BASEBALL STRIKE : No Progress Reported Despite Informal Talks

There was no indication of substantive progress in baseball’s stalled labor negotiations Monday despite an ongoing series of unofficial contacts among some owners, union officials and players’ agents.

“There are some probes being made in an effort to find a common ground, but so far they’ve been unsuccessful,” a management source said on Day 24 of the players’ strike, the first time since 1894 that major league baseball hasn’t been played on Labor Day.

In Maine, President Clinton delivered a Labor Day appeal to owners and players.

“On this Labor Day, there’s still time for them to go back to work and finish the best baseball season in 50 years--and I hope they will,” Clinton said during an address to workers at the Bath Iron Works.

There have been only three negotiating sessions since the stoppage began on Aug. 12, and there are none scheduled before acting commissioner Bud Selig’s tentative Friday deadline for canceling the remainder of the season if a collective bargaining agreement has not been reached.

However, Selig indicated Monday that there was some flexibility in that deadline and said he would take it “a day at a time,” depending on the status of the situation Thursday or Friday. He is scheduled to discuss the termination date with Don Fehr, the union’s executive director, on Wednesday.

Selig met Monday with Secretary of Labor Robert Reich in Milwaukee, but sources said he dismissed a series of suggestions by Reich to end the strike. Selig refused comment.

Reich told the Associated Press that he had a “candid” discussion with Selig, who owns the Milwaukee Brewers.

“I was passing through Milwaukee and I wanted to hear from him personally,” Reich said. “I am not encouraged. I think the baseball owners and players are taking their customers for granted.”

Reich said he didn’t detect any movement in the owners’ position, adding that the two sides “are still very far apart.”

Later, at a Democratic fund-raiser in Wasau, Wis., Reich told his audience: “I think there is a very good possibility we are not going to have a World Series this year and that would be the first time since 1904.

“(This) is a testament to the fact that baseball has gone from being our national pastime to a huge industry, in which there is, I hate to say, a huge amount of greed.”

Sources also indicated that there has been considerable discussion among owners--particularly in the high-revenue group--seeking avenues of compromise without a salary cap, but those, too, have been unsuccessful.

The union, meanwhile, is expected to charge the owners with unfair labor practice today or Wednesday. The complaint, to be filed with the National Labor Relations Board, stems from the owners’ refusal to make a $7.8-million pension payment from All-Star game receipts. The payment was due on Aug. 1, but owners’ negotiator Richard Ravitch maintains the owners were no longer obligated because the agreement had expired.