Major League Owners Ruled Guilty Again

In another ruling that tarnishes baseball’s integrity and the legacy of outgoing Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, arbitrator George Nicolau said Wednesday that the owners had violated the collective bargaining agreement a second time by acting in concert to restrict free-agent movement in the winter of 1986-87.

Nicolau’s decision, delivered in New York, was similar to that of arbitrator Tom Roberts, who ruled last Sept. 21 that the owners were guilty of collusion in the winter of 1985-86.

The two rulings could cost the clubs millions of dollars, depending on the outcome of the penalty hearings.

After sorting through 8,346 pages of transcript, Nicolau delivered an 81-page ruling in which he wrote that there was a “uniform and deliberate” breach of contract by the owners.

“In my judgment, the evidence as a whole convincingly establishes that everyone knew there was supposed to be no bidding before Jan. 8 for free agents coveted by their former clubs,” he wrote. “It was also known that ‘other clubs’ were not expected to sign such free agents after Jan. 8.”

The Major League Players Assn., in the Collusion I penalty hearing being conducted by Roberts, which is in recess until October, has introduced testimony alleging that players lost $50 million to $60 million in salaries because of collusion after the 1986 season.

The union, in the wake of Roberts’ decision, is seeking financial compensation for the 62 free agents and 227 players who filed or were eligible to file for arbitration after the 1985 season. It will also seek compensation, Executive Director Donald Fehr said Wednesday, for the 79 free agents and 139 players who filed or were eligible to file for arbitration after the 1986 season.

Certain released players and players who were not tendered contracts by their respective clubs during those two winters may also be compensated. Agent Tom Reich estimated that the decisions by Roberts and Nicolau could cost the owners as much as $100 million.

There also is the likelihood that some or all of the free agents from the 1986-87 off-season will get another chance at free agency.

Roberts, in the only remedial action he has taken regarding players involved in the 1985-86 case, awarded modified free agency to Kirk Gibson, Donnie Moore, Carlton Fisk, Tom Brookens, Joe Niekro, Butch Wynegar and Juan Beniquez in January. Of the seven, only Gibson changed teams, leaving the Detroit Tigers for a 3-year, $4.5-million contract with the Dodgers.

Nicolau, in a meeting with Fehr and Barry Rona, executive director of the owners’ Player Relations Committee (PRC), gave no indication when he would begin a penalty hearing. But he did ask Fehr whether an argument could be made for granting free agency either immediately or after the season to players affected by Wednesday’s ruling.

Fehr, in a phone interview from his New York office, said he told Nicolau that the union would present a recommendation by next Tuesday.

Would he recommend immediate free agency and a possible disruption of the season?

“I don’t know,” he said, laughing. “It might be kind of interesting if Jack Morris became a free agent and moved from the Detroit Tigers to the Boston Red Sox.”

Morris is one of the key players in the second collusion case. He was snubbed as a free agent after the 1986 season and returned to the Tigers through arbitration.

Among the free agents who went past the Jan. 8 deadline for re-signing with their former teams are Doyle Alexander, Bob Boone, Andre Dawson, Rich Gedman, Ron Guidry, Bob Horner, Lance Parrish and Tim Raines.

Horner eventually signed to play in Japan. Parrish signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for about $50,000 less than he had made with the Tigers. Dawson took a $500,000 pay cut in moving from the Montreal Expos to the Chicago Cubs, then recently signed a multiyear contract with the Cubs, waiving his rights to renewed free agency. Alexander, Boone, Gedman, Guidry and Raines all returned to their former teams after May 1 and could, along with Parrish, Horner and others from that winter, including the Angels’ Brian Downing, receive new chances at free agency.

Raines has been negotiating a three-year contract with the Expos in which he would waive rights to renewed free agency. He said Wednesday that the possibility of immediate free agency gives him another option but that he will continue to give the Expos “every opportunity to sign me first.”

Morris, a free agent for the first time after the 1986 season, may be excluded from any decision regarding immediate free agency since he had another chance at free agency after the 1987 season, when he eventually signed a two-year contract to return to the Tigers. Roberts might have set a precedent when, in granting modified free agency to Gibson and the six others, he excluded players who had already had a second shot at free agency.

Attorney Dick Moss, a former union counsel who now represents Morris, Dawson and others, said he thought it unlikely that any of the involved players will be given free agency before the season ends.

“I’m just speculating, but there’s only a month left in the season, and I would think the arbitrator would want to have a hearing on any union request,” he said.

Fehr called Nicolau’s ruling a complete victory, saying that the arbitrator had gone through all the PRC excuses and “demolished them one by one.”

The PRC’s Rona disagreed, saying: “With all due respect to Mr. Nicolau and the arbitration process, we disagree with the ruling that owners violated the basic agreement in their dealing with the 1986 class of free-agent players.”

Rona has consistently said that the clubs acted individually in adopting a common-sense attitude regarding free agency. He has denied that collusion exists or that it has been orchestrated by Ueberroth, as most believe. He has said that in disseminating information and recommendations to the clubs, the PRC has not violated the bargaining agreement.

In a prepared statement released Wednesday, after the PRC had instructed owners not to comment, Rona said that the events considered by Nicolau occurred before Roberts found the owners guilty of collusion. He seemed to be saying that the owners would not have responded the way they did after the 1986 season if they had known they had been guilty of a violation after the 1985 season.

The union, however, filed another collusion grievance based on the owners’ response after the 1987 season--after Roberts’ decision--and Nicolau is now taking testimony on that case.