Ueberroth: ‘I Can’t Allow’ a Strike; Sides Agree on Many Minor Issues

NEW YORK —  With Commissioner Peter Ueberroth vowing he will not allow a strike, the sides in baseball’s labor negotiations settled more than 20 minor issues Friday in an attempt to clear the way for the major matters.

Lee MacPhail, president of the owners’ Player Relations Committee, said the two sides had agreed “or come very close to agreeing” on about 22 non-economic issues and had about 20 more items to go before they could turn their attention to issues such as pensions, salary arbitration and free agents.

Meanwhile, Ueberroth said in an interview on KNX Radio in Los Angeles: “I just really can’t allow there to be a strike that shuts down America’s national pastime. It’s been shut down too many times in the past. It’s just not the right thing.”

The baseball players’ union has set an Aug. 6 strike deadline. In 1981, the players went on strike for seven weeks.

“The major issues are still before us,” MacPhail said after the two-hour meeting at union headquarters in New York. “First, we have to tackle these other things, try to put them aside, so we can concentrate on the major issues.

“We’re trying to use all the imagination we have. We hope they are too,” MacPhail said.

Don Fehr, acting executive director of the Major League Players Assn., said both sides withdrew some issues and made compromises in order to come to agreement on many of the so-called minor issues. These issues have included things such as waiver procedures, player allowances, scheduling and licensing.

“We do regard this as an attempt to be constructive,” said Fehr, who only one day earlier said he suspected management of trying to provoke a breakdown in negotiations. “On these issues that we discussed today, we have advanced the ball.”