[Andy MacPhail] and other small-market executives have struggled to keep their good players for several years but MacPhail has little hope of doing so now that baseball's national television contract has cut each team's share from $15 million to $7.5 million annually. The Twins expect to lose around $6 million this season, and unless the players accept a salary cap and the owners start sharing more of their local television and radio revenues, there'll be no winning time in Minnesota.

He likes the owners' salary cap proposal, which would give the players 50 percent of industry revenues for salaries. Each club would have to pay between 84 percent and 110 percent of the average payroll, which this season would range from $25.2 million to $33 million based on current industry revenues. Teams such as the Braves and Blue Jays would have to make big cuts, while the Brewers, Rockies, Angels, Marlins, Pirates, Expos and Padres would have to spend more.

What if the low-budget Expos go all the way, defying the hard fact that seven teams with top 10 team payrolls have winning records and eight of the 10 lowest-paid teams have losing records? "The problem is that even if they win, the Expos will be the Pirates of 1994," [Richard Ravitch] said. "They will not be able to afford to keep that team. Mark my words: There is no way the Montreal Expos can afford this team next year. Don {[Donald Fehr]} said the game has never been better. Take out the new stadiums in Texas and Cleveland, baseball attendance is down about 1 million. We believe the problem in the game is that you have a growing number of teams that can't be competitive on the field. The attendance at those clubs is doing down and it's hurting the game. It's the game we're focused on. The system has to be changed."