Usery Asks Owners to Give Their Best Shot : Baseball: Mediator says “now is the time.” Phoenix and Tampa Bay get unanimous approval.

PALM BEACH, Fla. —  Major league baseball owners, after listening Thursday to the pleas of federal mediator William J. Usery, will issue their “best” and perhaps final proposal to the players’ union Tuesday when they reconvene for more strike-settling negotiations.

“I’ve been doing this for 30-some years and have been involved in over 1,000 national major disputes, and this has gotten embarrassing,” Usery said.

“I told them now is the time to reconcile their differences and give the negotiating committee the responsibility to solve this dispute. It’s the owners’ responsibility to come forward with terms and conditions of their best offer.”

The owners’ negotiating team will begin working on a proposal this weekend and is expected to reduce the payroll level of a luxury tax. The owners’ last proposal was a 50% luxury tax on portions of payrolls above $40.7 million. The union proposed a 25% tax on the portions above $54.1 million.

“I feel it’s time to come out with our best offer and then stand by it,” said Jerry McMorris, owner of the Colorado Rockies. “We’ve got off religion and philosophy. Now we’re down to dealing with numbers.”

The owners’ proposal, according to one source, will include an outline of every detail. The union will be asked to go over the plan, tell Usery what it doesn’t like, and recommend changes. If no settlement can be reached, one owner said, the proposal probably will be implemented.

“Because the owners want a change in the system, it’s up to them to make proposals,” Usery said. “If the players can’t accept it, (they must) respond why they can’t accept it, and what changes they want in it.

“We’ll then see if those differences can be negotiated and reconciled.”

Earlier in the day, the owners unanimously approved Phoenix and Tampa Bay as expansion sites, teams there to begin play in 1998. The Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays each agreed to pay a franchise fee of $130 million, plus other undisclosed financial considerations.

“If there was a greater day in the history of Tampa Bay,” Devil Ray owner Vince Naimoli said, “I don’t know what it is.”

Said Diamondback owner Jerry Colangelo: “We didn’t wait as long as Tampa-St. Pete. but we’re as excited as they are.”

While the owners began anticipating their $260-million windfall, they enthusiastically accepted Usery’s directive.

“We’re all optimistic,” Dodger President Peter O’Malley said. “We know we need to reach an agreement by compromise, not one by litigation. And I think the presence of Bill Usery will help work toward that goal.

“The animosity and bad feelings that seem to exist between (union head) Don Fehr and (acting Commissioner Bud) Selig is not good, but hopefully those feelings can be put aside.”

Yet, it took little time for the hostility to emerge again.

“I don’t know if the owners will prepare a new offer or not,” Fehr said. “I know in the past, when they’ve prepared offers, they have not been prepared for the purpose of spurring bargaining, but freezing bargaining. I hope that is not the case.”

Said Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf: “It’s Bill Usery’s job to talk some sense into Donald Fehr. A deal will be made only when Donald Fehr decides to address the problems of the league.”

Baseball Notes

Eight minor leaguers were asked to leave the Kansas City Royals’ training camp in Haines City, Fla., for refusing to play in major league exhibition games as replacement players. They were infielders Keith Miller, Keith Lockhart and Steve Hecht; pitchers Dennis Rasmussen, David Otto and Steve Curry; catcher Russ McGinnis and outfielder Glenn Wilson. . . . Five days after being hospitalized for a temporary loss of blood flow to the brain, Colorado coach Don Zimmer was back at work Thursday. Zimmer, 64, appeared fully recovered from the incident, which landed him in the intensive care unit of Tucson’s St. Mary’s Hospital on Saturday night.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.