Vincent Is Not Optimistic

Watching baseball’s latest labor conflagration from the safe haven of his Connecticut home, former commissioner Fay Vincent said Thursday he suspects that Commissioner Bud Selig is so committed to “total victory” that he will miss the opportunity that the players union has provided to avoid another work stoppage.

“You can’t get back 25 years of mistakes all at once,” Vincent said, adding that he tried to approach labor relations during his own tenure as an “incrementalist.”

“You go at it hoping to get 4% or 5% each time and over time making progress,” he said. “Meantime, you have to build a partnership and trust [with the union]. That makes so much sense, but nobody has ever been able to persuade Bud to do it.

“I mean, he’s been running baseball labor for 25 years and the result is that you have these confrontations every five years, destroying all of the good will you’ve established, and now you finally have fans throwing up their hands and saying ‘that’s enough.’ ”

In his brief tenure as commissioner, Vincent approached the union as a conciliator only to be forced from office on Sept. 7, 1992, by a coalition of hardline owners led by Selig, of whom Vincent said, “I badly underestimated him.”

Now, Vincent said, Selig has a chance to wrap up a compromise deal “he would be roundly applauded for except by the seven or eight hawks he works for.”

He was referring to a militant group that is said to be pressuring Selig to hold firm and only agree to a deal that will restrict salary growth.

Vincent, however, said that the union has offered much more “than anyone would have predicted, but instead of taking a third or half of the loaf, my guess is that Bud will miss the opportunity to make the best deal he can before Aug. 30 and declare victory.”

Reached Thursday, Selig said that if he was pursuing total capitulation by a union that seldom capitulates, he would be seeking more revenue sharing and a salary cap.

“Some of my people want a lot more than what we’re negotiating for,” he said. “Some of them have spoken out on that recently. The inherent nature of our proposals are only aimed at improving competitive balance.

“As [Atlanta President] Stan Kasten said recently, we’re not asking for half as much as two other leagues [the NBA and NFL] have already.”

Perhaps, but will Selig, boasting broader power and authority than any previous commissioner, take what’s on the table if there is no agreement before the Aug. 30 strike date?

“I take the cynical view,” Vincent said. “You figure out what makes the most sense, what is in baseball’s best interest, what the most people would do, then you predict the opposite.

“If your objective is total victory, it’s hopeless.”

Fortunately, said Vincent, he doesn’t have to deal with any of it.

“Paul Beeston [baseball’s former chief operating officer] and I have been sent to Siberia,” he said, “and it isn’t at all bad.”