NASHVILLE, Tenn. - By making Kevin Brown baseball's first $100 million man, Rupert Murdoch and the Los Angeles Dodgers may have sounded a death knell for small-market teams.
"It's a truly tragic day for baseball," San Diego owner John Moores said Saturday after Brown, the pitching ace who led the Padres to the World Series, agreed to a $105 million, seven-year contract with Murdoch's Los Angeles Dodgers.
"It's extraordinary. It confirms my worst fears about what would happen if we let Murdoch buy the Dodgers," Moores said. "And I think it represents a continuation of a very bad series of events in baseball after a spectacular season."
Coming just 25 months after Albert Belle became the first $50 million player, the move sent a shudder through an industry starting to wonder if another player-owner war is inevitable when the labor agreement ends in 2002.
Sandy Alderson, the executive vice president of baseball operations in the commissioner's office, called it "an affront to baseball." Cleveland General Manager John Hart said the media-driven teams "are almost going to a supergroup."
Said Reds GM Jim Bowden: "Every time we keep breaking (salary) records, it's dangerous for the game and competitive balance. That Kevin Brown will make as much money in seven years as our whole team will make in four years isn't good for the game."
While teams have spent $1.05 billion on 68 players in this year's free agent class, $716 million of that has been given to 25 players by just six high-rollers - Anaheim, Arizona, Baltimore, Los Angeles and the New York Mets and Yankees.
Alderson, who quit as the Oakland Athletics president in November to become executive vice president of baseball operations in the commissioner's office, said that for small-market teams, baseball no longer is competition but entertainment.
And he said the five middle-revenue teams who move into new ballparks in 1999 and 2000 - Detroit, Houston, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Seattle - shouldn't expect to compete with the big boys.
"Those clubs should be scared to death of what's happened in the last six weeks," he said.
No team with a payroll under $48 million made the playoffs last season and only three teams with payrolls below that figure had winning records.
"The only teams making money are at the top end and at the bottom end," Alderson said. "The other clubs will figure it out."
Owners met Dec. 3 in Chicago and heard commissioner Bud Selig talk about the growing disparity. At the time, the players' association wasn't concerned about a new round of collusion.
Owners conspired against free agents following the 1985, '86 and '87 seasons, lost three arbitration grievances and eventually settled the cases for a $280 million penalty.
"It remains illegal for the clubs to act in concert with respect to free agency rights," Gene Orza, the union's No. 2 official, said when told of Alderson's comments. "The only difference from then to now is triple damages for the clubs."
Scott Boras, Brown's agent, said many were overreacting to the contract and took a thinly veiled shot at the Padres.
"Industry behavior will always reflect that the contract of the moment is the death knell for the society as a whole," he said. "That's the drum that's going to be pounded - especially close to L.A."
Anaheim, Baltimore, Colorado and St. Louis also were among the finalists for Brown, a 33-year-old right-hander who went 18-7 with a 2.38 ERA for San Diego this year. All the finalists offered six-year deals, according to Boras.
"The Dodgers do not take payroll disparity and economic responsibility lightly," GM Kevin Malone said. "We are sensitive to the financial concerns of the industry. This type of monetary commitment to a player of Kevin Brown's abilities would enable us to field a championship-caliber club now."
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