Glavine: I side with players, but 'I see the owners' arguments'

Hall of Famer Tom Glavine isn't as critical of MLB owners as some others have been since the league canceled the first two regular-season series after negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement fell apart.

"No. When you get out of the game, and in some regards when you mature a little bit more, it's easier to see the arguments on both sides," Glavine said Wednesday when asked if he believes the ongoing lockout is driven by the owners, according to Jeff Schultz of The Athletic.

"When you're a player, your nature is to fight and push back - 'It's your fault,' that kind of thing. I'm always going to side with the players, but I see the owners' arguments."

The Atlanta Braves legend agrees with the union that younger players aren't paid "proportionally" and that a competitive balance tax acts as an artificial salary cap. However, the two-time Cy Young winner also understands that things are different from the perspective of the owners.

"When you start getting into the arbitration pool and arbitration and free-agent eligibility and service-time manipulation," Glavine said, "it's like, 'OK, what are you going to give me (the owners) if we change some of those things?'"

However, the former 22-year veteran said he didn't "know enough about the inner workings" of negotiations to suggest what owners should receive in return.

Glavine was a pivotal member of the MLBPA during the 1994 strike that resulted in a seven-month work stoppage and no World Series. When baseball returned in 1995, Braves fans booed him at home.

"They were throwing money at me," he said. "There was a dude who was up there in the right-field stands who was passing the hat, just like we used to do at little league games to raise money."