Monday, December 17, 2012
Fehr/Fehr balance
This was written a few months back, but it’s a nice profile of Steve Fehr, with comments from both sides (Manfred on the management side and Orza / Fehr on the union side). I wonder what Bill Daly is going to say in a few years.
“For me, it’s been an extraordinary thing,� Don Fehr said, “because when you are involved in bargaining, it really helps to have somebody who, first of all, is knowledgeable, is observant, knows how the game is played … [but who] knows you inside out and backwards, and perhaps, most importantly, is capable of telling you, probably more often than you want to hear, that you are full of shit.�
According to Manfred, the role Steve Fehr took in the 2002 baseball labor negotiations, when MLB and the players reached a deal just before the players went on strike, was “the most important thing he has done.� Prior to that negotiation, MLB and the MLBPA were unable to reach a labor agreement without a strike or a lockout eight times, going back to 1972.
Manfred noted that MLB and the MLBPA have been able to negotiate two CBAs without a work stoppage since that agreement. Without going into details of those 2002 negotiations, Manfred said Fehr was instrumental in getting a deal done and called him “a calming force� in labor negotiations in general.
Orza agreed with that characterization.
“In the 2002 negotiations, when things got pretty tough and we were close to having some problems that might have resulted in a major fight, Steve stayed pretty calm, cool and collected,� Orza said.
For his part, Steve Fehr would not say specifically what he did during those 2002 talks other than to stay focused on the issues at hand.