A different generation: While warning us that it would be difficult to fully express his feelings in a limited span of time, former Bear running back Gale Sayers nevertheless shared some thoughts regarding the players` strike at a luncheon Tuesday touting the soon-to-be-built Sports Immortals Museum. ”In three or four weeks,” said Sayers, who began his pro football career 22 years ago, ”I think you`ll see half the players crossing over the (picket) line. A lot of them can`t afford to be out there. They`re making 20 or 30 thousand a game, and they can`t miss that paycheck. They`re saying the players (hired to replace the strikers) are no good, but many were the last cuts. They may be 10 pounds too light or a second too slow, but the quality across the league will be the same and the public may buy it, whether they go to the stadiums or watch it on TV. If the (new) Bears start winning, knowing Chicago fans they`ll be out there watching. They`re going to forget about the Paytons and the McMahons and the Dents. If the quality is there, I think the public will buy it. I really do.”
A new age
Franco Harris shared the dais with Sayers on Tuesday and, having been through two player strikes during his career, had a great deal of empathy for those out of work. ”You have a lot of owners from the `40`s and `50`s who don`t want to accept the fact that this is the `80`s,” said the former Steeler running back. ”I`m very disturbed about the players who have crossed the picket lines. By doing that, it really sets the players` association back to the `40`s and `50`s. It shows no heart, no guts and no compassion for fellow players. I`m not a strong union-type person in general and never have been, but there are certain issues that have to be addressed, and the owners are too strong and too intimidating.”
Hidden motive
Here is a concern of some National Football League executives, and a reason the league`s teams have kept their camps open and are playing games this Sunday: If they closed down, their collective action could be portrayed as a lockout, and some arbitrator could then declare all NFL players free agents. There is no certainty this would happen, but the murkiness of labor law makes it a possibility and a risk the owners don`t want to take.
Court sense
Leigh Steinberg is an attorney who represents Jim Harbaugh, and he says:
”There are agents who have been advocating for a number of months now that, instead of striking, the players should simply let the collective bargaining agreement expire, go to court and declare their free agency.” Are you among those agents? ”It`s an intriguing legal argument. There are enough permutations and arguments to keep you going as long as you were arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I`d rather see a new collective bargaining agreement, though at this point it seems their (the owners`) purpose is to show the players just who is running the game and to not bargain.”
The dirty half-dozen
The group is called the Agents Advisory Committee, and it acts as a liaison between the players` union and their individual representatives. Steinberg, who is based in Los Angeles, is part of it, as are Chicago`s Jack Childers, St. Louis` Jim Steiner, Boston`s Bob Woolf, Denver`s Jack Mills and Washington`s Brig Owens. On the Friday before the players` strike was called, the union brought these half-dozen together and they took a hard look at what the owners called their offer. ”But I wouldn`t even call it an offer. It was more an outline of what their objectives were,” says Steiner, who represents Bears William Perry and Dan Hampton. ”It was very vague. Very general. Going into that meeting, we were all unsure of the positions the two sides were holding. Coming out, we felt the union was justified in its position. I think the union was forced into its position.”
”I think,” says Steinberg, ”that the owners made a decision to go into a strike situation with an offer appreciably rolled back in hopes of getting a better deal.”
The bottom line
Both Steiner and Steinberg agree that the proposed signing bonus and wage scale for first- ($60,000) and second-year ($70,000) players would save the owners some $50 million annually, and owners privately do not deny that.
”But,” says Steiner, ”there are not any guarantees that that money would go back into the system in some fashion. That made it not viable for anyone.” ”I looked in vain for any mechanism that returned that $50 million to the veterans, and it wasn`t there,” agrees Steinberg. ”Not only wasn`t it there, but the existence of the $70,000 second-year player assured that the league would become a younger league (since, when faced with a choice, teams would cut higher-paid vets). We were collectively stunned at the offer, but by cleverly focusing on free agency, they obscure the fact that they`re changing the way they pay rookies, that there is no increase for veterans and that there are negligible back-end (pension and severence) benefits. It (the strategy) paints the players as greedy and focuses fan anger on the player, and it`s a very clever strategy. Except for causing a destructive strike, it`s very clever.”
And finally . . .
. . . this idea from WXRT-FM jock Terri Hemmert, who offered it up on her Tuesday morning show: A manufacturer should begin marketing a line of teddy bears where each bear has scabs on its knees.
