THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 22, 1995 TAG: 9502220548
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
We may finally have uncovered a sympathetic character in baseball's long-running uncivil war.
Caught in the middle, squeezed by both sides, is the minor leaguer, who is being asked to do the impossible - please both management and the players' union at the same time.
Here are athletes you can feel sorry for, even if you don't know their names.
In fact, remaining anonymous this spring was something these minor leaguers probably looked forward to. Most likely set off for training camp hoping they would be no more than extras milling around in the crowd shots of baseball's comic-tragic production.
But that was before Donald Fehr, director of the major league players' union, dragged them front and center.
By decreeing that any player who participates in a spring game is a strikebreaker, Fehr made it impossible for the big leaguers of tomorrow to remain neutral.
In the process, Fehr all but issued an invitation to minor leaguers to flirt with professional suicide.
If they compete alongside replacement players in exhibition games, minor leaguers risk the enmity of big-league players.
If, in the spirit of brotherhood, they choose not to participate in exhibitions, they alienate the people who pay their salaries and control their futures.
Some choice.
Although minor leaguers aren't even represented by the players' union, the association hopes to, and will, intimidate many into taking a place on the sidelines.
That decision is complicated by the fact that minor leaguers sign contracts obligating them to play in spring training games. Lacking financial security at this uncertain point in their careers, the minor leaguers' primary allegiance should not be to a union that won't have them, but to themselves.
These players have more to fear than Fehr himself. Management is no less inclined to play hardball. Some franchises are attempting to win the hearts and minds of their troops by threatening to ship home minor leaguers who refuse to go along with the program.
Under the circumstances, what choice does a player have?
But, of course, it's not as simple as that.
For all the talk of how selfish professional athletes can be, most feel the tug of solidarity.
Big leaguers and minor leaguers may only be united in their personal greed and their natural distrust of the owners. But, then, these ties are usually enough to bind.
The fears and hopes of minor leaguers aside, the union's declaration is as shrewd as it is unpopular. Even Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos, a bitter opponent of replacement players, disagrees with Fehr's definition of strikebreaker.
Just watch, though, as Fehr's semantics work mischief on a spring training that already is a joke.
If enough minor leaguers elect to sit out, it would be a mighty chore - if not impossible - for teams to complete their exhibition commitments.
But whatever happens, the minor leaguers will be out in the open from now on. No matter what they do, they will be seen as taking one side or the other.
If you have a shred of feeling left for baseball, some of it should go for these minor leaguers. Today's pawns may become tomorrow's casualties. by CNB