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CNN Live Today

Major League Baseball Players Consider Strike

Aired July 08, 2002 - 13:15   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Today, the ballplayers' executive board is meeting in Chicago, and there's a chance the board could take the first move toward a strike.

CNN's Jeff Flock brings us that part of the story. He's in Rosemont, Illinois -- hi, Jeff.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Kyra. Perhaps you can see everybody at the ready here, the last of the stragglers making their way in. That meeting slated to have stared about 15 minutes ago, but we can tell you that a few of the players have been late.

And as you point out, one of the items on the agenda today could be to set a strike vote. At this point, we don't know if that will happen. Gene Orza, who is the No. 2 man at the players association, we talked to him earlier, and he indicated that he thought the players would take some sort of action today. Whether or not that would be a strike vote or not, at this point we don't know. We expect to know perhaps in a couple or three hours.

I talked to a number of the players going in, and they seem to look at this as something of an informational session. We didn't really get the sense from them that they came in here all charged up about getting out on strike. Clearly, the feelings of the fans, as we heard in the earlier report, are very much on their minds as well.

Talking to Phil Nevin, who is a member of the executive board of the players association, who says certainly the fans' feelings are on his mind.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL NEVIN, SAN DIEGO PADRES: It's a lot of more just to clear the air. I mean, a lot of guys have a lot of questions that need to be asked. And I think it's just best that every player gets educated on this subject, and what we are trying to accomplish. And I think that's the majority of what the meeting is going to be today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLOCK: And of course, you know it has taken the owners to get this far on issues like, for example, revenue sharing. That's No. 1 on the list. That is the haves sharing more with the have-nots. It wasn't easy for the owners to get all together on that issue. Now, they feel like they are. They want to share 50 percent of their revenue with the haves and the have-nots together. The players are looking for something more in the neighborhood of 20 to 25 percent, somewhere in that vicinity.

Luxury tax, also the other one. That's not a strict salary cap now, but it would be a tax on the teams, those rich teams that spend a lot in payroll. If they get over a certain number, they want there to be a tax that kicks in, millions of dollar that would then go also into the pot to be shared. The players feeling that both of these proposals would tend to drive down salaries. So they're not big fans of it. But they're talking about it as we speak, and we'll let you know what happens when they come out.

That's the latest from here in Rosemont -- Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: Jeff, these players, it's not chump change what they make. Come on! They have got really good salaries.

FLOCK: Well, you know, for years...

PHILLIPS: It's hard to understand.

FLOCK: For years, Major League players felt like they were taken advantage of. But I'll tell you, in the last 20-30 years, there has probably been no stronger union in all of organized labor in the U.S. than the Major League Baseball Players Association. So you're absolutely right. They have done well lately. How they do going forward from this, I guess we'll have to see.

PHILLIPS: Yes. All right, got to love those unions. All right, Jeff Flock, thank you.

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