To all:

Here is a story that says that baseball owners have promised that there will
not be a lockout during the 2002 season:


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http://www.sportsline.com/u/ce/multi/0,1329,5173708_52,00.html



Owners: No lockout through World Series
March 26, 2002
SportsLine.com wire reports






NEW YORK -- Baseball owners pledged Tuesday not to lock out players
through the World Series, leaving open the right to change work rules at the
start of the offseason.

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While the announcement by commissioner Bud Selig was meant to reassure
fans, the possibility of new work rules after the Series could trigger a strike
this summer, which would be the sport's ninth since 1972.

A rules change in the offseason would affect contracts signed for the 2003
season and beyond. Owners also could lock out players following the World
Series, a strategy the NBA used after its 1998 playoffs.

"He specifically limited the pledge to the season and postseason,
reserving for himself the right to kick off the same strategy the NBA did,"
union head Donald Fehr said in Tampa, Fla., after completing his tour of the 30
spring-training camps.

The labor contract between players and owners expired Nov. 7 and
negotiations for a new agreement have not progressed.

Selig said for months that a lockout was not "on my radar screen," but he
had refused to rule one out. The promise not to impose new terms and conditions
of employment for players through the end of the World Series was of relatively
little significance because players already have signed their 2002 contracts.

"Our fans deserve to know that the 2002 season will be played to
completion without interruption and they deserve to know that now before we
begin the new season," Selig said in a statement. "Therefore, on behalf of the
clubs, I pledge that we will not take any economic action either in the form of
a lockout or unilateral implementation against the players' association
throughout the course of the season and postseason.

"The sanctity of the season, however, is only partially within my control.
Since we do not have a new collective bargaining agreement, the players have the
right to strike at any time. I sincerely hope that they share my strong feeling
about the importance of playing the entire season."

Asked why he made the announcement Tuesday, Selig responded: "I thought
the timing was good. In my judgment, this way was a very good way to reassure
fans."

Fehr did not say whether players would make a similar no-strike pledge,
and history suggests they won't.

"All I can say, the players setting a strike date is always a last
resort," Fehr said.

In 1994, players feared owners would try to implement new work rules, and
they went on strike Aug. 12. The walkout lasted 232 days and wiped out the World
Series for the first time since 1904.

Owners did implement new work rules, which included a salary cap, on Dec.
23, 1994. However, the players' association filed an unfair labor practice
charge and on March 31, 1995, a federal judge ordered owners to restore the old
work rules, which caused players to end their strike.

Negotiations resumed and the sides signed a new contract on March 14,
1997.

Talks, which recessed March 13, are to resume next week but progress
doesn't appear likely in the near future.

Owners say baseball is losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually and
has a competitive-balance problem. They have proposed a vast increase in revenue
sharing and a 50 percent luxury tax on the portions of payrolls above $98
million.

Players are skeptical of management's claims of losses and haven't agreed
that competitive balance is a problem. The union doesn't want to drain the
high-revenue teams of money they would otherwise spend on salaries, and it has
no interest in a luxury tax that would slow the increase in salaries.

"The inability of the clubs and the players' association to reach closure
on a new basic agreement that would resolve the basic inequity of competitive
imbalance that exists in our game today should not, I believe, be a burden borne
by our fans," Selig said.




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GO A'S!!!!
Chris Halladay
List Owner & Moderator
Swingin_As@...
http://www.geocities.com/asfan93711
Fresno, CA


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