Baseball has become a waiting game.
The players' union is waiting for the owners to budge off some of their thus far intractable positions.The owners apparently are waiting for the union to back off its demands, and hoping player unrest during the lockout will pressure union chief Donald Fehr into compromising.
The owners will have to keep waiting, Fehr said after meeting Tuesday with a group of 100 players.
"It's safe to say there's no sentiment among any of the players here that they should roll over and concede to the owners," Fehr said after a spending some four hours talking - and listening - to the union's executive board and other players on hand for the meeting.
"We will let them know (that) if they were waiting for a change in our position because of this meeting, they're not going to get it."
Although a few players around the country have questioned whether the union's demand that eligibility for arbitration be rolled back from three years to two is worth jeopardizing the start of the season, the players who met with Fehr on Tuesday emphasized solidarity.
"I didn't feel any disharmony whatsoever," New York Yankees player representative Don Mattingly said. "I felt a huge vote of confidence for Donald Fehr and the negotiating committee."
Fehr and the players also said that it was incorrect to consider the negotiations stalemated because of the single issue of arbitration.
Still, on the 13th day of the spring training lockout, some other players who hadn't attended a status briefing had different views.
"It sounds silly that one year is going to make a big deal," infielder Randy Velarde of the Yankees said. "I don't see why we can't leave it the way it is. I really wish they'd resolve this and let us get going."
Meanwhile, American League president Bobby Brown and National League president Bill White sent a directive to clubs, saying no exhibition games would be played until players had been in camp for 10 days.
The leagues canceled more than a hundred exhibition games. The spring training schedule was to have started Thursday with four games.