CHICAGO (AP) It was the right thing to do.

Whether the baseball players passed up setting a strike date for the right reasons is something different altogether.

Maybe the ballplayers heard the constant grumbling by fans in those increasingly quiet ballparks. Maybe not.

Maybe they read the reports about all the jobs disappearing along with a handful of ballclubs teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and feel they're lacking in chutzpah, leverage or unity at the moment to draw a line in the infield dirt.

It could be that their leadership feels there's not enough cash in the union's strike fund to call the owners' bluff at this exact moment. Or it could be that cooler heads simply prevailed.

The reasons almost don't matter.

The union left its hammer on the table Monday and extended a hand toward management negotiators instead. Woe unto anybody who takes the gesture as a sign of weakness.

"If they do," said union chief Donald Fehr, "I'd suggest they don't know much about their players. And I'd be astonished if anybody in the commissioner's office interprets it that way."

As if on cue, management's top labor lawyer, Rob Manfred, said there was no chance of that happening.

"Both parties feel pressure to reach an agreement because of the enormity of the harm that would be caused by strike," he said during a conference call just moments after the union meeting broke up. "We view this as an opportunity."

Being a smart man, Fehr has hardly limited his target audience to management types. He might be a lawyer by training, but Fehr knows there are times when splitting hairs is the last thing you want to do.

To a large number of fans, setting a strike date means there is going to be a strike. They won't be bothered with distinctions when millionaires fight billionaires for a revenue pie that would feed Third World nations. Fans don't want to hear about desperate measures from men making each year what most of them won't make in a lifetime.

So when someone asked how much impact public opinion may have had in Monday's decision, the union chief said, "Players are obviously cognizant of the fan's thinking. They hear from the fans, read what you write in the papers, listen to what you put on radio and TV."

But then the lawyer in Fehr surfaced.

"Of course, that's a different question than whether one determines a position with public relations as the first point of reference."

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