by Bud Selig
I knew we were in for the fight of our lives.
I’d been telling owners that we had to be prepared to lose the season if the union went out on strike. We weren’t going to lock out players, not before the next spring training, anyway, but we weren’t going to fold our tent to get the players back from a strike. There was a push among owners to have a plan in place to go with replacement players to put pressure on the union. It had been done in the NFL in 1987, even in games that impacted the season’s standings and helped determine who went to the Super Bowl.
That was horrible, I thought. That was a bad Packer team anyway, but it always seemed odd that replacements took over for three games early in the season, before the NFL’s union caved in to the owners’ demands, and the games counted in the standings.
NFL fans might not have liked it, but they didn’t seem to take out their animosity on the teams or the league once the regulars got back on the field. It was almost as if nothing had happened. Still, I didn’t know if that would fly in baseball.
Just like Bowie Kuhn said to me all those years earlier, baseball is always held to a higher standard than other sports. Maybe it’s because we deliver a game almost every day from April through September, not just one a week. Baseball is an essential part of people’s everyday lives, not a Sunday escape.
At the same time, there were some owners who wanted nothing to do with replacement players. It was a divisive issue. But we didn’t have to resolve that from the start. We just had to be united in our strategy and willing to hold tight if the players went on strike.
The average player salary had climbed above one million dollars, and that was a lot of money to suddenly not be earning. Many players, like my friend Paul Molitor, had taken advantage of the system of free agency and arbitration to earn a lot more than the average. The Mets had given Bobby Bonilla a deal that paid him more than six million dollars, and Joe Carter’s reward for helping the Jays to back-to-back championships was a contract paying him $5.5 million.
Molitor, who was always smart, understood the sacrifices that earlier generations of players had made when owners weren’t exactly enlightened. He knew as well as anyone how Fehr, Orza, and Marvin Miller ticked. Paul hit the nail on the head in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel when the Blue Jays visited County Stadium in late June, after we’d made our initial offer.
“If they’re banking everything on a salary cap, then I don’t think we’ll see 1994 having a world champion,” Molitor said. “The only optimism I can find is they’ve always shown they can make a deal in the 11th hour.”
As I read this I thought, okay, Paul, I can see where you’re coming from. We had caved every time, but that didn’t mean we were going to just mark time again. The question I was asking myself was could the union make a deal? Could Fehr make a deal?
I had never thought he could. I always thought he’d rather litigate than make a deal. That was the legacy of Marvin Miller, the penance we were still paying for having played hardball with the union in its early days, when our old warhorses sought to preserve the reserve clause and fought the union constantly in lesser battles.
The history between our sides was bad, and we’d always come out on the losing side. That was what was eating at me especially after Fehr set August 12 as a strike deadline.
In trying to do business the old way, Fehr and Orza made a catastrophic miscalculation. They failed to recognize that the owners were as unified as the players, at last.
The clubs needed a new economic model; the union did not want a new economic model. The clubs were pushing for a salary cap, like in the other sports. The union leaders were not grasping that great baseball players want to win championships—and that every club should have the capacity, if well run, to compete for one. A salary cap would give all markets a chance to win.
What kind of player wants to play for a team whose economic limitations make it extremely difficult to compete for a World Series berth? The union leaders saw only dollar signs. They were always quick to call owners greedy, to say that they had endless amounts of money to spend on their teams but instead used baseball to add to their wealth. I knew firsthand that was hardly the case.
It had always been clear to me that baseball was a business. That’s why I put so much of my time into running the Brewers in my early years in the sport. It took a while for that understanding to spread, but two decades later all the teams were serious about balancing expenses with revenue. These were desperate financial times for baseball, and that desperation would unite owners. We knew that business as usual—another unambiguous loss to the union in a labor negotiation—would be catastrophic. Too many teams were losing money under the antiquated system. They would go broke—maybe declare bankruptcy, maybe close their doors—if the status quo prevailed.
The folly of the union leaders’ digging in their heels against change was that the sport wouldn’t really start growing without a partnership between players and owners. We would eventually demonstrate to them how this could work, why it shouldn’t require World War III to get a labor deal that worked for both sides. But in ’94 we were still dealing with the same old trench warfare. I needed help from the Players Association to make changes to the economics of the sport, and they kept treating me like the boy who cried wolf. I wish that were true, but the truth was there was a wolf at the door.
Once the union set a strike deadline, I knew the clock was ticking on a bomb. I was as afraid as anyone about the damage we might be doing to the game I loved, but something had to change. It just had to. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of movement from either side before the clock struck midnight for the 1994 season.
When the last pitch was thrown on August 12, nobody knew the next time a pitcher would walk in from the bullpen to start another game. The White Sox, Expos, Yankees, and Indians were having dramatic seasons, not unlike the one my Brewers were experiencing when the fifty-day strike split the 1981 season in half. I could feel the angst of the fans, players, and management staff aligned with those teams. This was traumatic for fans everywhere, but the pain we were causing seemed personal for those in Chicago, Montreal, New York, and Cleveland.
There was a little back-and-forth between our side and the union in the weeks after August 12. But mostly the sides were dug in across from each other in trenches, only rarely getting together for unsuccessful negotiations. Peace talks, if you’d like.
The communication between me and Richard Ravitch had broken down, so I turned to Chuck O’Connor to represent us in talks with the unions. He had cut his teeth in labor battles with the Teamsters and served as outside counsel for MLB in his work for the Washington-based firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.
There was no way the players were going to buy a salary cap. They did seem willing to talk about a luxury tax system, which was introduced into the talks in a meeting with O’Connor and others in our delegation about three weeks after the strike had begun. A group of players, including Orel Hershiser, joined a team of union lawyers to hand-deliver a counteroffer to MLB offices a little later.
Don Fehr was running things from his office, just as I was coordinating our strategy from my office at County Stadium. There was an interesting mix of representatives from the union, including Michael Weiner. He would become the first guy with the union who built a real line of communication with our labor guys, including Rob Manfred. Rob and I spent a lot of time together during labor negotiations. We just hit it off. He forged relationships between clubs and the union that hadn’t existed before.
Rob is extremely impressive. He is smart. Very smart. He knows labor law, and he is very determined. He was a bulldog in representing our interests. I liked him both professionally and personally right from the start, and he didn’t let me down.
Naturally, the union’s highly public counteroffer did not include a salary cap. The talks were going nowhere. I had warned the union on September 2 that if we didn’t reach a deal we would have to cancel the season within another week
or so. We were running out of time because they’d triggered the strike so late in the season.
There wasn’t going to be a deal. I called Steinbrenner to tell him there was no way to save the season. I felt terrible because it had been such a big year for the Yankees. I called Fehr and told him it was time to call off the season.
Too much time had passed for players to resume after only a workout or two. I had been hearing that from trainers, from some managers. They’d been gone too long to just be thrown into the fire if there was some miraculous settlement in late September.
They couldn’t be ready to play in time to have a World Series. We had run out of time to have a postseason. I explained this to Don without a hint of animosity in my voice. I didn’t point fingers. I just said this is where we are, this is what we have to do—make a joint announcement to tell everyone there wouldn’t be a World Series this year.
Don didn’t consider this for a minute. “I’m not making any announcement,” he said.
Huh? His players were on strike, they’d walked out on the season, and he wasn’t going to join me in taking responsibility for a regrettable situation?
A lot of owners didn’t think I should announce it, since it was the players who were striking. We had not locked them out. Jackie Autry, owner of the Angels, was especially passionate. “You’re going to get blamed for this,” she said. “You’ll get killed.” She was right, of course, but what was I going to do? Put out a press release, take the phone off the hook, and lock the office door? That isn’t how I operate, especially in tough times. But the union guys were burying me even before I made the announcement.
On Wednesday, September 14, I walked into the dining room at County Stadium and told America—Canada, Latin America, and Asia, for that matter—that there would be no World Series. We had already released a statement saying the season was over. It was signed by twenty-six of the twenty-eight teams—Marge Schott wanted to finish the season with replacement players; Peter Angelos didn’t like the wording of the statement, thinking we were putting too much blame on the players.
Now there I was, trying to explain why there wouldn’t be a World Series for the first time since 1904. I spoke about failure and pain. I stressed that this was not predetermined by anyone. This wasn’t bargaining strategy. It was a legitimate failure by two sides to find common ground and make a deal.
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I can see the ugliness was also unavoidable. It was the result of the dynamic that had been created over decades by the poor judgment of owners and the ability of the union to come out of every labor dispute ahead.
When Vincent resigned, I inherited a nightmare. Now the demons were coming out from under the bed, from underneath the closed closet door, and flying all around the baseball world.
On the Sunday after the announcement, I was featured on the cover of the New York Times Magazine. I was pictured at a table—it couldn’t have been my desk, because it was clean—with my left hand on a bat and a steely look in my eyes. I would have been excited about that except for the headline: JUST SOME OF THE FOLKS WHO RUINED YOUR SUMMER.
It was a profile story by Pat Jordan, a former pitcher who had written some great books about both the romance and realities of baseball. He had spent a long time talking to me and other current and former owners about the baseball business and their experiences. The slant of the story was typical of the response at the time—that the problems were caused by the greed of management, by the lack of progressive thinking. I was with him on the last point, but that was about it. He at least did not get too personal, which a lot of columnists and radio/TV analysts did.
Only a small part of the media tried to really understand the issues. Most just came out criticizing owners and taking the side of the union. Maybe they did it out of habit. But the players weren’t locked out; they had gone on strike.
One month after we had canceled the postseason I got a call to come to the White House and meet with President Bill Clinton. He wanted to hire this highly decorated mediator, Bill Usery, a former secretary of labor, to find a solution so that he could say his administration had ended the baseball strike.
I called David Glass of the Royals to ask what he thought. He was the chairman of Walmart, and Hillary Clinton was on Walmart’s board. I also called Sue’s cousin David Previant, who was a very successful labor lawyer. He knew Usery. He said he was a wonderful man, tough but fair. Everyone I asked for a scouting report said that, which was a good sign.
When I talked to the clubs, they weren’t too enthusiastic. The rug had been pulled out from under us from outside before. But President Clinton called Glass and put pressure on him. David was sold. He said he thought Clinton was sincere about wanting to help us get something done, and that maybe this could be good for us. It sure wouldn’t have looked good if we didn’t take the president’s offer, so off I went to Washington.
I got my clearance to go to the White House, with a small traveling party. I was shown into the Oval Office, where it was just President Clinton and me. He told me how he used to listen to Harry Caray growing up in Arkansas. He said that what had happened was “unfortunate.” That was his word, exactly.
Unfortunate. I’d call that an understatement.
Clinton said he wanted to get involved. He said he’d like to appoint a mediator and that he would stand by whatever decision or conclusion the mediator came up with. He told me that Bill Usery had solved problems for every president since Harry Truman.
I was on board, as he knew I would be. And, yes, I felt important talking to the president one-on-one. Wouldn’t you? I wished my father had been there with me just for the thrill.
I’m not sure what thrills Don Fehr. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him smile. He entered the Oval Office as I was shown out, and I’m sure he and President Clinton had a similar conversation to the one we had just finished. Then President Clinton made an announcement that the sides had agreed to mediation and were committing to resolve the dispute through Usery’s guidance.
Our labor committee started meeting with Usery and his staff. His right-hand man was Herb Fishgold. The discussions were thorough and they were painful. Usery never seemed to quite have the right picture, and I was constantly fighting with him about the data he was using and how he was using it. We were battling a lot with him and Fishgold.
As complicated as dealing with us must have been, Usery also had to deal with the union. Jerry Reinsdorf cautioned him that Fehr would be the most difficult person he ever encountered. I never asked Usery for confirmation, but I have to say, I doubt Jerry was wrong.
The meetings with Usery lasted for four long months, taking us to February 1995, right before spring training would normally be starting. This was very uncomfortable for both sides, owners and players, and it was horrible for baseball fans. Even though the process had run so long, I didn’t know if we had gotten through to Usery. He might have been the most noncommittal person I’ve ever come across. I bet he was a good poker player. He would sit and listen. We would argue and debate, constructively. He was honest, fair, and decent. He was consistent in encouraging both sides to make constructive proposals.
Usery tried to get the sides to make the kinds of compromises that would lead to a deal. But along the way it became clear the parties were not going to get there with proposals and counter-proposals, even under the supervision of a great mediator. Clinton took the unusual step of asking Usery to recommend the terms of a settlement.
I was summoned to Washington for a meeting at the White House on February 7. My phone rang at 7 A.M. with orders to meet Usery and Fishgold for breakfast at the Jefferson Hotel. It was some breakfast. They presented their recommendation to me, and while it wasn’t everything we wanted, I thought it was fair. There were parts of it I didn’t like, but we could live with it. The changes in the system he was proposing offset the pain of losing the World Series. We hadn’t gotten everything we wanted, but it looked like we were going to make some progress and could g
et players back on the field to start a fresh season. I always loved spring training, and this one would be special.
While I left to brief the owners, Usery and Fishgold headed out to meet with Fehr and the union officials. I think it was about eight thirty when we finished, and I waited for a call asking me to come to the White House for an announcement.
In the history of American labor relations, every time a presidentially appointed mediator made a recommendation, the president had forced that recommendation on the parties as the basis of a new deal. We didn’t expect anything different this time.
I waited and waited for word from Usery and Fishgold, then waited some more. I made a round of calls to some of the people I knew on Capitol Hill: Chris Dodd, Joe Lieberman, and my old friend Herb Kohl. No one had heard a word.
I remember telling John Harrington and Reinsdorf, “Something’s wrong.”
It was almost 5 P.M. when we got a call to be at the White House at 7. There was a huge press contingent there.
I was shown into the Roosevelt Room, where President Clinton was standing alongside Usery and Fishgold. I knew immediately we were in trouble. Usery didn’t look right. He looked distracted, almost forlorn. Uh-oh.
Al Gore, the vice president, was there. So were George Stephanopoulos, Leon Panetta, and Robert Reich. Cecil Fielder and a lot of players were standing in a group with Fehr, Orza, and the other union lawyers.
Gore, not Clinton, spoke. “The union won’t accept Usery’s recommendation,” he said. “And we can’t accept it.”
Huh?
I glanced quickly at Clinton. He looked away and then ducked out of the back of the room.
I was stunned. Completely flabbergasted. I had persuaded the clubs to go through this process, putting ourselves into the hands of Usery’s recommendation. It was the president’s process, his mediator, and yet Bill Clinton took the unprecedented step of not supporting his own appointee.
Now we had spent four months, an enormous amount of time and money, and just like that, we were standing there with empty palms, like a schmuck left at the altar? I’m pretty sure I had never been that mad before. Nor have I ever been that mad since then.
