A Blueprint For Baseball

There are basically two categories of baseball players: those with six years or less experience, and those with more than six—the potential free agents. Approximately 40% of player salaries are currently devoted to players at or under the six-year line. Since players with six years or less are bound to their clubs, it really shouldn't matter who pays them, so here is the proposal. Give 40% of the 45% (the players' share of the revenue) to the Players Association and let the union pay the six-and-unders.

Pay them how much? In the last labor go-around, the owners suggested a crude pay-for-performance scale that lumped catchers in with middle infielders and made no allowance for such things as defensive range and the ability to handle pitchers. That scale can be greatly improved and refined, continually if need be. The administration of this new system will admittedly be a headache for the Players Association; in return for assuming this responsibility, the union should get some recompense. How about enough money for a pension plan for minor leaguers, many of whom devote the best years of their lives to the game without ever making the big bucks?

This system would nearly eliminate arbitration, which the owners hate more than they do Marvin Miller. In gratitude the owners could guarantee contracts for a year, saving the jobs of players like Espinoza.

The clubs would get the remaining 60% of the players' funds, which they would use to sign or retain free agents, or use to sign their younger players to long-term contracts. The teams can't spend less, but if they choose to spend more, they may. No salary cap, just a salary minimum. (If spending money guaranteed a title, Gene Autry would have 10 World Series rings by now.)

That's it. Ta da!

A STERN AT THE HELM

Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent is a decent man with a touch of the poet. He sees himself as a caretaker and protector of the game, and he acts accordingly. As an interim commissioner following the death of Bart Giamatti, he was the best possible choice.

But is he the man to take the game into the 21st century, to make the World Series a true World Series, to put a franchise in Mexico City? The owners already think so little of Vincent that they agreed to pay Richard Ravitch, the new head of their Player Relations Committee, more than the commissioner. Vincent has lobbied long and hard for racial integration in baseball management, yet every team with a managerial opening last fall hired Phil Garner.

So who, besides Andy Van Slyke, should lead the national pastime? Who would be the David Stern of baseball? Several names have already been bandied about in baseball circles as a successor to Vincent when his term expires after the '93 season: CBS Sports President Neal Pilson, deputy commissioner Steve Greenberg, Schuerholz, Twins general manager Andy MacPhail.

But since we're shooting for the moon here, let's nominate a man who already has a tougher executive position than baseball commissioner, a man who once played minor league baseball, a man who is an orator equal to Bart Giamatti. He says he doesn't want to run for President of the United States, but maybe New York Governor Mario Cuomo would like to be commissioner.