Clark: New CBA shields integrity of World Series
Much in the way Elaine’s refusal to take her coat off irked everyone on “Seinfeld,” the 14-year connection between baseball’s All-Star Game and World Series greatly annoyed the game’s players. Tony Clark, an AllStar himself in 2001 — before the game “counted” — squashed this bug in the collective bargaining agreement Major League Baseball and the Players Association announced jointly Friday.
In an interview with The Post on Friday, Clark, the Players Association’s executive director, expressed optimism in the change that turns the All-Star Game back into a bona fide exhibition contest and rewards the World Series’ homefield advantage to the team with the better record.
“That has been an interest from the players’ side for a long time,” Clark said. “We were able to do that this round, and we’re hopeful that, as a result, our All-Star Game continues to improve and is the Midsummer Classic it has always been while also protecting the integrity of the most important games of the year in the World Series.”
Clark, who played for both the Yankees and Mets during his career, said he thought the addition of a winner’s reward in the AllStar Game would help increase the game’s intensity. As per the joint announcement, all 32 players on the winning team’s active roster will share equally in a $640,000 bonus, giving each player an extra $20,000.
In Clark’s first CBA negotiation as the union’s head, after succeeding Michael Weiner (who died in 2013), the players stood their ground on avoiding an international draft; gained considerable leeway in the qualifying-offer system for free agents involving compensation; and agreed to some harsher penalties for teams (such as the Yankees and Dodgers in the past) that spend well beyond the luxury-tax threshold.
The qualifying-offer system, starting next offseason, now will prevent a player from getting more than one such offer in his career, will lessen the disincentive for teams to sign a qualified free agent and will make it less palatable for a team to issue the offer to its own free agent in the first place.
“We think the improvements we made there helped not only the players affected there, but affected the players behind them,” Clark said. “We think it was beneficial for the individual players and the industry itself.”
Finally, Clark said he was well aware of the criticism directed toward him by both the owners’ side and his own side, as many player representatives felt out of the loop during the talks.
“The negotiation itself ebbed and flowed differently than the last one,” he said. “We met formally more times in April and May and even going into June than any time I can recall. … As the negotiation itself moves and the issues start to reveal themselves, with all of the moving pieces as part of the conversation, your due diligence is important.
“Although I know there is a lot of dialogue out there, it is indeed interesting to hear, against the backdrop of the negotiations, of how well we communicated during the course of the agreement. I appreciate any individual person’s thoughts while also knowing how the negotiation moved and led to us getting an agreement at the end.”