Labor negotiator Ray Grebey dies at 85

Ray Grebey, who led Major League Baseball labor negotiations during the tumultuous 50-day strike that split the 1981 season, has died. He was 85.

Grebey died Aug. 28 in Stamford, Conn. His son, Clarence R. "Bud" Grebey III, said his father was diagnosed with stomach cancer in late July and the disease was aggressive.

Hired by baseball owners in 1978 following 20 years at General Electric Co., the pipe-smoking Grebey succeeded John Gaherin as the sport's chief labor negotiator. After an arbitrator struck down the reserve clause, Gaherin had worked out the deal in 1976 that created free agency.

Grebey was part of a turbulent era, when baseball was shut down by eight work stoppages in a 23-year span. He went up against longtime union head Marvin Miller in the 1980-81 labor talks, which led to a bruising work stoppage over the issue of compensation for team owners for players lost to free agency.

Players struck on June 12, 1981, the first midseason stoppage in the sport's history, and they didn't reach an agreement until July 31: Compensation would come from a pool of players, not from the team signing a free agent.

The most significant shift under that deal came in January 1984, when the Mets failed to include Tom Seaver among their 26 protected players. The future Hall of Famer was claimed by the Chicago White Sox, who had lost a player to another team.

The compensation draft was dropped in the 1985 negotiations. "It was a million-dollar strike over a 10-cent issue," Grebey once said.

Grebey, who was born in Chicago, graduated from Kenyon College and received an MBA degree from the University of Chicago. He served in the U.S. Army in Korea.

Grebey left baseball in 1982 and was hired as a vice president with Pan American World Airways.

He left Pan Am in 1989 to become a founding executive of the Trump Shuttle and stayed on when it was partially acquired by US Airways Group Inc. in 1992. He left when US Air completed the acquisition in 1997.

Grebey was hired as chief labor negotiator for the City of Stamford and appointed to the Connecticut State Board of Labor Relations.

"Ray was a professional who had a decorated career in labor relations, spanning challenging tasks not only in baseball but many different industries," baseball commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement. "It is my hope that he was proud of the labor peace that the game now enjoys."

Grebey is survived by his wife of 61 years, Marilyn Isett Grebey; his son and two daughters.