Shaikin: Why the players' union can't just walk away if MLB owners insist on a salary cap

LOS ANGELES — In the hours before Game 1 of the World Series, as the Violent Femmes played "Kiss Off" before their hometown fans in Milwaukee, Bruce Meyer talked about getting blown off by baseball's owners. He didn't put it quite that way. But Meyer, the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, expressed his frustration that months of collective bargaining over dozens of issues has boiled down to what he sees as one gigantic, inflexible roadblock: "They've made clear they're not willing to talk about anything outside of their cap system." The league and its owners are willing to talk about key issues for the union: higher minimum salaries, fewer years to free agency, an end to the qualifying offers that can dampen the market for free agents. But the price would be a salary cap. The players have made clear they're not willing to consider the salary cap that owners insist would underpin everything else in what would be a radical new economic system.

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