On Strike

Miami, Jan. 8, 1969--The Green Bay Packers today defeated the Oakland Raiders 6-0, in the third annual Super Bowl game at Miami's Orange Bowl. The winning touchdown was scored by the Packers' general manager, Vince Lombardi, who took a handoff from Publicity Director Chuck Lane with two minutes to go and scuttled six yards around left end with his aloha shirt flapping. A crowd of 17 fans turned out for the game, which was blacked out on nationwide TV. There was some fear that the game might have to be postponed when beer vendors refused to cross the picket lines thrown up by striking members of the National Football League's Players Association. But that crisis was averted when Toots Shor agreed to act as water boy for both teams.

Ridiculous? Certainly. But it could come to something almost as bizarre, because last week the N.F.L. was on strike. After six months of bargaining, the owners of the league's 16 teams had acceded to 21 player demands, including increases in the guaranteed minimum salary (to $12,000 for second-year men, $13,000 for third-year men), payments for preseason exhibition games ($500 per game) and such minor benefits as air conditioning in the training-camp barracks. But on the 22nd point--pensions--negotiations broke down. Determined to show its muscle, the N.F.L. Players Association, headed by Detroit Lions Guard John Gordy, ordered its 600 members not to report to their training camps. The owners retaliated by closing down the camps, and professional sport had its first strike since 1890 -- when baseball players walked out and formed their own league, the Players' League, which folded after one season.

The players were holding out for a pension-fund donation of $312,000 from each of the 16 clubs. That would increase the size of the fund from $5.5 million to $10.5 million and nearly double the basic pension (now $450 a month) for a five-year N.F.L. veteran at age 65. Pleading poverty, the owners refused. "There are at least three, maybe five teams in this league, which cannot absorb that cost and stay anywhere near healthy," said Washington Redskins President Edward Bennett Williams. The athletes were not convinced. Said Minnesota Vikings End Paul Flatley: "We put fans in the stands, risking personal injury, so why shouldn't we get a proportion of the profits?"

What happens now? At the very least, if the strike continues for any length of time, veteran players -- even though they are working out on their own -- figure to report out of shape, will have missed valuable coaching. If it lasts into the season, owners may play with teams composed entirely of nonunion rookies. Or they may not play at all: Baltimore Colts Owner Carroll Rosenbloom has gone so far as to order his front office to work out plans for repaying 50,000 season-ticket holders. In either case, there is genuine concern for the damage a protracted strike may do to the image of the sport. "This league, the players must remember, didn't become a success overnight," says Washington's Williams. "And now it is in danger of being set back years overnight."

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