Will the Major League Baseball players’ union set a strike date in August and carry through on another labor time-out? Sure sounds like it. It shouldn’t be happening this way, but it is. It was eight years ago the last time it happened, although for die-hard hardball fans it seems like just yesterday. The players walked out late in the 1994 season, negotiations went nowhere, and soon we were hearing that the playoffs and World Series were being cancelled.

Bad feelings dragged on all winter long, and the team owners even brought in non-union replacement players to participate in spring-training games in the spring of 1995. Not surprisingly, just before MLB opened its regular season with a bunch of no-names, the two sides reached an agreement, and a few weeks later, the season opened with the usual marquee names gracing the rosters. Some fans came back, some did not. Luckily for baseball, 1995 was the year that Cal Ripken finally caught Lou Gehrig in the consecutive-games-played race; a year later the Yankees returned to the pinnacle of the sport; in 1997 a Cinderella team took home the title; and the following year, the whole country was swept up in home-run mania, as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa staged a season-long assault on Roger Maris’s single-season home-run record.

Yes, America returned to its ballparks in the late ’90s, but the storm clouds are looming again, because at the end of this season the contract agreed to seven years ago expires, and the already-wealthy players will not want to give up the luxuries acquired during their major-league careers.

Rumor has it that player-union head Don Fehr and some of the team representatives are on the verge of picking a date to walk off the fields in anticipation of the owners’ off-season implementation of a luxury tax, salary cap, or some other belt-tightening measure that would allow the teams and the leagues to remain fiscally afloat.

This is a very complicated issue for both sides, and I’m not an expert on all of the issues, but I do know this: if these players walk again — during the season — and again wipe out the post-season, MLB will not bounce back. Certainly not like it did before, and maybe not ever. And around here, if a work stoppage eliminates the potentially glorious conclusion of the Red Sox’ best season start since the 1940s, there will certainly be hell to pay. That’s what 84 years of waiting will do to you. Nasty things.

Yet for baseball aficionados, it has nothing to do with what teams might get screwed if the players strike. Cleveland and Montreal fans will forever wonder about what might have occurred had the 1994 season played out to its conclusion. Right now, not only Sox fans, but long-suffering supporters in Minneapolis, Anaheim, LA, St. Louis, and Cincinnati are also pondering the possibility of not seeing their teams' destinies fulfilled. Losing a game is one thing; not having it played at all because of outright greed is certainly another.

Which side of filthy-rich millionaires does one support in this spitting contest? The players union always seems to come out on top in these battles, but I think this time they will have to make some concessions, otherwise this will be a bigger PR nightmare than ever before. It’s hard to feel sorry for anyone playing a game collecting a salary that averages $2 million for seven months’ work. Not only that, but they travel on charter aircraft, stay in five-star hotels, and " work " for maybe four hours a day. Nice work if you can get it. Not only that, but each player takes in an additional 100 grand or so just by being a member of the union and collecting licensing fees for MLB merchandise. I think I could live off of that alone, don’t you?

In addition, the three other major professional sports at least have some kind of league-wide pay structure that levels the playing field among all teams, and when they have labor disputes, the players unions don’t have the gall to walk while the games are being played. The NFL is a prime example of how the system can work: each of the league’s 31 teams is given a $69 million (projected for 2002) figure, and all of the team’s player salaries combined cannot exceed that number. It’s a little more complicated than that, but at the least the concept guarantees some fairness, and that has been borne out by the variety of Super Bowl champions in recent years. Since each team is playing with the same house money, it’s the team that spends its money the wisest (hello, Patriots), not necessarily the richest team (good day, Yankees), that usually emerges victorious.

The NBA has a similar structure, although it is more like a luxury tax that requires owners to pay a percentage of the figure that surpasses the league-imposed payroll ceiling. In addition, NBA teams are allowed to re-sign players that are already on their roster and not have the upgrade in salary count against the cap. Hockey, too, has some kind of regulated system in place, although those players, too, are headed for another work stoppage at the end of next season unless an agreement can be worked out beforehand.

But that’s a story for another day. Today we are dealing with, and possibly even preparing for, a development in baseball — a sport that employs a concept called revenue-sharing, but still does not prevent one team from spending whatever it takes to win a pennant. The Yankees garner so much money from their radio and TV contracts that they can pay the entire $110-million player payroll with that money. That means ticket income is all bonus money, which they can use to support their farm system, upgrade facilities, or continue snagging the best free agents money can buy.

Sure, all of the baseball owners are rich. Sox owner John Henry and his group just paid $700 million for the Old Towne Team and Fenway Park. Nevertheless, the most profit any team can hope to generate for any given year is maybe $10 million. Compared to Microsoft or IBM, that’s peanuts, even for a quarter. In addition, they must pay for stadium upkeep, staff, marketing, and usually at least $75 million in payroll to even hope to compete with the majors’ wealthiest teams. Hell, even 18-year-old draft choices coming out of high school are leveraging $3–$4 million signing bonuses, and that’s before they even put on their gloves at the single-A level. Yes, the owners are well off, but most of them are losing money, or at least I believe they are. I can’t imagine that if you own the Marlins (averaging 8000 fans a game this year), the Expos (4000), the Blue Jays (15-20,000), or the Devil Rays (10-15,000) that you can be raking in enough cash based on ticket sales to turn a profit. As a result, since they can’t bring in enough money to justify paying a high payroll — surprise! — they lose. Even teams with brand-new stadiums like Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Milwaukee are lucky to draw 20,000 on any given day. Not many fans means fewer concessions sold, fewer souvenirs sold, fewer people caring about the team. Some teams know on Opening Day that they don’t have a chance in hell of winning the World Series six months later.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned $2 million men — and that’s average, because the majority of folks are making $5 mil plus — are being led to believe that their way of life is threatened. And why not? They’ve got a good thing going, and they probably can’t imagine giving it up. They claim that salaries are reaching into the stratosphere because owners are willing to pay them. Well, back in the late ’80s, when the owners decided they weren’t going to pay them, they were nailed by a federal court for collusion, and had to pony up $280 million to the players union. And when the owners tried to eliminate two failing teams during last year’s off-season, the union went kicking and screaming into the night. Fiscal insanity? Sure, because some teams have the wherewithal to spend freely, and they can afford to pay $15-$20 million for one player. Others don’t. Yep, pinstriper Mike Mussina makes nearly $15 million a year for pitching a baseball once every five days, and the payroll of the Yankee infield alone when Moose is pitching is over $50 million, more than some teams’ entire annual outlay and $20 million above the Sox’ combined infield salaries, even with Pedro pitching.

If Major League Baseball is to survive, the players union will have to give something up. They more than likely won’t go for a salary cap, but some kind of reining-in process should be implemented, otherwise teams like the Yankees and the Diamondbacks and the ’97 Florida Marlins will be the trend, and low-payroll surprises like the Twins and the A’s will be the exception. And don’t try to tell me that baseball players need to be making tens of millions of dollars annually — I’d be happy to make that in a lifetime. Or two.

Sure, Tom Cruise makes $20 million per picture, but I only have to pay $9 once to see his work. To pay baseball players the money they’re accustomed to, the owners have no choice but to raise ticket prices. That’s why the bleacher seats at Fenway that were just eight bucks five years ago are around $20 now, and the boxes that were $32 are now $60. Think that’s going to improve in the future? It’s an upward spiral that is making many fans mad as hell and they won’t take it anymore, particularly if the players insist on walking out on a competitive season just to show their solidarity.

A work stoppage shouldn’t happen, but it probably will. Negotiations are continuing on a weekly basis, but there is an air of distrust between the two sides, and there are significant differences of opinion on the most prominent issues.

In February 2001, Fehr, the head of the players union, was interviewed by the Sporting News’ Ken Rosenthal, and one exchange went like this:

TSN: Is there any chance the players would walk during the [2002] season?

Fehr: Next season? No. The contract doesn’t expire until the end of the season. Absent very unforeseen circumstances, the players do not have a right to strike during the season, and the contract expires after the end of the World Series. So the answer would be no.

God, I wish I could believe him.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com