Arbitration has been a part of baseball for a dozen years now, but that doesn’t make it any easier to explain. It works basically this way.

Baseball players don’t have to ask the owner of the team for a raise. They can ask the government.

One considers the wisdom of this arrangement.

The last time I asked the government for anything–a new driver’s license –I got mail for the next two months trying to sell me plastic seat covers.

The driver’s license came much later under separate cover.

That has been my experience with the machinery of arbitration, and baseball players have my sympathy. I imagine the real reason so many of them never actually sit down with an arbitrator is because they have no idea how to fit seat covers on a Ferrari.

Still, 98 players filed for arbitration this year, preferring the modern method of settling contract disputes to the old way, which served baseball diligently for more than 100 years.

Baseball has always resisted rushing headlong into progress. The guiding creed of baseball is to wait before putting one high-button shoe in front of the other. It took the National Labor Relations Board to change things.

This is how arbitration is supposed to keep order in baseball.

A player takes all of his statistics before a stranger who judges whether they are worth what the player thinks they are.

An owner takes his statistics before a stranger, who is surprised to learn that the owner is talking about the same player who was in just a few minutes before.

Batters show things like runs batted in, hits and runs scored.

Owners show times grounded into double plays, strikeouts and times picked off first base.

Pitchers show earned-run average, victories and strikeouts.

Owners show winning runs allowed, losses and bases on balls.

The arbitrator then figures out who is the poorer liar and makes a decision.

Players and owners used to sort this stuff out between themselves. This was before agents and the NLRB started poking around in the grand old game.

The owner would sip his mint julep and try not to look at his watch while the player made his case, and then the owner would decide how much money the player would get.

This seemed sort of one-sided to the players.

Long arguments and holdouts would result, and the best players would generally get half of what they asked for, while mediocre players would be traded to Cleveland.

Not only are things much more democratic now, thanks to arbitration, but the public gets to watch.

In order for arbitration to work, the arbitrator needs to know how much money players of equal ability and position are making.

The owners provide this information to the players’ union, which passes it along to its members.

The players want to know how much someone else is making so they can ask for at least as much money without blushing.

Before arbitration became an annual February adventure, the only people who knew what ballplayers earned were sportswriters, who had heard the figures from the barber of a front-office secretary’s husband.

This was known, in the business, as a reliable source.

Nobody ever thought of coming right out and asking Carlton Fisk how much money he made. Only golfers, auto racers and jockeys tell us that, and we all know what kind of athletes they are.

Arbitration has removed from baseball any reason to be devious, which has changed a lot of general managers into accountants, not a pretty sight.

The only hitch in all of this is that the arbitrator can decide on only one salary figure, either the player’s or the owner’s.

If, as has been determined from a reliable source, Leon Durham wants $1.1 million and the Cubs only offer $800,000, there can be no compromise at $950,000.

The mere threat of an objective judge deciding on the higher figure tends to cause unreasonable panic in front offices and baseless arrogance in the clubhouse.

What happens is players ask for more money than they think they can get and the owners counter with more money than they think they should pay.

And the ultimate irony is that usually the whole thing is settled without an arbitrator.

The player makes so much money he doesn’t have to play as hard as he did when he was poor, the owner cries poverty and raises ticket prices, which he was always looking for an excuse to do anyhow, and everybody blames the government.

I would say the system is perfect.