Opinion ID: 767632
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Garvey Arbitration

Text: 38 Garvey's contract with the San Diego Padres covered the years 1983-1987. Garvey claimed damages from the settlement fund based on his allegation that the Padres would have given him a two-yearcontract extension for the years 1988 and 1989, but did not because of collusion. 39 On February 8, 1996, the Association released its proposed distribution plan covering the 1988 Claims. The plan awarded nothing to Garvey on his claim. In the period of almost ten years between the time the first collusion grievance was filed and the issuance of the 1988 distribution plan, Garvey did not present the Association with any evidence that the Padres actually offered to extend his contract. Garvey objected, and a hearing was held before the arbitrator on July 2, 1996. 4 40 At the arbitration hearing, Garvey testified that the Padres made a pre-collusion offer in September 1985 to extend his contract for the 1988 and 1989 seasons, and that the Padres subsequently withdrew that offer because they had begun colluding with other teams. Garvey presented at the July 2, 1996 hearing, for the first time, a June 28, 1996 letter from Ballard Smith, the President/CEO of the Padres in the period 19791987. Smith's letter states that before the end of the 1985 season Smith made an offer to Garvey to extend his contract through the 1989 season, but that the Padres would not thereafter negotiate with Garvey due to their policy of collusion. Smith's letter states that [t]here is no question in my mind that the reason the Padres withdrew their offer to Steve Garvey to sign a contract extension with the Padres was due to the collusion among the Clubs. 41 At the Association's request, the arbitrator granted a 21-day recess, requesting that both parties initiate a diligent effort to identify and produce documentation that could assist him in etermining what actually took place from 1984 on with regard to the potential of an extension. After the recess, the Association submitted to the arbitrator the following additional evidence: 42 (1) The responses Garvey and his representatives submitted to claims questionnaires in 1988 and 1991. Garvey's response did not assert an actual offer, but rather asserted that it would have been reasonable for the Padres to pursue an extension. The response also described negotiations toward the end of 1986 in which the Padres indicated that they were interested in retain ing Garvey beyond the 1987 season but declined to talk about an extension until a later date. 43 (2) Portions of Smith's November 1986 testimony in the collusion hearings, later cited by the arbitrator in his award, in which Smith denied collusion and testified that the Padres would not sign [Garvey] today. 44 (3) A letter from Garvey's agent, Jeremy Kapstein. The let ter stated that as [Garvey] told the arbitrator . . . he wanted to handle his own discussions with the Padres about an extension. Kapstein's letter made clear that Garvey then did so, and also stated that Smith had con firmed to the agent that Smith and Garvey were conduct ing contract discussions by themselves. According to the letter, Smith also told Kapstein he was hopeful that a direct negotiation would result in a contract extension. Kapstein's letter goes on to state that sometime later on, Garvey told him that the dialogue with Smith was stalled and asked for Kapstein's help. When Kapstein then talked with Smith, Smith said that Club policy had changed and he was not interested in talking with Gar vey about an extension. 45 (4) Notes of the Association's Sept. 13, 1996, telephone interview with Smith. In the interview, Smith again stated that he had offered Garvey a contract extension sometime after the All-Star break in 1985, and that the offer had been withdrawn as a result of the collusion between the clubs. In addition, Smith admitted that he had not told the truth about the collusion in the 1986 hearings. Finally, Smith described the reason why he came forward during Garvey's arbitration to provide new evidence: he said that although he has had no rela tionship of any kind with Garvey for the past seven or eight years and his only relationships during that period have been with friends in ownership, he felt compelled to offer the evidence pertaining to Garvey's claim to right what I feel was a wrong I participated in against Steve. 46 In his May 1, 1997 award addressing fifty-eight players' claims, the arbitrator sustained several players' objections to the plan distribution, but denied Garvey's. The arbitrator's award dedicated over five pages to discussion of Garvey's claim and the Association's denial of it. The arbitrator's discussion noted Garvey's testimony regarding the circumstances of the alleged offer and withdrawal. The arbitrator cited the letter from Smith and quoted its assertion that the offer was withdrawn due to collusion. The arbitrator wrote that this statement, taken on its face, appears to support the position of Garvey advanced in this proceeding. The arbitrator nonetheless concluded that [t]here exists, however, substantial doubt as to the credibility of the statements in the Smith letter. The arbitrator quoted Smith's testimony from the 1986 collusion proceedings in which Smith had stated that the Padres were not in fact interested in continuing Garvey's contract in 1986 and that there had been no collusion. The arbitrator determined that 47 [i]n light of the stark contradictions between the con tents of the recently produced letter from Smith and his earlier sworn testimony that the Padres were not interested in re-signing Garvey, I must reject his more recent assertion that Garvey did not receive an extension to his contract covering the 1988 and 1989 seasons because the Padres were forced by the other owners to participate in the collusion scheme. 48 The arbitrator found that, [w]hile Garvey and Smith may well have discussed the possibility of a contract extension, the scenario presented does not meet the test established by the award of February 14, 1994, namely, the requirement of a specific offer of an extension made prior to collusion only to thereafter be withdrawn when the collusion scheme was initiated. The arbitrator concluded that 49 [t]he shadow cast over the credibility of the Smith testimony coupled with the absence of any other cor roboration of the claim submitted by Garvey com pels a finding that the Padres declined to extend his contract not because of the constraints of the collu sion effort of the clubs but rather as a baseball judg ment founded upon his age and recent injury history. The claim of Garvey for 1988 lost salary damages must therefore be denied.