Reds manager Bob Boone, a union leader during the 1981 strike, and son Aaron, the Reds' union rep. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

        Bob Boone is management now. Think about that. The man who helped the players' union revolutionize baseball by pushing free agency and arbitration issues, who helped lead the midseason players' strike of 1981 and felt the full force of collusion in 1987 - the man who hired Donald Fehr as union head - is part of the establishment.

        The Reds manager says he does not see the irony of it. And really, being a manager on the field is not the same as, say, running the club from the front office or the owner's box. Yet, in his role, he still can't comment on the issues that might force baseball's ninth work stoppage in the last 30 years. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has a gag order on all management.

        There is some optimism around baseball because the players decided Monday not to set a strike date, putting it off until at least Friday in hope that an agreement between management and union can be reached. Meanwhile, Boone hesitates to talk about the issues - and especially not with his own son and third baseman Aaron.

        Of course, that son also happens to be the Reds' player representative to the Major League Baseball Players Association.

        “There are a lot of conflicts of interest there,” Bob Boone says. “He can't share what (the union) is talking about.”

        Both Boones have continually said they hope an agreement can be reached without a work stoppage. When they talk together, however, they speak in generalities.

        “He understands the process,” Aaron Boone says. “He understands how it works.

        “His name still comes up at (union) meetings.”

        That should not be surprising. As a player, Bob Boone was part of the process for almost two decades. Unlike Aaron, whose role as the Reds' player representative is to keep his team informed about such issues as revenue sharing and a luxury tax, Bob's role as the National League player representative was to shape the policy that would change the business of baseball.

        His beliefs were not always popular, obviously not with the owners who opposed him at the bargaining table, certainly not with his own management that traded him 1/2ndash 3/4 and definitely not with his own union in the end, which tried to silence him.

        Even when he was technically a player rep, there were times he was representative in name only.

        “I got so cynical from hearing 500 things from 500 players that I said, "I'm going to do what I think is right; if you don't like it, vote me out,”' Boone says. “I hated it. I tried to resign a couple of times. But I had too much knowledge of what was going on. They wouldn't let me.”

        Still, Bob didn't discourage Aaron from taking a union position.

        “I let him figure it out for himself,” says Bob.

Catcher embraces union

        Bob Boone's first full season in the major leagues was 1973, the year the players and owners first instituted arbitration, which put salary disputes in the hands of a third party. That winter, the Philadelphia Phillies catcher took the 90-minute drive to New York for a Players Association meeting and the start of his career within his career.

        “They needed guys to go to a meeting,” Boone says. “I said I'd go. It really interested me.”

        Credit the man leading the union. Marvin Miller, a former United Steelworkers executive, had been hired as the Players Association's executive director in 1966. To succeed, he needed the best and the brightest to back him so management would back down and players would rise up. He taught the players how to unite, how to fight - and how to win.

        “Marvin had a way of making it interesting,” says Boone, who became the Phillies' player representative in 1974 and the National League player rep in 1975. “It was never boring for me.”

        The son of former major-league infielder Ray Boone was a student of baseball, and now he set out to learn every aspect of baseball's labor situation. The Stanford graduate with the psychology degree was fascinated by the process, by the level of intelligence on both sides of the negotiating table. “It kind of sucks you in,” Boone once said.

        Former teammate Dickie Noles has spoken reverently of Boone's ability to break down the issues for Phillies teammates, saying, “I couldn't believe how good I had it. When I went to other ballclubs, it seemed like I never found that kind of person.”

        In the book Lords of the Realm, which chronicles the owners' and union's battles, Boone is mentioned prominently and often. Author John Helyar, a former Wall Street Journal reporter now with Fortune magazine, wrote that Boone, on more than one occasion, would step up during labor negotiations when Miller left the room:

        “Marvin's not here now,” Boone would say, “and we want you to understand something. You're fighting us, not him. We're telling Marvin what to do.”

        Together, Miller and his players changed the face of baseball. And no date was more noteworthy than Dec. 23, 1975.

Free agency a watershed

        Pitchers Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally had played in 1975 without signing contracts; their clubs simply renewed their previous deals. Miller convinced the pitchers to challenge the reserve clause, a part of the standard contract that bound a player to a team for life. Technically, Miller said, a club could renew an unsigned contract for only one year.

        Two days before Christmas, Messersmith and McNally were ruled to be free agents. And the aftershocks would be powerful.

        The owners feared for their survival if an onslaught of players were available to the highest bidders every year, and it became a key to labor negotiations for 1976. Miller convinced players it was in their best interests NOT to fight for complete free agency, that six years of service should be the standard. Free agents could set the market value, and players with two to five years could go to arbitration and compare their salaries to free agents with similar statistics.

        “We knew by limiting the supply of free agents, we would create a great demand,” Boone says. “When you backed that up with arbitration, it pushed everybody up.”

        Meanwhile, Miller was telling the owners in negotiations that he was on dangerous ground, trying to negotiate any service time needed for free agency.

        “He said that the players would haul him into court, claiming their rights had been bargained away,” Helyar wrote. “Miller even got Bob Boone, Tom Seaver and Mike Marshall to threaten such suits.”

        Owners locked out the players from early to mid-March before giving in. Boone knew the players were onto something big.

        He just didn't know how big.

        Boone didn't see the current $2.3 million average salary and $252 million player (Alex Rodriguez) for the next generation of players. The average salary in 1982 was $240,000. The minimum salary in 2002 is $200,000.

        “We didn't know it would get as crazy as it has,” Boone said.

In '81, face of the players

        The 1981 players' strike was the most painful labor experience the national pastime had known. Only the first work stoppage, in 1972, had actually sacrificed any games, but baseball was back by mid-April. This time, the strike lasted 50 days in midseason.

        Bob Boone still was the National League representative in 1981 and joined AL rep Doug DeCinces at Miller's side. According to Lords of the Realm, owners negotiator Ray Grebey liked Boone's “low-key style” in comparison to DeCinces and saw him as “the reasonable one.”

        “At the bargaining table, Grebey often addressed him directly as he tried to make points,” Helyar wrote. “Outside, he tried to cultivate a personal relationship. At the end, he would pull Boone aside to say, "I'm sorry you and I had to be on opposite sides of the negotiation.' Grebey didn't know a "good cop' act when he saw one. In the union's private councils, Boone was no conciliator.”

        Still, to be a league representative in 1981 was to be an easy target for fans wanting only for their game to return. The issue may have been compensation for free agents, but the objects of disaffection were the men behind the microphones.

        “We'd come out of those negotiations, and I'd go to a mike,” Boone says. “There'd be 100,000 cameras there. I was the point man for "the greedy bastard players.”'

        Boone remembers arriving back in Philadelphia after the strike. He, Miller and DeCinces had been up all night working on the settlement. The homecoming, Boone says, “was pretty emotional.” Phillies owner Ruly Carpenter hugged him. Manager Dallas Green just glared.

        Boone, an All-Star in 1976, '78 and '79 and a Gold Glove winner as the league's top defensive catcher in '78 and '79, was out of the lineup much of the rest of the year.

        “Dallas just didn't play me the second half,” Boone says.

        The public wasn't any better.

        “The first time I popped my head out of the dugout, there was no "n-e' in Boone,” he says. “It was, "Boooooo!' Plus, I wasn't playing very well, and I was coming off knee surgery. Ruly Carpenter was one of my dear friends, and I think they felt they had to do something in the best interests of the team. And what I had done with the union representation, because of the perception of the fans, was a big part of it.”

        So, off Boone went, shipped to the Angels. He mentions some contemporaries, all union leaders, who wound up together on the Angels, including DeCinces, Don Baylor and Bruce Kison. Boone actually welcomed the move.

        “I had a buyout, and I made a couple hundred thousand dollars,” he says. “I don't think it was, "If you take this union job, we're trading you.' People were moved that weren't part of the union, too. But it was the perception of the people. If people are booing you, and they (teams) have got to sell tickets. ... You see guys that are criminals, and you get 'em out of town. And all that is perception.”

        Helyar wrote that being a union activist “was inherently dangerous to a player's career.” He singled out players who supported Miller's 1966 hiring, Robin Roberts (released by the Cubs after that season) and Jim Bunning (traded by the Phillies to Detroit in 1967).

        Today, Miller says he can't flat-out say players who were union leaders have faced recriminations over the years. But ...

        “There were always suspicions, without having proof, that various players were traded because they were active in the players' union,” Miller says. “There were enough of them that you had to be suspicious.”

        Miller names several players who were traded, he says, at least partially because they had been so active in the union. And not just fringe players.

        “Milt Pappas was one,” he says. “Joe Torre. Tom Seaver, Mike Marshall and many others. And of course, the outstanding example is Curt Flood.”

        Flood missed the entire 1970 season by challenging baseball's reserve clause, trying to block a trade from St. Louis to Philadelphia. He returned to play briefly in 1971, but, as a target of ill will and playing with diminished skills, he retired at age 33.

        The other side, Miller says, is that management also recognized some union leaders as future team employees. He mentions Dal Maxvill and Bill Stoneman, who became general managers, and eventual managers Joe Torre, Baylor - and Bob Boone.

Falling out of favor

        Bob Boone spent seven years with California and two with Kansas City, adding one more All-Star appearance (1983), plus five more Gold Glove Awards (1982, 1986-89 - the last coming at age 41). He remained a player, in the business of baseball, as well. “The title is irrelevant,” Boone says. “I was still very involved.”

        During his American League years, Boone started questioning the union's stances. In 1985, the owners wanted to cap arbitration raises and increase the needed service time from two years to three. The players struck for two days in August, but Boone was among the veterans wondering whether one extra year before arbitration was worth a strike.

        “I was always in it to try to get a deal done,” Boone says. “To do that, you have to compromise. Both sides have to give.”

        The owners, who already had given up on a salary cap, relented on a maximum arbitration increase, plus upped their donation into the players' pension fund. But the players agreed to make arbitration eligibility kick in at three years.

        In 1987, Boone found himself in the midst of another labor issue. He was one of the “January 8 Eight,” as Helyar called them, who were free agents but could not secure decent offers because of collusion by the owners. Boone ended up re-signing with California, where he set the all-time record for games caught (a mark since broken). He was with Kansas City in 1990, however, when arbitration would become an issue again - not just for the union and the owners, but for Boone and the union.

        The owners wanted a salary cap and pay-for-performance contracts. Donald Fehr, the man who had been promoted to executive director by a committee headed by Boone, wanted the service time needed for arbitration to go back to two years. The owners locked the players out of spring training. Boone, no longer a league representative, led the veteran players wanting Fehr to stop pushing the arbitration issue.

        “I don't want to talk about it,” Boone says now. “What happened will be in my book.”

        For now, the details are left to Helyar's book, which says Boone and AL player rep Paul Molitor were together on this, and they met with Fehr, the negotiating committee - and Miller.

        Miller lauded Boone for his role in 1981, but said these actions indicate “you aren't the same man I knew then.” Boone countered that the man was the same, the issues were different - and it wasn't worth risking the season over a year of arbitration eligibility. Boone said others agreed with him.

        “You tell me what I did was wrong,” Boone said, according to Lords of the Realm. “Do you mean we're not allowed to have a dissenting voice in our union? Do you work for us or do you dictate to us? Shame on you for putting me in this position. My goal was simply to find out what the guys want. If the day comes that a player can't talk to his peers, this isn't the union I want to be in.”

        Still, the union members, including Boone, did not break ranks. A settlement came in mid-March. The owners got no cap, no play-for-performance, and the union regained arbitration eligibility for the top 17 percent of players with two to three years of service. And Bob Boone got his last taste of the union side of work stoppages.

        Now it is his son's turn.

Son Aaron on the front now

        Technically, it took an act of management for Aaron Boone to become a player representative.

        Michael Tucker had filled that role for the Reds last season, until he was traded to the Cubs on July 19. Boone had been the assistant rep, so he took over. It wasn't supposed to last this long.

        Jim Brower was considering taking over during this season, but again management stepped in. Brower was traded to Montreal on June 14. So Boone remains as the reluctant representative.

        “I really don't enjoy the job,” he says.

        Actually, Boone is a natural. Besides his baseball and union lineage, the 29-year-old third baseman is among the top players in tenure in a young Reds clubhouse, having debuted with the major-league team in 1997. He speaks thoughtfully and candidly and is one of the most popular players among his teammates.

        “He's perfect for the job,” says second baseman Todd Walker.

        They respect him enough that there were no cries of nepotism when his father continued to play him during a first-half slump this season. Shortstop Barry Larkin may be the captain, but Boone is one of the leaders in waiting.

        “Aaron is the informant,” says Walker. “He doesn't make decisions. He's very knowledgeable about the game and what's going on. Being a third-generation player, he's followed the strikes in the past. I think that helps.”

        His role may be changing and his leadership tested in the coming days. Being a player rep is one thing; being a player rep during a strike or a lockout is another.

        “There's not a lot to do - until there's a work stoppage,” said Larkin, the Reds' player rep during the 1994 strike.

        Players who have only a passing interest in labor talks take notice once their paychecks stop arriving.

        “I definitely had to work on my communication skills,” Larkin said. “I had to pass along information every day, sometimes twice a day.”

        Boone hopes it doesn't come to that. He lauds the union leaders as “principle-oriented” and supports their cause, but knows fans working to feed their families are not sympathetic to player concerns over revenue sharing.

        “I certainly want to see us through this,” Boone says. “Then I'll give (the job) to somebody else. I feel like have a decent understanding of some of the issues. A lot of ways, I want to be involved. What we're going through right now is important stuff.”

        And if it can be solved without a work stoppage, and if he can do his part to help, so much the better.

        “No one wants to see this thing resolved more than me,” he says.

        Bob Boone likes that attitude.

        “I was in it and stayed in for 17 years really because of my knowledge,” he says. “But I was in it because I wanted to settle it, get a deal. I wasn't there to have a strike.”

        “Obviously, he wants a resolution,” Aaron Boone says of his father. “He and I both feel there's a resolution to be had.”

        Tom Groeschen contributed to this report.

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