill to take away the monopoly status that team owners have enjoyed since a 1922 Supreme Court ruling that essentially declared baseball was not a business.
``Then we looked into it, and found it would hurt Northern Virginia's chances [at a major league team] and hurt the Cannons. That's why I pulled the bill back,'' Moran said.
With President Clinton beckoning Congress to end the six-month baseball strike and lawmakers still studying the antitrust exemption, the politically connected baseball owners have rolled out a powerful lobbying machine.
On the same day Silber visited Moran, 102 other minor league owners and managers fanned out across Congress for personal lobbying. A week earlier, eight major league owners had visited 66 members of the House and Senate.
With their stature as local business leaders, philanthropists and large political givers - and with a few of the best lobbyists from cities in their bullpen - the owners have powerful sway on Capitol Hill.
And their most potent weapon, as Moran discovered, is the threat of moving franchises, especially those in the minor leagues. Such teams are an important part of 176 local economies from Durham, N.C., to Spokane, Wash.
``You have to remember who the owners are,'' said Bud Shorstein, a senior aide to Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who is sympathetic to some of the striking players' concerns.
``They generally are very affluent citizens who are leaders of their communities, very charitable people, who also have been politically active for years. The players don't have the same background.''
Figures compiled by the National Library on Money and Politics, a nonpartisan group that studies campaign finance, found that baseball team owners, their families and top employees have given $1.1 million to congressional candidates and to political parties in 15 years.
The owners also are likely to have personal connections on Capitol Hill.
Acting baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, was the college roommate of Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis. When Selig was lobbying at the Capitol on Thursday, Kohl invited him to his office for a private session with other Wisconsin lawmakers.
Selig brings to the table another asset: some of the best Washington lobbyists money can buy.
He was accompanied to Thursday's meetings by Tom Korologos and William Cable, two lobbyists from the influential firm Timmons and Co., and Stanley Brand, former counsel to the House of Representatives.
In the House, the owners have employed as their lobbyist a former congressman, Illinois Democrat Marty Russo.
When the owners testify this week on baseball's antitrust exemption before the Senate Judiciary Committee, their spokesman will be James F. Rill, who headed the Justice Department's antitrust division under President Bush and is among the foremost experts on the subject.
The players have lobbyists, as well, but they are fewer and less well-known. While the owners always have schmoozed with Congress, the players became politically active only about a year ago.
``We can't play the owners' game,'' said one lobbyist for the players. ``We can't promise tickets, limo rides and PAC contributions.''
What players rely on is celebrity, a significant weapon in a media-sensitive institution like Congress.
That was on display last week when the Major League Players Association threw a reception starring such players as Cal Ripken, Eddie Murray and Dave Winfield. The players were swarmed by autograph-seeking members of Congress and their aides.
``Nobody wants an owner's autograph,'' said Shorstein, Graham's aide.
Advocates for the players also point to a study by Congress' own researchers that found the owners' monopoly gave them an incentive to reach an impasse over players' salaries, which would allow them to dictate the terms they want. ``It is not clear what economic benefits are provided by the antitrust exemption,'' the Jan. 13 report concludes.
But the less politically astute players have yet to tap into one potential bonanza that's out of reach of owners - their millions of fans, said lobbyist Cleta Mitchell.
Mitchell, who works chiefly on behalf of the term-limits movement, has taken on the players' cause for personal reasons. Her father-in-law, former Brooklyn Dodgers outfielder Dale Mitchell, took the called third strike that ended the 1956 World Series and secured a perfect game for New York Yankees pitcher Don Larsen.
That's the kind of black-and-white world baseball players are used to, she said, not the gray world of consensus politics.
``For them, it's all or nothing. You're safe or you're out,'' she said.
``In politics, you're just looking for one more than half the votes. When you start dealing in the political arena, you have to worry about what the public thinks.''
by CNB