D6 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20 , 2022
sit back and collect revenue from
those that do. MLB declared this
a non-starter, arguing that any
reduction in revenue sharing
will only make it harder for those
teams to compete instead of
pushing them to do so.
The sides agreed to implement
a universal designated hitter,
and they seem to agree that
owners will be allowed to sell ad
space on jerseys in the form of
patches and decals, though noth-
ing is official until it is written in
a ratified CBA.
And in a rare display of coop-
eration, the sides have been
meeting regularly to hash out the
less contentious details of the
lengthy CBA, hoping to have the
little stuff ready whenever the
big stuff is settled. For the first
time this offseason, multiple
owners plan to be present at
in-person negotiations this
week. For the first time since the
lockout began in early December,
the sides plan to meet for several
consecutive days. For all they
cannot agree on, the union and
owners finally seem to agree that
now — with the season on the
brink, with spring training
games already lost for the first
time in a generation — is the
time to make a push.tiations on both sides and by
those who have been involved in
negotiations past is that once
talks become about mere num-
bers — as opposed to, say, the
union’s initial request to change
free agency and allow players to
test the market after five
years not six — a deal is within
reach.
In other words, the fact that
MLB agreed to implement a
draft lottery to prevent annual
losers from being guaranteed
top picks would suggest the
heaviest lifting on that issue
may already be done, even
though it wants the first three
picks determined by the lottery
and the players hope for the first
eight. Both sides agreed to ex-
pand the number of teams in the
playoffs if everything holds, but
the union has reluctantly agreed
to expand to 12 teams, while
MLB — whose owners make
large portions of their revenue
from the postseason — is argu-
ing for 14.
The sides have not whittled
these talks down to mere num-
bers on every issue. The players
hope to reduce the amount of
revenue sharing between teams
so that small-market teams that
don’t spend to win cannot simplytwo years of service time eligible
for arbitration, as was the case a
few generations or so ago, before
the union conceded a year in
previous negotiations. MLB offi-
cials have all but laughed aloud
at that proposal, insisting the
owners would never approve
such a jump in the number of
players able to argue for their
value rather than be assigned it
by major league minimums. So
on Thursday, the players suggest-
ed that 80 percent of players with
two years of service time qualify
for arbitration instead.
The owners do seem to agree
that as younger players are relied
upon for a greater percentage of
production, they should be paid
a larger share of the revenue
than the minimum salaries they
currently earn. So they agreed to
a union-suggested framework of
a pre-arbitration bonus pool that
would reward top performers
with less than three years of
service time.
But the players want that pool
to consist of $115 million to be
disbursed among the top 150 eli-
gible players. The owners’ pro-
posals have maxed out at $15 mil-
lion for the top 30.
A common sentiment shared
by those involved with the nego-MLB proposals that might other-
wise be considered concessions.
But while they can’t often
agree on what constitutes a
concession, both sides will need
to make several more of them in
the next seven days to keep
Opening Day scheduled for
March 31. The players, for exam-
ple, say they need the owners to
back off their proposals to dou-
ble the taxes charged to teams
that exceed the competitive bal-
ance tax threshold, assuming
the sides can even agree on the
threshold itself.
The union has proposed a
competitive balance tax thresh-
old of roughly $240 million for
the 2022 season, which would
represent an unprecedented
year-to-year jump from $210 mil-
lion in 2021. Revenue has in-
creased faster than that thresh-
old in recent years, the union
argues. A big jump would make
up for lost time.
The owners, meanwhile, have
raised their proposed number to
$214 million in 2021 and
$222 million by the fifth year of
the deal, about $8 million higher
over five years than previous
proposals.
The players also wanted to
make every player with at leastthe most hostile labor clash in a
generation after a decade and a
half of collective bargaining
agreements the union felt tilted
the financial balance of power
firmly in the owners’ direction.
The union was so dissatisfied
with the way those agreements
went that it hired a new lead
negotiator this time — Bruce
Meyer, a veteran of labor clashes
with a reputation of relative
fearlessness in talks such as
these.
The players started outlining
their goals for this agreement in
vague terms as early as the 2018
All-Star Game at Nationals Park,
then again at high-profile gather-
ings since: The next CBA would
need to enforce a commitment to
winning on the part of all teams,
to pay the younger players pro-
ducing an increasing share of
on-field value commensurate
with that production and, of
course, encourage more spend-
ing on players instead of discour-
aging it.
All the while, Manfred’s rheto-
ric and on-field changes imple-
mented unilaterally by his office
furthered a sense of mistrust
between MLB and its players,
and many union members are
suspicious of the motives behindthat started months ago; the
World Series ended in early No-
vember, and the lockout began in
early December.
The owners say the players are
asking for drastic changes to the
existing free agency and com-
pensation framework and have
not backed off nearly enough of
those demands to make negotia-
tions productive.
The players charge the owners
were under no legal obligation to
lock them out, and they say they
did so to create a sense of
urgency around the negotiations
before waiting 43 days to reach
out again. The union believes
owners have made the negotia-
tions too narrow, arbitrarily lim-
iting the topics on which they
will even hear proposals, let
alone consider them.
So here the players sit, locked
out of spring training camps that
were supposed to open already,
collecting only small checks from
the Major League Baseball Play-
ers Association’s war chest until
baseball begins again.
Privately and publicly, both
sides have suggested for years
this was coming. Many in the
industry worried this would be
MLB FROM D1
A week of negotiations will determine whether MLB will have to cancel games
ton. When he retired in 1977, he
held the all-time NFL record with
649 catches. His 90 career touch-
downs, including 11 by rushing,
are still the franchise record.
He was on Washington’s coach-
ing staff from 1981 through 1993
and helped shape the career of
Art Monk, who surpassed his
career mark for receptions. Mr.
Taylor was one of two people —
the other was assistant coach
LaVern “Torgy” Torgeson — asso-
ciated with all five Washington
teams to reach the Super Bowl.
He later became an executive
with a Virginia construction firm,
had other business interests and
made speaking appearances.
Survivors include his wife
since 1965, the former Patricia
Grant; three children; and sev-
eral grandchildren.
In January 1984, Mr. Taylor was
helping Washington prepare for
the Super Bowl when he learned
that he had been named to the
Pro Football Hall of Fame. The
players began singing, “Here’s to
Charley, he’s happy, he’s jolly,” as
he fought back tears.
“I feel very proud, obviously,”
Mr. Taylor said. “I went through
some great times, and I went
through some tough times, a lot
of ups and downs, and I feel like
I’ve paid my dues, no question.
But I enjoyed it all, every minute
of it.”Nicki Jhabvala contributed to this
report.the Tuesday before the game, a
Black p layer on Washington’s in-
jured reserve list, Jim Snowden,
missed the team curfew. Allen,
the coach, wanted to send him
back to Washington as a disciplin-
ary measure.
“But that Wednesday all the
Black players on the team came to
me,” Mr. Taylor told The Post in- “I was the captain. The
petition said, ‘If you send
Snowden home, we’re not going
to p lay the game.’ ”
Mr. Taylor and another team
captain, Len Hauss, persuaded
Allen not to discipline Snowden,
thus avoiding a team mutiny. In
the end, the Dolphins won the
Super Bowl, 14-7, capping the only
perfect season in NFL history.
“The team was kind of upset
about the whole [Snowden]
thing,” Mr. Taylor said. “I can’t say
that’s why we lost the game to
Miami. But it sure didn’t help.”
Charles Robert Taylor was
born Sept. 28, 1941, in Grand
Prairie, Tex. His mother was a
domestic worker, cook and res-
taurant owner, and his stepfather
worked at a manufacturing plant.
Mr. Taylor made all-state teams
in football and track and went to
Arizona State on an athletic
scholarship. He graduated in
After Washington won a coin
toss with the Cowboys to deter-
mine which team would get the
third pick in the NFL draft, Mr.
Taylor was selected by Washing-
professional football team in
1964 as a first-round draft choice,
the third pick overall. He was
recognized from the beginning as
a budding superstar.
“He had the great, smooth,
classical moves that you don’t
teach,” said Frank Kush, his coach
at Arizona State, where Mr. Taylor
was a two-time all-American. “He
had it all. He was poetry on a
football field.”
The 6-foot-3, 210-pound Mr.
Taylor spent his first two seasons
in Washington as a running back.
In his NFL debut against the
Cleveland Browns, he scored a
touchdown on a 17-yard run and
caught eight passes for 88 yards.
“Taylor probably is the greatest
natural football player I’ve ever
seen,” Washington Coach Bill Mc-
Peak said in 1964. “He combines
power, speed and fine open field
moves.”
Fans and opponents saw the
full extent of Mr. Taylor’s talents
in the fifth game of his rookie
season, when Washington met
the Philadelphia Eagles.
It was Redskins quarterback
Sonny Jurgensen’s first game
against his old team, which had
traded him before the season.
(Jurgensen passed for five touch-
downs in a 35-20 Washington
victory.)
Mr. Taylor ran for 61 yards and
caught three passes for 92 yards
and two touchdowns. In the third
quarter, he flared out of the back-
field toward the left sideline and
caught Jurgensen’s pass at the
line of scrimmage, the Washing-
ton 34-yard-line.
He immediately spun away
from one tackler, then faked out a
charging linebacker three yards
later. Farther downfield, Mr. Tay-
lor seemed trapped by three de-
fenders but slipped between two
of them and then made a sudden
move to his left, leaving the third
Eagle flat on his face. He then
escaped two more lunging de-
fenders as he sped down the left
sideline on his way to the end
zone.
Mr. Taylor eluded no fewer
than seven would-be tacklers dur-
ing his spectacular 66-yard run. It
was the kind of play that would
become a hallmark of his career.
He often turned short passes into
long gains through his broken-
field running and his 9.6-second
speed in the 100-yard dash.
“I felt that being a running
back, being able to run through
the line and make guys miss,
helped me in the long run,” Mr.
Taylor told NFL Films, “because if
I would get the ball on a corner-
back who was not used to facing
too many running backs down-
field... he was at a disadvantage.”
In 1966, after Otto Graham
became Washington’s head
coach, Mr. Taylor was moved to
split end, forming a remarkable
receiving corps that included Hall
of Fame flanker Bobby Mitchell
and tight end Jerry Smith.
“I wasn’t really all that sure
about the switch at the time,” Mr.
Taylor told The Washington Post
in 1984, “but obviously it was the
best thing that ever could have
happened to me.”
Mr. Taylor led the NFL with
72 receptions in 1966, scoring a
career-high 12 touchdowns. The
next year, despite missing two
games to injury, he led the league
again, with 70 catches. His team-
mates Smith and Mitchell fin-
ished second and fourth, respec-
tively, with 67 and 60. Mr. Taylor
was second in the NFL with 71 re-
TAYLOR FROM D1
Taylor remembered for his elegance on the field, class o≠ it
FOCUS ON SPORT/GETTY IMAGES
Charley Taylor played running back early in his NFL career but was
soon switched to wide receiver, and he was the league’s all-time
leading pass catcher when he retired after spending his entire c areer
with Washington. Mr. Taylor said he had to adjust his playing style
when George Allen, pictured with Mr. Taylor in left photo, b ecame
the team’s coach in 1971, but a year later he scored two t ouchdowns
in the NFC title game as Washington reached the Super Bowl.In the second quarter, Mr. Tay-
lor caught a 15-yard touchdown
pass from Kilmer. Early in the
fourth quarter, with Washington
holding a 10-3 lead, Kilmer
heaved a 45-yard pass to Mr.
Taylor, who caught the ball in
stride as he crossed the goal line,
leaving his Dallas defender diving
in vain at his heels. Washington
won, 26-3, in a game Mr. Taylor
recalled as “a mirage, when every-
thing we tried worked, when ev-
ery pass was on the money, when
we could do no wrong.”
The team traveled to Los Ange-
les to face the unbeaten Miami
Dolphins in Super Bowl VII. Onwas controlled offense, take no
chances, and teams knew it. Sure
I was frustrated.”
After missing eight games with
a broken ankle in 1971, Mr. Taylor
returned the next year to lead the
team with 49 catches. He also
became known as perhaps the
NFL’s best blocker among wide
receivers.
With a spirited group of older
players dubbed the Over-the-Hill
Gang, Washington finished the
1972 season with an 11-3 record
and met the Dallas Cowboys in
the NFC championship game for
the chance to advance to the
Super Bowl.ceptions in 1969 and again in
1973, with 59.
Still, Washington’s powerful
air attack was not enough to
overcome lackluster defenses
throughout the 1960s. Mr. Taylor
did not see his first winning sea-
son until 1969, when Vince Lom-
bardi coached the team for his
only season in Washington.
In 1971, George Allen took over
as head coach, installing a new
style of offense built around the
run and featuring Billy Kilmer as
the primary quarterback.
“I had to change my whole style
of playing for George,” Mr. Taylor
told The Post in 1979. “His theoryCHARLES BENNETT/ASSOCIATED PRESS