Mr. Krab
06-23-2009, 10:06 AM
Posted on Mon, Jun. 22, 2009 11:07 PM
Fehr decides to step down as head of baseball players’ union
By SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star
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Chip Somodevilla
Major League Baseball Players Association head
Donald Fehr (left) and baseball commissioner
Bud Selig found themselves on opposite sides
many times.
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Don Fehr is laughing. Yes, he says, of course he remembers Bob Cerv Night at old Municipal Stadium.
It was a July night in 1958, and Don had just turned 10. This was one of the first games he ever saw. The Kansas City A’s played the Boston Red Sox, and Hector Lopez won it with a home run in the bottom of the ninth. Boys don’t easily forget nights like that, even after all these years.
But what’s interesting is that “Bob Cerv Night” was no promotion
giveaway. Fans did not receive a bobblehead or a growth poster or even a T-shirt. No, “Bob Cerv Night” meant that fans’ donations helped furnish the house that Cerv and his wife had recently bought in Kansas City.
“The world’s changed a bit since then,” Fehr says.
Fehr, who announced Monday his plans to step down as head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, had a hand in that change — at least as far as the baseball world is concerned.
Fehr, 61, is the leader and face of what’s often called the most powerful labor union in the world. The average major-league salary grew from $289,000 when Fehr took over in 1983 to $2.9 million today.
Fehr liked to keep a casual look, preferring jeans and sneakers at the office, and, at least in public, maintained an all-business approach.
Michael Weiner, 47, the union’s general counsel, is expected to be approved as the new director and lead negotiations into the expiration of the current labor contract in December 2011.
“What am I the most proud of?” Fehr says. “I guess it would have to be a generic statement. The union movement has been, for most of the last 30 years, in a slow, steady decline. Yet, we’ve managed to remain united and cohesive and to represent the players, really, pretty well over a long period of time.
“It’s very hard for most unions to maintain that level of success. You’ve got to feel pretty good about that.”
Fehr grew up in Prairie Village and didn’t have much interest in sports while at Shawnee Mission East. He graduated from Indiana and then UMKC’s law school, working at a Kansas City law firm representing steelworkers before moving to New York in 1977 to work full time for the union.
His first job was to defend the owners’ appeal of the Andy Messersmith-Dave McNally case, which overturned the reserve clause and helped usher in free agency in today’s form. Fehr took over as union head in December 1983.
Fehr led the union in a two-day strike in 1985, a 32-day lockout in 1990, and a 7 1/2 -month strike in 1994-95 that erased the World Series for the first time in 90 years.
There has been labor peace since then, though Fehr is often criticized for not agreeing to drug testing until August 2002.
When asked whether he had any regrets of his leadership, Fehr said that he would “probably” have made “the same decisions based on the same knowledge at the same time,” but allowed that if he’d “appreciated the depth of the steroids issue sooner, that might have been taken care of a little faster.”
Fehr and commissioner Bud Selig are said to have a businesslike, if not warm, relationship.
“Although we have had our differences, I have always respected his role,” Selig said. “In recent years, we have worked together to find common ground for the betterment of the game, which will have resulted in 16 years of unprecedented labor peace by the end of our current collective-bargaining agreement. We hope to continue to build upon the game’s prosperity.”
Weiner has long been assumed to be the one to take over for Fehr. He is almost exactly the same age as the legendary Marvin Miller when he became union leader and has a lot of respect among the players.
Weiner has been with the union 21 years, which Fehr pointed out on a conference call with union leadership on Monday is about three times longer than he was with the union before taking over.
“It would be an easy transition for him,” says Mark Teahen, the Royals’ union representative. “(Weiner) has all the experience there, and I don’t think he has too much to learn.”
Fehr expects to continue as executive director for five to nine more months. He isn’t sure what’s next for him, though he “may do quite a bit of nothing for a while.”
His is a legacy secured as the longest-tenured leader of one of the world’s most powerful unions. He is also a man dedicated to his cause, which is why he says he will most likely continue to make himself available if the new leadership needs him.
This is a move done in part with a nod toward human mortality. Late last summer, NFL players’ union chief Gene Upshaw died just days after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was 63.
“It was awful,” Fehr says. “There were a couple of other people I knew that were in their 60s that passed away suddenly without any prior indication of any health worries. It does make you think a little bit.”
While a factor, Fehr says those thoughts were “not the overall reason” for the timing of his decision. He’s been doing this a long time, he says, for more than 25 years, and thinks it’s just the right time for him to do something else and for the union to have new leadership “with fresh ideas and a fresh outlook.”
This is a man dedicated to his cause, though. He’s not going away entirely. Just retiring, just slowing down.
“My entire professional career has been related to helping out the players,” he says. “It’s very difficult for me to see that anytime in the future, if somebody said, ‘Could you give us a hand,’ that I’d say no. I’m sure I’d say yes.”
Fehr decides to step down as head of baseball players’ union
By SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star
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Chip Somodevilla
Major League Baseball Players Association head
Donald Fehr (left) and baseball commissioner
Bud Selig found themselves on opposite sides
many times.
<!-- End: /pubsys/production/story/assets/image_embedded.comp --> <!-- Commenting out fact box for Jody Cox --> <!-- /mi/pubsys/story/asset_list, include_asset_type=>"factbox" --> <script type="text/javascript">document).ready(function() { replaceRelated(159);});</script>
Don Fehr is laughing. Yes, he says, of course he remembers Bob Cerv Night at old Municipal Stadium.
It was a July night in 1958, and Don had just turned 10. This was one of the first games he ever saw. The Kansas City A’s played the Boston Red Sox, and Hector Lopez won it with a home run in the bottom of the ninth. Boys don’t easily forget nights like that, even after all these years.
But what’s interesting is that “Bob Cerv Night” was no promotion
giveaway. Fans did not receive a bobblehead or a growth poster or even a T-shirt. No, “Bob Cerv Night” meant that fans’ donations helped furnish the house that Cerv and his wife had recently bought in Kansas City.
“The world’s changed a bit since then,” Fehr says.
Fehr, who announced Monday his plans to step down as head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, had a hand in that change — at least as far as the baseball world is concerned.
Fehr, 61, is the leader and face of what’s often called the most powerful labor union in the world. The average major-league salary grew from $289,000 when Fehr took over in 1983 to $2.9 million today.
Fehr liked to keep a casual look, preferring jeans and sneakers at the office, and, at least in public, maintained an all-business approach.
Michael Weiner, 47, the union’s general counsel, is expected to be approved as the new director and lead negotiations into the expiration of the current labor contract in December 2011.
“What am I the most proud of?” Fehr says. “I guess it would have to be a generic statement. The union movement has been, for most of the last 30 years, in a slow, steady decline. Yet, we’ve managed to remain united and cohesive and to represent the players, really, pretty well over a long period of time.
“It’s very hard for most unions to maintain that level of success. You’ve got to feel pretty good about that.”
Fehr grew up in Prairie Village and didn’t have much interest in sports while at Shawnee Mission East. He graduated from Indiana and then UMKC’s law school, working at a Kansas City law firm representing steelworkers before moving to New York in 1977 to work full time for the union.
His first job was to defend the owners’ appeal of the Andy Messersmith-Dave McNally case, which overturned the reserve clause and helped usher in free agency in today’s form. Fehr took over as union head in December 1983.
Fehr led the union in a two-day strike in 1985, a 32-day lockout in 1990, and a 7 1/2 -month strike in 1994-95 that erased the World Series for the first time in 90 years.
There has been labor peace since then, though Fehr is often criticized for not agreeing to drug testing until August 2002.
When asked whether he had any regrets of his leadership, Fehr said that he would “probably” have made “the same decisions based on the same knowledge at the same time,” but allowed that if he’d “appreciated the depth of the steroids issue sooner, that might have been taken care of a little faster.”
Fehr and commissioner Bud Selig are said to have a businesslike, if not warm, relationship.
“Although we have had our differences, I have always respected his role,” Selig said. “In recent years, we have worked together to find common ground for the betterment of the game, which will have resulted in 16 years of unprecedented labor peace by the end of our current collective-bargaining agreement. We hope to continue to build upon the game’s prosperity.”
Weiner has long been assumed to be the one to take over for Fehr. He is almost exactly the same age as the legendary Marvin Miller when he became union leader and has a lot of respect among the players.
Weiner has been with the union 21 years, which Fehr pointed out on a conference call with union leadership on Monday is about three times longer than he was with the union before taking over.
“It would be an easy transition for him,” says Mark Teahen, the Royals’ union representative. “(Weiner) has all the experience there, and I don’t think he has too much to learn.”
Fehr expects to continue as executive director for five to nine more months. He isn’t sure what’s next for him, though he “may do quite a bit of nothing for a while.”
His is a legacy secured as the longest-tenured leader of one of the world’s most powerful unions. He is also a man dedicated to his cause, which is why he says he will most likely continue to make himself available if the new leadership needs him.
This is a move done in part with a nod toward human mortality. Late last summer, NFL players’ union chief Gene Upshaw died just days after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was 63.
“It was awful,” Fehr says. “There were a couple of other people I knew that were in their 60s that passed away suddenly without any prior indication of any health worries. It does make you think a little bit.”
While a factor, Fehr says those thoughts were “not the overall reason” for the timing of his decision. He’s been doing this a long time, he says, for more than 25 years, and thinks it’s just the right time for him to do something else and for the union to have new leadership “with fresh ideas and a fresh outlook.”
This is a man dedicated to his cause, though. He’s not going away entirely. Just retiring, just slowing down.
“My entire professional career has been related to helping out the players,” he says. “It’s very difficult for me to see that anytime in the future, if somebody said, ‘Could you give us a hand,’ that I’d say no. I’m sure I’d say yes.”