NEW YORK -- Major league baseball's eighth work stoppage since 1972 is virtually certain to begin Friday as owners and players ended their last negotiating session having made no progress.


Baseball's labor negotiators seemingly surrendered Wednesday to the inevitability of a shutdown after a brief bargaining session produced little and so much anger that the next meeting probably won't come until after the players strike Friday.


Wednesday's session consisted mainly of Richard Ravitch, the chief negotiator for the owners, telling 13 members of the Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies why his side must have a proposal that includes a ceiling on salaries -- a salary cap -- similar to the one adopted by the National Football League.


The players responded that they won't accept a salary cap because it restricts salaries and free agency. And when the session ended, both sides took their cases into the court of public opinion via the press, which is where the real war is being waged in these final days.


The players have said they must strike because the owners will declare an impasse and unilaterally impose the salary cap system during the offseason. They are striking now, with 52 days remaining in the regular season, because the owners have more to lose. Players have already collected most of their 1994 salaries, while owners don't get the final $5 million of their $7.5 million national television money until after the World Series.


Each side privately doubts the other will remain unified throughout a long work stoppage, and when Wednesday's session broke off there was no prediction when there might be another meeting.


(WP, LAT)