Twenty-four hours after talks almost broke off, baseball negotiators swung back into positive moods Friday after the union finally made a new offer.
"I'm encouraged that maybe we're starting to get the wheels turning again," said Colorado Rockies chairman Jerry McMorris, who took over as the owners' head negotiator.The union finally accepted the owners' Fort Lauderdale revenue-sharing agreement of January 1994 and proposed a 25 percent luxury tax on the portions of payrolls above an unspecified level.
"It's a hopeful sign," union head Donald Fehr said. "I don't want to suggest so far that the gulf has been bridged."
Fehr said the union had told mediator W.J. Usery last month that it was prepared to propose a 25 percent tax on the portions of payrolls above 145 percent of the average, which was $59,008,991 in 1994 - more than $2.2 million above the highest payroll.
That would have been regarded as frivolous by the owners, so the union didn't suggest a level.
"We're prepared to come substantially off that," Fehr said. "I would like to think that we're able to begin this though at a level we're both comfortable with."
Management's last offer, made Feb. 1, was for a 75 percent tax on the portions of payrolls between $35 million and $40 million, and a 100 percent tax on the portions above that. The tax would have been levied on 19 teams in 1994.
Still, owners viewed the union's move as a positive step.
"Each side's got some work to do, some number crunching," McMorris said after talks recessed for the night.
"We've just started to probe on the area of that tax," McMorris said.
For the moment, negotiators have left to the side the contentious issues of free agency and salary arbitration. The owners want to eliminate arbitration Players say in order for that to happen, all arbitration-eligible players must become eligible for free agency.
Just a day earlier, acting commissioner Bud Selig left the talks because he was frustrated at the lack of progress. McMorris said then that he, too, would leave unless he saw signs of progress on Friday.
Players considered their acceptance of the Fort Lauderdale a major step. The plan, had it been in full effect last year, would have transferred about $58 million from 17 high-revenue clubs to 11 small-revenue teams.