Not Heaven, Not Iowa, This Is Newt’s World

WALESKA, Ga. — Movie buff and House Speaker Newt Gingrich once again has suggested Hollywood has simple solutions to tangled national problems.

In a news conference after his weekly history lecture at Reinhardt College on Saturday, Gingrich said that striking baseball players and team owners might break their six-month deadlock by studying a 1989 baseball movie.

“They ought to watch ‘Field of Dreams’ and ask themselves, ‘Isn’t there some spirit of cooperation here?’ ” Gingrich, a Georgia Republican, said. “ ‘Isn’t there some spirit of caring about our national pastime?’ They ought to have a spirit of reconciliation. It can be a nice ski resort, it can be someplace in the Caribbean. I don’t care where they go. They should stay there and talk as human beings until they find a solution to the national pastime.”

Gingrich said such a retreat would be better than imposing a settlement by congressional action. After meeting with mediator William J. Usery, Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said they had no intention of moving quickly on President Clinton’s legislation to create a panel of independent arbitrators.

Later Saturday, at a town hall meeting, Gingrich said it might be a good idea to repeal the baseball owners’ antitrust exemption, but not as a means of settling the strike. Players’ union head Donald Fehr has told members of Congress he would ask the players to end the strike if Congress repeals the exemption.

Gingrich created a stir in December when he suggested Hillary Rodham Clinton watch the 1938 movie classic “Boys Town” before dismissing his proposal that welfare reform include placing more children in orphanages.