News item: On Thursday, the Professional Lacrosse Players Association declared itself on strike, effective Saturday at 12:01 AM Eastern time.

"We are most troubled by the refusal of union leaders to negotiate with us in a timely manner," National Lacrosse League commissioner Jim Jennings said. "The league made its initial offer to the PLPA on [31 July].

"The PLPA did not provide a counter proposal until [15 November], less than six weeks prior to the opening date of the [2004] regular season. We have remained ready, willing and able to reach a new agreement."

News item: Saturday evening, PLPA cancelled a Sunday negotiating session with team representatives.

"I am disappointed in the association's decision to cancel Sunday's session," Jennings said. "Our negotiating committee went through great lengths to come to New York through the inclement weather.

"With the season rapidly approaching, we can ill afford to lose an entire weekend, especially in light of the fact that the players have limited all bargaining sessions to weekends only. We continue to make ourselves available for bargaining sessions seven days a week."

Notice that only Jennings is quoted above, and that PLPA president Peter Schmitz's comments are conspicuously absent. There's a reason for that, and it's not that the Outsider's Guide is biased against the union.

It's that Schmitz and his right-hand man, Dave Succamore, aren't talking.

Schmitz has popped up just once by our count, complaining to the Philadelphia Inquirer that the owners are proposing "the wholesale modification of the current salary structure with an unreasonable minimum and an unreasonable cap."

Succamore has been a little more active and quite a bit more blunt, declaring that "the proposal we received from the NLL is unacceptable" and that the problem with the league's proposal is "their whole proposal."

Nice rhetoric, but is that all you have, guys?

While PLPA is operating under cloak of darkness, so to speak, the league has not been hesitant to go public with the latest developments.

It was Jennings who announced the strike declaration on Thursday (ponder that).

It was Jennings who informed the media that there would be no negotiations today.

And it is Schmitz and Succamore who appear to be playing games with those negotiations.

The league did indeed submit its first offer all the way back in July. It was an extreme offer, even in the minds of the league representatives pitching it.

However, it took the union until November to acknowledge the offer, and did so in a scathing public rebuke ("League Proposal Smells of Old MILL Days," the headline read).

Since then, and probably because of the negative reaction among the fans, PLPA has kept very low-key.

However, this isn't a civil discourse anymore (if you want to argue that it ever was). This is a full-blown labor action. This is war, and war demands that you use all the weapons at your disposal.

If you're not working the media (and the opposition is), you're not in a fair fight.

Why isn't anyone from the union making the point that while management's representatives can meet anytime and anywhere, they can not? After all, it is part of the team presidents' and general managers' jobs to negotiate; Schmitz, Succamore, and most of the player representatives have day jobs to attend.

Why isn't anyone from the union defending the decision to sit on the owners' offer until a month and a half before the season? Did it really take that long to make a counteroffer, or did you just want to make a statement while some players were still owed back pay?

Why isn't anyone from the union publicly rebutting the "last, best and final offer" Jennings sent out to players on Thursday? There are plenty of items that the players will not agree to, but to the casual observer, the offer appears pretty damn good.

Why isn't anyone from the union reminding us that it's a challenge to reach New York City in a snowstorm? Why isn't anyone explaining why the two sides couldn't negotiate via conference call instead of face-to-face?

If you follow the media reports, it is very easy to believe that the league is desperately trying to make a reasonable deal with the players and that the union is desperately trying to scuttle any chance of labor peace.

Reality isn't quite so lopsided, and anyone who knows Schmitz and Succamore (who have their players' best interests at heart) and the owners (who have their own best interests at heart) can assure you of that.

It's just so easy to forget that part, though, when one side fails to show up for the media war.