By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Now, really, did negotiating a new Major League Baseball labor contract have to be this tough?

Compared to hitting Curt Schilling or keeping Barry Bonds from going deep, you'd think getting baseball's owners and players to agree on a deal that would keep the season going should have been, well, a can of corn.

With baseball's abundant riches — $3.55 billion in annual revenues — there was enough for everybody. Always has been. Billions for the billionaire owners and millions for the millionaire players, whose average salary was already $2.38 million.

All they had to do was agree on a formula to share it without choking each other or wringing the neck of the golden goose in the process.

After all, the NFL and NBA had found cooperation and labor peace with a shorter running start and a whole lot less acrimony.

But, then, to assume baseball could do the same was to suppose its feuding Hatfields and McCoys could ignore their spiteful history long enough to be civil to each other and find common ground rather than trying to stomp each other deep into it.

So, in the end, it required both parties, after twiddling their thumbs since November, to work feverishly through the night, past the strike deadline and into the afternoon yesterday to get a settlement.

For this we have had to endure eight labor stoppages in three decades?

And now long suffering baseball fans are supposed to shower the fields (most of which have been paid for with tax money) with confetti? They should gladly pony up the next round of higher prices that are sure to follow?

It is a welcome relief, of course, that the down-to-the-wire pennant races and wild-card battles have been preserved, that there will be a full slate of playoffs and a World Series. It is wonderful that Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Alex Rodriguez can continue to wage their home run race uninterrupted.

But, really, what took them so long? This wasn't cancer they were trying to cure — although for all the money and time that has been squandered along the way, you'd like to believe one could have been found if the resources had been devoted to research.

No, this is a monopoly, one that, thanks to antitrust provisions, has done nothing more grand than not succumb to sinking itself.

It might be too much to expect that the deal, which we are told will keep the stadium lights on through 2006, will bring competitive balance. It is probably too much to ask that the owners and players will now treat each other as partners and fans as more than cash cows.

But if, after 1,718 games lost to lockouts and strikes since 1972, the deal puts baseball on the path to a peaceful future, it will be a success.

The shame is that it took this long.