Vincent Not Only Issue in Chicago : Baseball: Collective bargaining, recession and various agendas will be addressed by major league owners beginning Thursday.

NEW YORK —  Fay Vincent won’t be the only issue dividing the baseball owners who gather Thursday at an airport hotel outside Chicago.

The fractious fight that has Balkanized baseball’s hierarchy has its roots in collective bargaining, a national recession, egos, television and the varying agendas of the 28 teams. And it raises the possibility of the fans’ worst nightmare: yet another lockout.

No matter what the outcome, it’s clear the national pastime’s reputation is being damaged by the day.

“Effectively calling each other fools and buffoons ... has the capacity to be far more damaging long term than all of the long-term disputes between owners and players,” said Donald Fehr, head of the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Like stress on a fault line, pressure has been building, compounded by the inability to accept authority and construct coalitions. But money is at the heart of the matter, as owners begin to position for further battles with the players’ union. Some teams threaten a long lockout until players agree to a revenue participation proposal similar to that of the NBA.

“You do it by taking a position and telling them we’re not going to play unless we make a deal, and being prepared not to play one or two years if you have to,” said Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, widely regarded as the most influential voice on management’s Player Relations Committee. “You have to have 75 percent (of the clubs) with you. If they’re not, then we shouldn’t attempt it. I can survive. This ballclub isn’t one of the teams that’s going to go broke.”

Owners are nervous because the $1.057 billion four-year contract with CBS and the $390 million four-year deal with ESPN run out after the 1993 season. Owners and players each have until Dec. 11 to decide whether to reopen the labor agreement, although Fehr said the players are unlikely to act.

“There are some very real problems out there,” Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig, chairman of the PRC, said.

Vincent has angered a significant segment of ownership by:

-- Intervening in the PRC’s negotiations during the 1990 lockout.

-- Giving the American League $42 million of the National League’s $190 million in expansion fees.

-- Refusing to give up the commissioner’s “best interests” power over collective bargaining.

-- Waging battle against TV superstations.

-- Ordering NL realignment.

-- His perceived high-handed dealings with owners and players, including his handling of the drug-related ban of New York Yankees pitcher Steve Howe.

It appears 10 clubs will back Vincent: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Florida, Houston, Kansas City, Montreal, the New York Mets, Oakland and Texas.

The opposition apparently numbers 13: California, the Chicago Cubs and White Sox, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minnesota, the New York Yankees, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Francisco and Toronto.

Colorado and Seattle appear to be leaning in Vincent’s favor, and Cincinnati seems to be going against him. The positions of Detroit and San Diego were unclear.

No matter the outcome, lasting damage has been done. The position of commissioner has responsibilities to players, umpires and fans, even though he is chief executive officer of the owners and is paid $650,000 a year by them.

“I think Fay has never made bones about the fact that the office is more than that, that he’s looking ahead for the long-range interest of the game, and that you’re supposed to take the interests of the fans and everything else,” Fehr said. “One of the ways that baseball has been different than any of the other sports is you have someone in that kind of a role. They’re very close to destroying that completely. When the owners evidence a positive disrespect for both the office and the individual, and what the office has previously connoted, then it should not come as a surprise when no one takes them seriously either.”

Reinsdorf, who pushed to limit Vincent’s labor authority, said owners made mistakes in previous rounds of bargaining with the union.

“I think I learned last time the only thing this union will respect is strength,” he said. “We weren’t very professional last time. We tried to reason with the union.”

Reinsdorf said rising expenses have made it critical for clubs to change the system as quickly as possible.

“I think a majority of clubs will lose money in ‘92,” he said. “Everybody is predicting we’re going to have a decrease in the amount of television revenue over the next few years. Should we wait until teams are desperate and about to close their doors?”

Fehr claims some large-market teams may want a work stoppage to impose their agendas on clubs from smaller cities.

“After all the years of Reagan and Bush and union-busting, we shouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “But suppose this: You have a long shutdown. That shutdown severely weakens clubs that already are weak. The stronger clubs end up in their own internal circles vastly more dominant than they already are. That may be an objective here.”

Reinsdorf said he doesn’t blame the union for getting a strong contract for its players. He blames management for agreeing to it.

“I’ve been around for three collective bargainings,” he said. “In 1981, I was new, so I didn’t know much. But it wasn’t worth our taking a 49-day strike for what we were trying to get, and it wasn’t worth them striking for 49 days.

“In 1985 it was the commissioner’s interference. The commissioner just stepped in and made the deal himself.

“In 1990 it was a combination of the commissioner interfering and inexperienced members of the PRC. It was a combination of the commissioner and the PRC that screwed up. The clubs were very strong last time. What happened was that for one reason or another the major proposals were taken off the table.”

Revenue participation was rejected by a distrustful union, and a pay-for-performance scale was ridiculed by both the association and front-office executives.

“Some of the general managers tended to undermine it,” Reinsdorf said. “I think general managers do not generally have the knowledge in these areas. They shouldn’t be allowed to speak, most of them, because they don’t know what they’re doing. The general managers shouldn’t have even been allowed to have an opinion. The general managers are employees, and that needs to be recognized by ownership. The average general manager couldn’t care less whether a team makes or loses money. He just wants to protect his job.”

When it comes to money, the most important area is television. While competing local broadcasts have decreased the networks’ interest in regular-season games, the networks again will pay hundreds of millions of dollars for the playoffs and the World Series. That has led to speculation of more postseason games, but CBS Sports president Neal Pilson said his network isn’t interested in an expanded playoffs.

CBS has lost hundreds of millions of dollars on baseball, as was predicted by NBC, which bid about $400 million less on the deal.

“We went into baseball because we thought it would, and it has, helped us in prime time,” Pilson said. “Obviously we thought our advertising sales would be substantially higher than we have been able to obtain. If we knew about the recession, the lockout, the impact of the Gulf War, before we made the baseball deal, we certainly would not have made the deal that we did.”

The Tribune Co., which owns the Cubs and is called a leader of the anti-Vincent group by other clubs, has the television rights to four teams -- the Cubs and White Sox (WGN), Angels (KTLA) and Yankees (WPIX) -- and adds three more next year: the Dodgers (KTLA), Phillies (WPHL) and Rockies (KWGN).

“Certainly the superstation issue is relevant to ESPN,” said Vincent, who is being sued by the Cubs over realignment. “The superstations suck up advertising.”

CBS is more concerned with the possibility of another work stoppage.

“Labor unrest in a problem for any sport,” Pilson said. “I think that with the NFL strike, it took a year to recover. I think the public reacts negatively to a strike or a lockout.”

Fehr says the current strife among management hurts, too, especially because talks for a new TV contract are expected this fall and winter.

“It’s apparent the clubs don’t know how to negotiate,” he said. “With the internecine bickering, that kind of division, if you’re someone at the networks, don’t you want to negotiate with these guys right now?”

Fehr, saying he always prepares for the worst, looks ahead to a possible lockout, an eighth work stoppage since 1972. By the end of the year, the union will have $100 million in licensing money saved up in case of a shutdown.

Reinsdorf, Selig and PRC president Richard Ravitch are intent on removing labor relations from the authority of the commissioner, believing anyone in that position would be pressured to push for a settlement.

“If they want to have a big fight, they’re going to have a big fight,” Fehr said. “I can’t do anything about that. It’s up to them.”