Strike: Out

NEW YORK -- After a round of all-night negotiations, baseball players and owners reached a tentative agreement on a labor contract that averted a strike threatened for later Friday.\n"There is no strike," said Atlanta pitcher Tom Glavine, the National League player representative.\nCommissioner Bud Selig and union head Donald Fehr attended a morning bargaining session that wrapped up the agreement. It was the first time in nine rounds of labor talks since 1972 that baseball avoided a work stoppage.\nNo agreement had been signed, but the sides planned to announce the new pact at a 1 p.m. EDT news conference.\nAs part of a settlement, owners agreed not to eliminate teams through the 2006 season, a management official said on condition he not be identified. Owners attempted to fold the Montreal Expos and Minnesota Twins after last season but were stopped by Minnesota courts.\nThe deal was reached with little time to spare -- about 3 hours before Friday's first game, between St. Louis and Chicago at Wrigley Field.\nAs the hours dwindled, lawyers had shuttled between the commissioner's office and union headquarters, crunching numbers and exchanging revised proposals.\nTwo lawyers from each side bargained until 2 a.m. before the sides broke for caucuses. Players gave owners a proposal during a 20-minute meeting that began at 4 a.m., and owners responded with a counteroffer about 6:30 a.m. The union returned with a response at 9:15 a.m.\nThe final meeting, which completed talks that began in January, lasted almost three hours. As soon as it ended, teams started heading to ballparks.\n"The reason we set a strike date was to get something done, and we did," said John McDonald, the Cleveland Indians' player representative.\nMcDonald got the word from Tony Bernazard, a special assistant to the players' union.\n"He said, 'We're playing tonight'," McDonald said. "That's all I wanted to hear. That's all any baseball player wanted to hear. Everyone should be thrilled."\nWith the deal, owners gained their most significant concessions in 26 years from a union that became one of the most powerful in the nation. The players' association has lifted the average salary of its members from $51,501 in 1976 -- the last year before free agency -- to $2.38 million this season.\nAs part of the agreement, high-revenue teams will have to share a far larger percentage of their locally generated money, and a luxury tax will be levied on high-payroll teams to discourage spending.\nSince the last strike in 1994-95, a 232-day stoppage that forced cancellation of the World Series for the first time since 1904, the New York Yankees have won four world championships. For that very reason, commissioner Bud Selig and many team owners said they needed changes to restore competitive balance.\nThe mid-market teams figure to be the biggest winners in the deal, receiving much more of the their competitors' money.\nThe biggest losers are the Yankees, who generate the most money in baseball. The Yankees and other high-revenue teams will have to pay tens of millions of dollars to subsidize their competitors, and they may have to raise ticket prices to cover the increased revenue sharing.\n"It's going to affect a lot of teams with high payrolls, there's no question about that," Yankees pitcher Steve Karsay said.