1 President Clinton's deadline for settling the Major League Baseball strike came and went without agreement.
2 Presidential mediator W.J. Usery did not present his plan for a settlement.
3 Players filed another unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board.
4 All in all, Monday was not exactly a banner day for the old ball game.
5 'It's just a few hundred folks trying to figure out how to divide nearly dlrs 2 billion,' Clinton said, summing up a popular sentiment. 'They ought to be able to figure that out.'
6 But with so much money at stake, and the sides so far apart, it didn't seem that easy.
7 White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta discussed the president's involvement trying to settle the strike Tuesday morning on a couple of TV talk shows.
8 Interviewed on Fox TV, Panetta said 'the president met with Mr. Usery last night and Mr. Usery said he was making some progress. . So, he's got until 3 o'clock (2000 GMT). But there's obviously, at some point, a time if we don't get agreement when the president is going to have to recommend further action to the Congress.'
9 Asked what action President Clinton would recommend, Panetta said, 'the president hasn't made that final decision, but it could be anything from binding arbitration -- requesting that -- to enacting whatever proposal Mr. Usery has recommended for settlement.'
10 Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole weighed in on the issue Tuesday, saying on the Senate floor 'there is simply no more sand left in the negotiating hourglass.'
11 But Dole said there are no magic solutions to be found in Congress and the only answer, if the parties can't agree among themselves, is to voluntarily accept whatever Usery proposes.
12 On Monday, Labor Secretary Robert Reich noted: 'On this 100th anniversary of Babe Ruth's birth, the Babe would not be enormously optimistic for any quick settlement right now.'
13 Clinton's deadline of 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT) Monday for an agreement passed without Usery presenting his terms for a solution. Usery said his recommendations would be ready at 3 p.m. (2000 GMT) Tuesday.
14 'We simply ran out of time,' Usery said.
15 Usery tried his best to be upbeat, despite bouncing back and forth from the White House to the Mayflower Hotel, where talks were definitely not taking place.
16 'I refuse to be pessimistic, although it is very difficult to seem to find a voluntary agreement between the parties,' he said.
17 No matter what he did, Usery could not persuade players and owners to meet with each other. They did not speak for the second straight day, even after Clinton ordered them to try to solve the dispute themselves.
18 On Tuesday, according union head Donald Fehr, Usery hoped to give suggestions to both sides about how they might resolve their differences. Later, Usery planned to take his proposal to the president.
19 Usery met separately with each side after returning from the White House. Though he has been staying up until the early-morning hours for a week while trying to get a deal, Usery turned in well before midnight.
20 'We'll wait and see what system Bill recommends,' Atlanta Braves president Stan Kasten said. 'We're hoping it's something we can work with.'
21 'Obviously, any delay jeopardizes spring training,' he said.
22 As things stood, there seemed little chance of opening training camps Feb. 16 with regular major leaguers. Still, owners plan to begin having pitchers and catchers report that day, even if it means using strikebreakers.
23 It was uncertain what Clinton would do if the sides rejected Usery's plan. The president could propose special legislation to enact terms of a settlement or binding arbitration, but both types of bills would have to be approved by the House of Representatives and Senate.
24 'We detect among many members of Congress a desire to see baseball get back on the boards for 1995,' White House spokesman Mike McCurry said.
25 But Rep. John Boehner, an Ohio congressman who chairs the House Republican caucus, said he did not think Congress 'ought to involve ourselves in this labor dispute.'
26 'I think disputes between labor and management ought to be resolved between labor and management,' Boehner said.
27 Players filed an amended unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB claiming owners unfairly instituted a signing ban Monday.

" It ' s just a few hundred folks trying to figure out how to divide nearly dlrs 2 billion , " Clinton said , summing up a popular sentiment . " They ought to be able to figure that out . "
how to divide nearly dlrs 2 billion , "
Why was there such discontent among both sides?