In Connecticut: Game Time

By PAT JORDAN

It is bright and cold along the deserted Connecticut beach, but inside a bar on this fall Sunday afternoon, it is dark and warm and crowded with men. The bar is thick with the sound of gruff voices and the smoke of Top Stone cigars and the odors of stale beer and newsprint from the sports sections of the Bridgeport Post-Telegram, the Boston Globe, the Hartford Courant, the New York Times, the New York Post and the New York Daily News, all of which are strewn about the small room. There is a darkened pool table in the corner. A silent, unblinking pinball machine. A deck of cards scattered across a deserted table. A crude hand-lettered chart on the wall. It lists a series of men's names alongside numbers, above which is written in block letters, WEEKLY POOL.

The only bright light in the room emanates from the TV above and behind the bar. The men hunched over the bar are transfixed by that light, as they are every Sunday afternoon of the National Football League season. They sip their shots and beers, puff their cigars, comment on the action -- "Jeez! Look at that! I could throw a better block right now!" -- all without taking their eyes from the light. Even the bartender, a small man with a nutcracker face, manages to draw a beer while glancing back over his shoulder at the light. "Who do ya like?" he says in a shrill voice to no one in particular and then turns back to the tap at precisely the moment that the beer is about to overflow the glass.

The men at the bar are in their late 30s, 40s, 50s. Carpenters. Plumbers. Garbage men. Cops. Most of them are exathletes of some distant, local repute who, like most adult American males, must now take their sports vicariously. They arrive at the bar early every Sunday morning. Over coffee and the morning papers, they discuss the day's odds. "Miami, 2 1/2 over Denver," says the bartender. "Who do ya like?" Opinions are given, denigrated, defended. One of the men, a former semipro baseball pitcher, says to another man who was once his teammate, "You know, I'm thinking of making a comeback next spring." His former teammate nods. The ex-pitcher says. "What do you think?" His former teammate nods again. The ex-pitcher says "Would you like to catch me sometime?" His ex-teammate looks up and says, "I'd rather hit against you."

In the afternoon the men turn their attention to the light above the bar, where they root for the Giants or the Jets or, only rarely, the Patriots. They comment on the unfolding action, not with a fan's admiration but with an insider's cynical expertise. They see on the television screen a flash from their past, a dim, half-remembered moment from their athletic youth. They call that moment into focus at the bar, embellishing it. An argument ensues. "In your dreams," someone says. They laugh. The bar door opens. A big, shambling man with a droopy mustache enters with the tender-kneed, left-right stride of a man who's fallen off too many broncos. He is wearing a goose-down vest, a snap-button shirt, jeans and pointy-toed cowboy boots, all of which look out of place in this working man's, New England bar. One of the men at the bar glances over his shoulder. He elbows another. Then another. Soon all the men at the bar are glancing over their shoulders. They nod at the man in the vest, make their respectful greetings, then turn back to the light over the bar.

Whenever he returns to his hometown of Fairfield, Fran Lynch is treated by his contemporaries with a mild deference. His football career has always been a mystery to them. They remembered him as the fourth best player on his Roger Ludlowe High School team and as a star on a Hofstra team that played its games before small student crowds.

They remembered, too, the day in 1968 when they sat in this very same bar, watching a Denver Broncos-New York Jets game on the television, and they saw Fran Lynch, a substitute back, score two touchdowns for the Broncos at Shea Stadium. But they remembered little else of Lynch's professional career, other than that he did have a career, for nine years. He played as a backup to Floyd Little, the Broncos' all-star running back, and on special teams, and was one of those little-known players who make a career out of perseverance, luck, good health, a pliable nature and a modest talent. Fran Lynch's career on television was a series of moments after a kickoff and tackle, when the offensive team was trotting onto the field and the special kickoff team of the Broncos was trotting off. There would be a pause in the action as Pat Summerall, the TV sportscaster, would peruse the names on his spotter's sheet, trying to match the jersey number with a name, and then announce to the ! viewing audience that the tackle had been made by Fran Lynch. Then, after another pause, Summerall would make some brief mention of Lynch's career, his hometown, his college, and then go back to the action.

There were no close-ups of Lynch on the sidelines, helmet off, smiling at the camera. No shots of him giving the V sign after still another long gain. There would be just a quick pan to the number on his back as he lumbered off the field in that tender-kneed way of his, a big, good-looking man, who was virtually undistinguishable under his helmet and football gear. At first, the bar's patrons would cheer just the brief mention of Lynch's name on national TV, but after a few years of such random mentioning by Summerall and Frank Gifford and Howard Cosell, they grew restless. They wondered when Fran would duplicate his two-touchdown feat against the Jets. But he never did. He carried the ball only rarely for the Broncos, when Little was hurt, and even then he was just a workmanlike runner. Most of his years were spent on the Broncos' special teams, where he, along with ten other players, would charge, kamikaze-like, down the field to swarm over an opposing ballcarrier.

Yet Fran Lynch survived professional football for more years than did a host of more famous names -- Gale Sayers, Earl Campbell, Larry Brown. He lasted until 1975 when a leg injury, so debilitating it was thought he might never walk again, ended his career at the age of 30.

Lynch orders a beer. He stands behind the men seated at the bar. They comment to one another, but not to Lynch, on the unfolding action on TV. Lynch is silent. He shifts the weight on his tender knees. Finally, he walks over to a table and sits down, his stiff leg protruding into the aisle. He nurses his beer while lost in the game. He leans toward the action, elbows on knees, and looks for things his contemporaries are oblivious to. He smiles every now and then at a comment by Summerall, as if Summerall had missed the point of a tackle, and once in a while, he will nod vigorously at something Summerall says, as if in total agreement. Sometimes something happens on the screen that causes Fran to make an abortive gesture in his chair, a twist of his shoulders, as if eluding a tackler, and suddenly he catches himself. He looks around sheepishly, but no one has noticed. ("Sometimes in the bar, I have to catch myself," he says. "I don't want to seem pushy.")

The game is almost over. Fran waits a few more minutes, and then he gets up to leave. Just rising is a painful procedure for him. He must put his hand on the table and push himself up as if from a hard tackle. The men at the bar turn and nod to Fran as he leaves. When he is gone, finally, they talk about him.

"He was never that good in high school," says one.

"Too small," says another.

"Too slow," says a third.

"Lucky," says a fourth.

A fifth man shakes his head in disagreement. "But he was intense," he says. "When he put that helmet on, he didn't blink until he took it off."

His cronies nod into their beers.

"He was tough," says someone else.

Another adds, "Hell, yes, he was tough. He ran under punts for nine years."

Still another says, "But he never even had a 100-yd. game in his whole career!"

"Maybe not," says the bartender. "But at least he had a career. He was in the N.F.L. Howard Cosell knew his name!" The others shake their heads in disbelief.