Bottom of the 9th, 2 Outs ...

It’s difficult to picture baseball union leader Don Fehr shoulder to shoulder with Walter Reuther or Jimmy Hoffa. But there’s also a disconnect when the owner of the Texas Rangers, having paid star shortstop Alex Rodriguez $252 million over 10 years, says the system is broken. Who broke it, the man taking the money or the one paying him?

Friday is the deadline for avoiding a strike in major league baseball, a labor action by men paid an average of $2.4 million a year. This isn’t farm workers in the Central Valley or garbage workers in Memphis. It is simply not possible to feel sorry for the players.

That’s not to say there’s sympathy for owners who pay hundreds of millions of dollars for teams, say they’re losing big bucks and whine that they didn’t know what they were getting into. Teams claim to be in the red, but owners refuse to open their books. This doesn’t mean their accounting is patterned on Enron or WorldCom, but disclosure could give them a stronger case with players who wonder why someone would pay $700 million to buy the Boston Red Sox when the team reported a loss of nearly $14 million last year. Television rights are lucrative, as are stadium receipts, and claims of losses are hard to assess.

Baseball, however, is the only major sport without caps on salaries, and the link between stratospheric salaries and winning can be weak. This year’s high-priced New York Mets are in last place, while the relatively poorly paid Minnesota Twins are in first place in their division. The players say the salary caps demanded by owners would decrease the value of their hard-fought free agency. Athletes in sports with salary caps are doing just fine.

Baseball does have revenue sharing, with richer teams helping the poorer. The overall amount is already scheduled to increase, but one issue in negotiations is how quickly that will happen. There is a risk that an owner of a weaker team would take the newfound money and pocket it rather than spending it on better players, but the baseball commissioner, Bud Selig, says setting a minimum payroll for the 30 teams would prevent that.

Baseball’s last strike was in 1994. It led to cancellation of the World Series and left a bitterness that endures. After all, a player with an average salary makes in two years what it would take a $48,000-a-year wage earner 100 years to make. A new walkout would produce at least as bad a fan reaction. Especially in Los Angeles, since the Dodgers and Angels are candidates for the playoffs.

The players did belatedly agree to random testing for steroid use. They also have shown willingness to accept increased revenue sharing among teams. A “tax� on teams with outsize payrolls, with the proceeds going to lower-payroll teams, could also help even out the sometimes wide disparities that discourage fans of perennial losers. The owners should allow a longer time than they currently want to phase in the revenue transfers.

There’s plenty of room on both sides for compromise but only one day left to get there.