Owners and Players Agree to Seven Games for Playoffs--Maybe

PALM SPRINGS —  Representatives of both the baseball owners and the Major League Players Assn. agreed Wednesday to expand the 1985 league championship playoffs from five to seven games.

Maybe.

Don Fehr, executive director of the players’ union, said after tentative accord had been reached that unless there is an overall settlement in the negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, “the playoffs will not be played.”

The old collective bargaining agreement that ended the 1981 players’ strike expired last Dec. 31.

Fehr and Lee MacPhail, the former American League president who represents the owners, held their 21st negotiating session Wednesday, but Fehr said:

“It’s going very slowly, with no indication that it will pick up quickly. I have no reason to believe we’re marching off in the direction of an agreement.”

The next negotiating session is expected to be held in New York April 15.

By that time, Fehr said, it is likely that the players will ask the National Labor Relations Board to have the 26 major league clubs open their books.

Fehr said that would be in response to repeated claims by the owners that they are losing money, and the statement by Commissioner Peter Ueberroth in February that he might ask the owners to display their ledgers as a means of proving it.

“We’re very close to that point,” Fehr said when asked if the players would ask to see the books. “It might happen between now and a week from Monday. And I can predict that if the owners change their minds on this (and refuse to show the books), it will produce the most negative reaction possible from the players.”

Asked then if the association had a timetable, or if it has considered the possibility of a strike, Fehr said:

“Do I think about it? Of course. Do I discuss it with the players? Of course. Do the players discuss it among themselves? Of course. Has the executive board made a decision on it and set up dates? No. We’re not at that point yet.”

The key issue concerns the six-year, $1-billion-plus television package baseball negotiated last year.

The players’ association, which had been receiving about one-third--$15.1 million--of the previous TV package as a donation from the owners to its pension fund, contends that it is entitled to one-third of the new package, which translates to between $55 million and $60 million a year.

The owners, of course, are balking.

Now, as a result of Wednesday’s tentative agreement on the playoffs, there is even more TV money to be negotiated.

The seven-game contract with NBC calls for an additional $9 million. The players are again asking for one-third.

The owners have rejected that bid, but they did agree Wednesday to Fehr’s suggestion that the $9 million be placed in an escrow account by Sept. 16. The money cannot be touched by either side and will be subject to negotiation as part of the overall bargaining.

“We are still asking for a third of all TV money,” Fehr said. “We have not compromised our position on that at all. This was simply a way to respond to the clubs’ contention that they were faced with a TV deadline (for scheduling a seven-game playoff this year.)”

The seven-game playoffs would begin Oct. 8 and Oct. 9. The World Series--if it and the playoffs go seven games--would end Oct. 27.

Angel third baseman Doug DeCinces said that the dates are a major concern. He said baseball may ultimately have to shorten the season or start it earlier. Of the seven-game playoffs, he said:

“I’m all for it. Why play a 162-game schedule and then eliminate the possibility of the best team winning, as sometimes happens in a five-game playoff. Anyone can win three in a row, no matter how bad they are.”

San Diego first baseman Steve Garvey disagreed, saying this was the first step toward expanding the playoffs to include more teams.

“I’m more of a traditionalist,” he said. “I like the emphasis on the championship season. This is a dilution of the championship season and another step toward adding more teams to the playoffs.”

Angel Manager Gene Mauch, reflecting on the five-game playoff that he and the Angels lost to Milwaukee after winning the first two games in 1982, said of the new format: “I love it. I just wish it wasn’t three years too late.”