Baseball Owners Link an Offer on Pension to Curb on Salaries

There were indications Wednesday, 13 days short of the baseball players’ Aug. 6 strike deadline, that after 8 months and 10 days of sporadic talks, management and the players’ union may be about to get down to business.

Lee MacPhail, chief negotiator for the 26 club owners, said he has an offer ready that would increase the owners’ contribution to the players’ pension fund but would like to hear first what concessions the union would be prepared to make on player salaries. The owners have been contributing $15.5 million a year--one-third of what they get from their national television package--to the pension fund. Under terms of the new TV contract, one-third would amount to $60 million, which is what the players have been asking.

“We are ready to make improvements in the benefits,” MacPhail told reporters in New York after the latest in a series of negotiating sessions. “How far we go depends on other things, like what, if anything, is done to slow down the growth of player salaries.”

Salaries have reached an average of $363,000 a year, nearly double what they were four years ago.

Union leader Donald Fehr said he is hopeful that the talks may get down to the issues of salaries and the pension fund as early as today.

MacPhail’s spokesman, Bob Fishel, doubted that today would be the day but said it might happen in two or three days.

Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth would say only that he is watching the situation.