The Penalties for Delay of Game

By Tom Callahan

Those sacred Sunday services, the National Football League games, were canceled this week by a players' strike and are scheduled to resume next Sunday in a heathen form. Desperate dreamers have been running barricades of picketing stars to get to a field where only the best have ever belonged. Players' negotiator Gene Upshaw charged, "Management is trying to bust the union." His opposite number, Jack Donlan, foresaw "six to eight weeks of hard bargaining." Meanwhile, the N.F.L. planned to count any makeshift games in the standings (in order to ensure at least an adjusted TV contract); the advertisers figured to count the audience to determine their own rebates, and the losses all around may be counted in the tens of millions.

Though the usual matters of salaries and pensions are involved, the paramount issue seems to be free agency, professional sport's current conundrum. The football players' latest crusade for easier passage from team to team coincides with an arbitrator's decree: baseball players, he proclaimed, have been the victims of an owners' conspiracy to flout a free- agent agreement long in place. Unlike major league baseball teams, N.F.L. clubs reserve a right of first refusal on the services of any player whose contract has expired. Should he sign with another of the league's 28 teams, steep compensation in the coin of draft choices is stipulated. Contending that , a pro football player's life expectancy is below four seasons, the union wants all four-year men to be unfettered by compensation clauses. Observing that the average salary is up from $90,000 to $230,000 since 1982 (thanks largely to a zestful war with the now defunct United States Football League), management is adamant about maintaining its system of competitive balance.

Five years ago, when pro football players walked out for 57 days in a bid for a larger percentage of television spoils, the atmosphere was quite different. No substitutes walked in. Last week the flotsam and jetsam from past N.F.L. camps, the U.S.F.L. and summer Arena Football were bused past jeering and egg-throwing picketers and delivered into the hesitant custody of shell-shocked coaches. At first inspection, Ray Perkins of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers judged, "A few are in poor shape; a couple are in no shape at all." The Washington Redskins' Joe Gibbs said, "It's one-two-three again. We're starting right with the basics: the huddle."

A number of celebrated strikebreakers were available for instruction, including San Francisco Linebackers Tom Cousineau and Keith Browner. Cleaving to guaranteed contracts, Quarterbacks Gary Hogeboom of the Indianapolis Colts and Marc Wilson of the Los Angeles Raiders said their hearts were with the union, but they just couldn't afford the sentiment. ("Who's going to pay to see Joe Blow from Idaho quarterback the Raiders?" Defensive End Howie Long had chortled before he knew the situation.) Mark Gastineau of the New York Jets, the famed pass rusher and sack dancer, cited his affection for Owner Leon Hess as the reason he crossed the line. Cowboys Veteran Lineman Randy White mentioned that his earning days are winding down. "He's going to make the All-Pro list this year," Teammate Tony Dorsett predicted with vinegar. "The All-Pro scab list."

For once, those camouflage outfits so fashionable among pro football players looked appropriate. Kansas City's Dino Hackett and Paul Coffman brandished unloaded shotguns from a pickup truck, and Buffalo's Fred Smerlas warned, "If the scabs come in, they're dead men." But most objectors were as gentle spoken as Mrs. R.C. Thielemann, mounted on her Redskin husband's shoulders and spying over a practice-field fence, shouting into a bullhorn, "No. 32, you're supposed to catch that thing!"

Identifying the new players by name took some time: with a straight face, the wire services described $8 million Quarterback Jim Kelly's Buffalo replacement as "an insurance salesman with a history of shoulder trouble." Washington recruited four semipro Richmond Ravens, including one on furlough from jail, and the New York Giants thought of commandeering an intact semipro team. "Under any circumstances," said Gil Brandt, the Cowboy personnel man, "the challenge is assembling the best material available. Even with the untried against the untried, the best organizations should still win. And if it goes much beyond a week, some worthy talent may start to come forth. You have to remember one thing, ((Raiders Tight End)) Todd Christensen was cut twice, by us and the Giants, and he's probably going to end up in the Hall of Fame."

Such is the fantasy offered here, for $3,500 or $5,000 a game. Vince Evans, the 1977 Rose Bowl hero from Southern Cal, once started at quarterback for the Chicago Bears. He looks at joining the Raiders now, for however long or little they want him, as "fulfilling a dream," at the same time admitting, "I've exhausted every opportunity." Lionel Vital, a Louisiana storekeeper who tried baseball too, said the Redskins "might be my last shot." Not every man on the picket line could be brought to a boil by the thought of these wistful understudies going on at last. "If Richard Burton got sick the night before playing Macbeth," said the San Diego Chargers' linebacker Billy Ray Smith, who might have meant Hamlet, "why should he worry if Pee-wee Herman replaces him for one day?" Any longer than a day, for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, who knows?

For questions deep enough to put to Yorick's skull, football has nothing on baseball, where the players were inclined to celebrate a historic victory last week, though no one had the slightest idea what they had won. After almost a decade of an all-enriching free agency, available to any major leaguer with six years' service and a lapsed contract, the process stalled in 1985 and mysteriously stopped last year. To the players' cries of "collusion," the owners (prompted by Commissioner Peter Ueberroth) whispered "fiscal restraint," but the arbitrator did not buy the coincidence of all the entrepreneurs closing their checkbooks at once.

Thomas Roberts ruled that the 26 baseball operators conspired to "destroy" free agency, to withhold appropriate movement from Detroit Outfielder Kirk Gibson, California Reliever Donnie Moore and 60 lesser eligibles. Another arbitrator is still hearing the more egregious 1986 cases % of Tim Raines and his former Montreal teammate Andre Dawson, while the on-deck class of Baltimore Shortstop Cal Ripken Jr., St. Louis First Baseman Jack Clark and Atlanta Outfielder Dale Murphy stands by grinning.

Jack Morris, the Detroit ace no other team could find any use for last spring, says of the owners, "They were crooks two years ago. They were crooks last year. And they'll be crooks again if we let them. Let's see if anything changes." Roberts' next step is to reconvene the advocates of management and labor to argue over the long-term remedies, as well as the financial damages presumably owed Gibson and the rest. As Baseball Union Boss Donald Fehr interprets the ruling, "Some people might say the owners have been convicted and are waiting to be sentenced." For the moment, however, the football players have a clearer understanding of the price of freedom.

CHART: TEXT NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: TIME Chart by Cynthia Davis

CAPTION: FREE AND NOT SO FREE

The top contracts for pitchers and hitters who became free agents after the 1984 season, compared with 1985, when owners did not bid on other teams' favored players.

DESCRIPTION: Color illustration: Profile of baseball player.