NEW YORK -- Baseball commissioner Bud Selig won't lock out players through the World Series, but left open the possibility that new work rules would be imposed during the offseason, a move that could trigger another strike this summer.

The players' union, operating without a labor contract since Nov. 7, quickly interpreted Selig's statement Tuesday as a veiled threat to make vast economic changes as soon as the postseason ends or lock the players out after the World Series.

In 1994, the union struck on Aug. 12, saying the move was its only recourse to fight management's plan to implement changes, including a salary cap. The walkout, baseball's eighth since 1972, lasted 232 days and caused the World Series to be canceled for the first time since 1904.

Union head Donald Fehr called Selig's statement "a tacit acknowledgment of the clubs' continuing intention" to make changes after the World Series.

"He thinks what we do not: that the fans can be more easily fooled, fooled into thinking this 'pledge' is a concession of sorts on his part," Fehr said.

Selig said for months that a lockout was not "on my radar screen," but he had refused to rule one out. His promise not to impose new terms and conditions of employment for players through the end of the World Series bore little significance because players already have signed their 2002 contracts.

A rules change in the offseason would affect new contracts signed for 2003 and beyond.

"Our fans deserve to know that the 2002 season will be played to completion without interruption and they deserve to know that now before we begin the new season," Selig said. "Therefore, on behalf of the clubs, I pledge that we will not take any economic action either in the form of a lockout or unilateral implementation against the players' association throughout the course of the season and postseason."

Fehr did not say whether players would make a similar no-strike pledge, and history suggests they won't.

"All I can say, the players setting a strike date is always a last resort," Fehr said.

Negotiations for a new labor contract have been slow, at first delayed by the owners' failed attempt to eliminate the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos. Talks, which recessed March 13, are to resume next week, but the sides are far apart.

The union also fears that owners could lock out players following the World Series or stop negotiating player contracts, a strategy the NBA used after its 1998 playoffs. Baseball's outside counsel is Howard Ganz, the NBA's outside lawyer during the lockout.

"He specifically limited the pledge to the season and postseason, reserving for himself the right to kick off the same strategy the NBA did," Fehr said in Tampa, Fla., after talking to the New York Yankees, the final stop on his tour of the 30 spring-training camps.

During the strike, owners implemented a salary cap on Dec. 23, 1994. However, the players' association filed an unfair labor practice charge, the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint and on March 31, 1995, a federal judge ordered owners to restore the old work rules, which caused players to end their strike.

Negotiations resumed and the sides signed a new contract on March 14, 1997.

Owners say baseball is losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually and has a competitive-balance problem. They have proposed a vast increase in revenue sharing and a 50 percent luxury tax on the portions of payrolls above $98 million.

"Fans accustomed to a semblance of parity in the other professional leagues are not satisfied with a rare winning season. They demand more hope than that," Selig said Tuesday during an on-line chart on baseball's Internet site. "Currently, MLB is divided between the haves and have-nots: those clubs with a legitimate chance of competing and those with none. ...

"I will encourage our negotiators to try to reach an agreement that would promise the following: a) That every fan can base his or her hopes on a club's ability to compete regardless of `market size' or revenues; and b) That every fan will know that his or her favorite player will not leave because the current economic system prevents the home club from economically competing for the player's services."

Players are skeptical of management's claims of losses and haven't agreed that competitive balance is a problem. The union doesn't want to drain the high-revenue teams of money they would otherwise spend on salaries, and it has no interest in a luxury tax that would slow the increase in salaries.

"The inability of the clubs and the players' association to reach closure on a new basic agreement that would resolve the basic inequity of competitive imbalance that exists in our game today should not, I believe, be a burden borne by our fans," Selig said.