Donald Fehr is retiring as head of the baseball players’ association after more than a quarter-century in charge of the powerful labour union. Fehr, who turns 61 next month, said Monday he will retire no later than the end of March. He will be succeeded by union general counsel Michael Weiner, his longtime heir apparent. Weiner will head negotiations heading into the expiration of the current labour contract in December 2011. “I have no hesitancy in recommending to the players that he be given the opportunity to do this job,” Fehr said. A clerk to a federal judge who became the top lawyer to pioneering union head Marvin Miller in 1977, Fehr took over as acting executive director in 1983. His early years in charge were defined by management’s conspiracy against free agents. The union successfully charged management with conspiring against free agents in violation of the labour contractin the 1980s and settled the cases for US$280 million.