Donald Fehr Quotations

We believe we've made strides. The process is working, and we're prepared to do a lot more.

We believe very strongly that the purpose of penalties ought to be to deter, not to punish for its own sake.

We share your concern about the criticism our program has received, and, in response, the players have demonstrated, several times now, their willingness to take all reasonable measures in response.

One of the things we'll look at is reported profits. You expect teams with the most revenue, rather than the revenue-sharing recipients, to have the highest operating profits. That may not be true in very many cases, and that's something we need to look at.

Obviously, we thought from the beginning that the penalty was excessive. Hopefully, everybody understands what has happened and we can put closure on this issue.

No one has suggested it was a bad idea.

More memos have gone out, books have gone out. There's a video that players are watching in spring training.

Obviously, I'm very curious to see how it plays out. Whenever you start something new like this, you never know what it's going to be like. You know a that whole bunch of things are going to happen that nobody thought about, and they're going to happen in a different way than anybody thought about. But you don't know what they are.

Given our shared interests and the association's evident willingness to compromise, our failure thus far to reach a comprehensive new agreement is both frustrating and disappointing.

I don't understand one thing. It's traditional in this country, when someone is accused, to let him tell his story to an independent body.

I expect it to be pretty hard bargaining. That's the way it always is. That's what we get paid for. That's what the commissioner (Bud Selig) gets paid for.

Hopefully, we can move on to other things. I still think it was something much better handled by agreement than it would have been by legislation.

There are teams that receive more money from central baseball -- between the national television contract and revenue sharing -- than what their payroll is. That's before they sell a ticket or a hot dog or a beer or a parking space. There's a provision in the agreement that says revenue-sharing funds are to be used to improve the quality of a team's performance on the field, so we'll have to take a hard look at that.

It appears the 50 game initial penalty is principally a response to criticisms which have been made of our current program. We share your concern about the criticism our program has received, and, in response, the players have demonstrated, several times now, their willingness to take all reasonable measures in response. But we are still required to adopt, and defend, reasonable, fair and appropriate agreements.

Players have absolutely nothing to do with ticket prices. We had nothing to do with the recent decision to charge for Web broadcasts. These are management decisions, which management makes based on what each club or central baseball determines is the economic condition of the country and each market.

We never talk about specifics of internal meetings. We have an agreement coming up and we talk about issues relevant to preparation for that. We keep our internal meetings confidential.

We were able to get it done the last time, but having said that, I am so far out of the prediction business and have been for 10 or 12 years that I don't want to suggest I know things that other people don't because I just don't.

We have some track record of working things out ...

We discussed it so much with the players that there is no need for it. The executive board has the authority, anyway.

When a reliable, valid urine test is available, we will adopt it immediately. If another type of test becomes available, we will take a hard look at it.

The Olympics, you have to remember, is an event onto itself; it's unlike anything else. It's a multisport event, you have people from all over the world and it has its own special charm, its own special issues. But it's distinct from anything else.

You go through the Sporting News for the last one hundred years, and you will find two things are always true. You never have enough pitching, and nobody ever made money.

Don't expect people to behave perfectly-after all, they are people, with all of the faults and frailties of the human condition.

There has been no formal date set. It's early. We'll have to see. The obvious goal is to get a deal done, and we'll certainly try as hard as we can to do it and, hopefully, the owners will, too.

We always thought it was out of line. Were we surprised? No.

There's some informal discussions among staff going on and a bunch of research being done by both sides. I don't think it will be too long before we start. I'm not really sure we'll have some sort of a formal opening like the auto workers with a big picture. We're still quite a ways from contract expiration.

This agreement reaffirms that major league players are committed to the elimination of performance-enhancing substances and that the system of collective bargaining is responsive and effective in dealing with issues of this type.

A lot of people would like to do it in the fall. Once the playoffs start, the players who are not in the playoffs essentially go home. You can't find them. They're on vacation.

There were record revenues last year, and attendance things continue to look very good, and those are very positive signs.

There is that. And the timing issue is the single most difficult one that there is. The way we got to this time period is by considering all the other ones and deciding they all had bigger problems than this one did.

There's an issue as to whether or not clubs are using revenue-sharing receipts in an appropriate way.

It's like a lot of things. I thought that most of what you read was probably significantly overblown.

After the hearings on the House side in March and after receiving the commissioner's letter (re tougher penalties), we had discussions both before and after. There was an agreement that it would be unfair to change the deal in the middle of the season. I then sent the tapes of the (March) hearings to the players. I had an obligation to meet with them all, which I did.

I hope nobody is making judgments about the inquiry before it's done. Bud will make whatever decision Bud makes and we'll go from there.

I hope it's not going to be contentious. Given the kind of revenue increases we've had and all of the rest of it, I don't know of any reason why it ought to be from our side.

Can I give you a precise date? No. Would I expect it to be by the end of the World Series? I would certainly hope so.

I don't see a need for increased revenue sharing.

I do not expect to hear some of the kinds of things that sometimes we've heard in the past about widespread financial distress. We'll see. It's not up to me.

The fiscal and economic landscape is not at this point equivalent to what it was in 2001 and '02. And obviously, when you go into bargaining, you deal with what is, not with what used to be. The clubs have made a lot of comments in virtually all of our negotiations about distressed economic conditions. I will be very surprised if we hear very much of that this time.

The economics of the industry are good. But my ability to predict what happens in negotiations over the last 25 years has not been good.

All of the years when people said the relationship was bad, it never was as bad as they said. Now when people say it?s wonderful, it?s not as good as everyone says. There are issues that are in need of working out in a businesslike manner. Hopefully it will lead to harmonious bargaining, but you just can?t tell.

The kind of activity we've seen so far in certain respects is encouraging.