8B
Friday, August 23, 1996
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Baseball now a game of talk
Negotiations still hang on
Associated Press
These are the dog days of baseball's summer, that challenging time in a season when players are convinced they have been at this grind forever and just as certain that it will never end.
History tells us they are wrong. The season is like a rainstorm. We know it will end because it always has.
Contract negotiations are less predictable.
The on-again, off-again talks between union and management were back on again briefly last week, just long enough for the owners to make an offer they knew would be rejected. It was, of course, rejected.
picture. It is oneupsmanship, looking for an edge, shortcutting the other guy. It has been that way in baseball's talks since the guns of August were first fired two years ago. It remains an integral piece of this tawdry situation.
So why make this grandstand play in the first place? Do we really need posturing at this point in the game?
Fans long ago lost interest in labor-speak, the language of luxury taxes and free-agent filing, arbitration and repeater rights, the stuff that has nothing to do with the essence of the game — runs, hits and errors. The suits — the accountants, agents and attorneys who have attached themselves to the sport — are the ones who thrive on that stuff.
Fans want to talk about John Smoltz reaching 20 wins with six weeks left in the season or Mark McGwire, closing in on 50 home runs despite missing 31 games. Fans wonder about the Yankees hanging on in the American League East and the Rockies, Padres and Dodgers batting it out in the National League West. Fans care about their teams and their games. The suits prefer their baseball in the form of ledgers
and charts.
Hung up on the issue of service time for the strike that destroyed the 1994 season — that particular rainstorm became a hurricane — the owners decided to become benevolent. They would grant the service time, they said, except for the 20 or so players who needed it for free agency.
That meant leaving a fistful of players including Bernard Gilkey, Moises Alou, Chuck Knoblauch and Alex Fernandez hung out to dry and that proposal had as much chance of being accepted as Donald Fehr has to be baseball's next commissioner.
Thanks, but no thanks, the union told the owners and they adjourned until next week. Does this all sound vaguely familiar? For 16 months after a federal court issued an injunction that ended the 232-day players strike, the union and management bargained only occasionally and then the negotiations were like the work of so many current relief pitchers: brief and ineffective.
Then, suddenly, they found common ground. For 35 frantic hours, they agreed to agree. One after the other, in rapid succession, issues tumbled. Baseball's nightmare was about to end.
And then, nothing. The filibuster,
like so many before it, had failed.
For 10 days, there was silence, like a submarine going back under water. And when talks resumed, the sub went nowhere, anchored in the morass that has surrounded this debate for so long. We are back, it seems, at Square One.
Fehr sounded properly outraged by the management stance, the suggestion that the union would leave part of its constituency out of luck. "Obviously the players are not going to take 15 or 20 players and leave them high and dry," the union boss said.
Management negotiator Randy Levine was far more upbeat after the latest talks. "The bargaining process is moving forward," he said. "I think we inched a little closer today."
He didn't say closer to what.
Nittmo released as KC Chiefs kicker
Bjorn Nittmo had just that feeling even after he was introduced to cheers at the Kansas City Chiefs annual luncheon as their kicker.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In their solitary existence, NFL kickers always know they can be replaced at any moment.
Chiefs make quick trade for accurate Stoyanovich
"Everybody was saying to me, 'Congratulations,' Nitmo said Wednesday. "But I wasn't going to let this get to me until I got past the Chicago game. It never got past Chicago."
The Chiefs ate lunch with their fans, then got on a plane to Chicago for the final preseason game yesterday against the Bears — without Nittmo.
The Associated Press
"I was getting ready to head out the door," said Nittmo, who was released when the Chiefs traded a draft pick to the Miami Dolphins for Pete Stoyanovich.
"They pulled me aside and said, 'Go home.' You think you have something and then they yank it away from you," said Nittmo. "I'm ticked off about it, but, hev, that's the business."
With Stoyanovich, one of the most accurate kickers in NFL history, the Chiefs had no room for Nittmo. He was out the door, just like Roman Anderson before him. Nittmo apparently had won the job when Anderson was released earlier this week.
Just about everybody in this town — including Nittmo — knew that the Chiefs wanted a proven kicker to replace Lin Elliot, whose three missed kicks in a 10-7 playoff loss to Indianapolis last year spoiled a 13-3 regular season.
The 30-year-old Nittmo wasn't that proven kicker.
He's kicked for the New York Giants and been to training camp with the Bills, Oilers and Chiefs. He's kicked in the Canadian, World and Arena leagues.
In 1990, he was matched up against Nick Lowery in the Chiefs camp. Lowery
"Everybody was saying to me, 'Congratulations,' but I wasn't going to let this get to me until I got past the Chicago game. It never got past Chicago."
Bjorn Nittmo
Former Kansas City Chiefs kicker
was either the first- or second-most accurate kicker along with Morten Anderson, depending on who had missed last.
But the Chiefs thought Lowery needed some competition.
Nittmo knew what would happen.
"We were just about tied in camp with the numbers we had," Nittmo said. "But that was just my second season coming in.
"Nick is Nick," Nittmo said then with a kicker's resignation.
Experience — the lack of it — cost Nittmo again.
"I have no doubt that (Nittmo) would be a solid performer in the NFL," Chiefs coach Marty Schottenheimer said. "He just didn't have the background Pete did."
And so it's back to south Florida and his construction business for Nittmo unless some other team comes calling.
"It's tough," Nittmo said. "There are 30 kicking jobs in the world. And there are what? Five billion people? Good luck.
"We all have a dream to chase. We're trying to do the best we can.
Big 12
Although Nebraska has had only about two dozen partial or non-qualifiers on its team in the last decade, Osborne is against the stringent standards.
"The tighter you draw the noose, the smaller the pool, and when you compete outside the conference you're not going to be as good," he said. "It won't show up this year, and won't show up next year. But three or four years from now, it probably will."
Continued from Page 1B
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"When you come back the first couple days, you're sore because you're practicing six hours a day." Mohrfeld says. "Volleyball becomes our life for those two weeks. We don't do anything but play volleyball."
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The two-a-day workouts lasted from Aug. 9 to Tuesday. Kansas junior captain Tiffany Sennett said the team had had only one day off — Aug. 18 — during those practices.
Kansas junior captain Maggie Mohrfel, who led the team's last year with 15 solo blocks, said that even if a player returns in shape, there is nothing like the long practices in the gym's heat.
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The team worked mostly on individual drills during two-a-davs.
"It's exciting to get back and get in the gym, but two-a-days aren't fun." Larson said.
"Sunday is the Sabbath; you are not to work on the Sabbath anwav." Sennett said laughing.
First-year Kansas volleyball graduate assistant Jenny Larson, who finished her Kansas volleyball career last year, said she had mixed feelings about the workouts.
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Kansas volleyball tryouts were at 5:30 p.m. yesterday in Robinson Center.
Madlock said the team wanted to add to the Jayhawks' 11-member roster, as teams usually carry 12 to 14 players.
Baseball
Continued from Page 1B
mining philosophy. My philosophy is good players."
So, tryout players have a chance to find room on the team because Coach Randall is still on the hunt.
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The first tryout meeting will be at 5 p.m. Tuesday at Hoglund-Maupin Stadium. Those wishing to try out need to bring a copy of their personal insurance information. For more information call the Kansas baseball office at 864-7907.
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