Union Position Sparks Turmoil

While negotiators for the baseball owners and striking players scheduled resumption of bargaining talks for Monday in Phoenix, the turmoil over the union’s contention that minor leaguers who play in exhibition games should be considered strikebreakers intensified Wednesday.

General Manager John Schuerholz of the Atlanta Braves told about 130 of the organization’s farmhands that they were being ill-advised by the union and he expects them to play. He said no decision had been made regarding disciplinary action for those who refuse.

Referring to union leader Donald Fehr’s stance on the issue, Schuerholz said: “I thought it was mean-spirited, heavy-handed and an abuse of young players. I thought the union is using these guys as a tool of destruction.”

The union contends that it’s the minor leaguers who are being used to help break the union through their employment with replacement players in replacement games. Members of the union staff will explain their position to the minor leaguers in a series of meetings next week--Monday in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday in West Palm Beach and Wednesday in Phoenix.

Meanwhile, Wednesday’s second round of talks regarding procedural issues involved in the seven-month strike produced an agreement to resume bargaining Monday in Phoenix.

Acting Commissioner Bud Selig, who will lead the owners’ negotiating team for the first time, said he was hopeful that the two days of meetings in Milwaukee with special mediator William J. Usery and Fehr, among others, eased some of the tension between the sides.

“There seems to be a mutual desire to make a push before the replacement games begin,” Fehr said. “I don’t want to say I’m hopeful, but it’s good to be going back to the bargaining table. We’ll see.”

Fehr said there are no preconditions involved in resumption of the talks, that there will be no immediate proposals or counterproposals.

“We’ll take stock of where we are Monday and go from there,” he said.

Fehr was under attack from several sides Wednesday. In a Chicago Sun-Times interview, White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf said the union head “miscalculated the owners’ resolve” and had “a pathological hatred for baseball owners.”

Said Fehr: “Whenever Jerry makes comments of that type, it usually means Jerry is feeling the heat and needs to sound off. Nothing does my credibility more good than being criticized by Jerry Reinsdorf.”