NEW YORK, March 26 (UPI) -- Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said Tuesday there will be no lockout this season, although his comments drew a rebuke from union chief Donald Fehr.
The continuing standoff that baseball's labor negotiations escalated Tuesday when Fehr dismissed Selig's pledge that the baseball season will be played without interruption. He offered no such pledge on the part of the players.
Baseball has been without a labor agreement since the end of last season and has endured nine work stoppages since 1972, most recently a players' strike that forced the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
Meetings have produced little optimism, leading to the statement released Tuesday by the Commissioner's Office.
"Our fans deserve to know that the 2002 season will be played to completion without interruption and they deserve to know that now before we begin the season," Selig said. "Therefore, on behalf of the clubs, I pledge that we will not take any economic action -- either in the form of a lockout or unilateral implementation -- against the course of the season or the postseason."
Instead of meeting management halfway by agreeing not to strike, Fehr, the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, lashed back at Selig.
"The commissioner's announcement that there will be no unilateral changes of players' working conditions 'during the course of the season and postseason' should not be mistaken for more than it is, a tacit acknowledgement of the clubs' continuing intention to make precisely such changes when they really count -- immediately after the postseason.
"Unilateral implementations are only designed to affect the offseason, when players sign their contracts."
