CARLSBAD, Calif. -- By establishing yet another economic study committee, baseball commissioner Bud Selig has given hard-liners a forum to vent and himself time to maneuver.
Some teams want massive changes in the collective bargaining agreement. To other clubs, afraid of another long industry shutdown in 2002, he can say no action has been taken to provoke the players association."I don't believe we can take another work stoppage," Selig said after announcing the "Blue Ribbon Task Force on Baseball Economics" on Wednesday night. "We need different ways to solve our problems."
Many baseball owners are looking enviously at the NBA, which got its players to agree last week to the first salary maximums among the four major pro sports in North America: $9 million for players with 1-5 years of experience, $11 million for players with 6-9 years and $14 million for players with 10 years of more.
"I think each situation is unique," said Jerry Colangelo, the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks and the NBA's Phoenix Suns. "But I think it's useful to look at."
Two sources familiar with the committee, speaking on the condition they not be identified, said Selig formed the panel to appease those owners calling for change in the wake of Kevin Brown's $105 million, seven-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, which made him baseball's first $100 million player.
Selig can either listen to the panel's recommendations and use them as a basis for bargaining proposals following the 2001 season or ignore them, claiming they would provoke baseball players, who have the most powerful union in sports, one that has given few concessions during eight work stoppages since 1972.
The players association has repeatedly made it clear that it won't accept a team salary cap or individual payroll maximums in any shape or form the owners can conceive.
"I have no doubt baseball owners would prefer to have the NBA deal," Gene Orza, the No. 2 official of the players association, said Thursday. "But they have to understand there is a particular history there and there is a particular environment in this industry. It's just not in the cards."
The four outsiders picked for the panel all have ties to baseball management:
-- George Mitchell, the Senate majority leader from 1989-94 and current head of a panel investigating alleged bribes involving the awarding of the 2002 Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City, was mentioned five years ago as a possible candidate for commissioner.
-- Paul Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from August 1979-August 1987, was head of the independent study panel appointed jointly by owners and the union following the 1990 spring training lockout.
-- Yale president Richard Levin, an economics professor, came up with baseball's original salary cap proposal during collective bargaining following the 1989 season.
-- Television commentator George Will, an author of two baseball books, is on the boards of the Baltimore Orioles and the San Diego Padres.
While the last study committee was a joint endeavor with the union, this one is unilateral. The independent members will be joined by Selig, the chairman, vice chairs John Harrington of the Boston Red Sox and Jerry McMorris of the Colorado Rockies, and 11 other team officials: Bill DeWitt (St. Louis), Dick Jacobs (Cleveland), Larry Lucchino (San Diego), Andy MacPhail (Chicago Cubs), John McHale (Detroit), Kevin McClatchy (Pittsburgh), Dave Montgomery (Philadelphia), Vince Naimoli (Tampa Bay), Tom Schieffer (Texas) and Tony Tavares and Sandy Litvack (Anaheim).
Notably missing are representatives from many of baseball's biggest spenders: Baltimore, the New York Yankees and Los Angeles.
The last study commission issued a majority report in 1994 written by Volcker; then-Rockefeller Foundation chairman Peter Goldmark; and David Feller, a law professor at the University of California. They recommended the elimination of salary arbitration and lowering the service time needed for free agency to three years from six, but didn't propose a salary cap.
It also recommended owners start sharing ticket receipts and local broadcast money, a step that began in 1996 under a plan that won't go into full effect until 2000.