STRIKE 85? : Reaction : Very Little Support for Strike

Most baseball fans who took themselves out to the ballgame Monday night, whichever ballgame it happened to be, were none too happy at the prospect of another strike by the baseball players.

But one fan in Atlanta, where the Braves were playing the Dodgers, had a slightly different reaction.

Randy Jensen of Hiram, Utah, a small town 80 miles north of Salt Lake City, was at the game with his two sons, Chris, 9, and Ricky, 7. Jensen’s wife, Cathy, is the sister of Atlanta second baseman Glenn Hubbard.

“I have mixed emotions,” he said. “I don’t want to see a strike, but I think most fans are misinformed about what the players are striking about.

“The players are concerned about retirement down the road, while a lot of fans think it’s a matter of what they’re being paid right now. The players are taking a bum rap.

“I had the same opinion as most people until a week ago, but after talking to Glenn, I understand that they don’t want more money now, it’s retirement they’re looking for.”

Others, however, were not so understanding.

Rick Atkins, who works at a Lockheed plant in Marietta, Ga., and his friend, Jamey Fite, who operates four service stations with his father in Marietta, said they come to “about three-quarters of the Braves’ home games.” Atkins said he couldn’t understand why the players would strike.

“They make three times as much money as anybody else and they want more money,” Atkins said. “That’s America, though.”

“There’s so much money involved, to me something’s got to give,” Fite added. “I feel sorry for fans like us, and especially the vendors and ushers. I think everybody feels the same way.”

Don Hall, who had made an eight-hour drive from his home in Deland, Fla., with his wife, Mary Lou, to see the game, owns a satellite dish and said he watches a lot of baseball on TV. “The fans ought to boycott ‘em,” Hall said. “I think it’s ridiculous, what they’re doing. It’s too bad all the fans can’t get together and say, ‘The heck with ‘em.’ ”

Said Hall’s father-in-law, Bob Smythe: “It used to be a good game, before all the politics and money.

“Apparently the issue is retirement and security, and the players may have a point. But those are pretty high-paid players out there. They could be providing for their own retirement.”

In Cincinnati, where the Reds were playing the San Diego Padres, the strike threat produced mixed feelings.

The fans love Pete Rose. They want him to get the 24 hits needed to break Ty Cobb’s all-time hit record, and they want him to break it this season.

But they also love football, and many of them figure that if they don’t have baseball, they’ve always got football.

“I can’t wait until football season comes in,” said Todd Strunk of Cincinnati. “Football will fill in. But it’s kind of frustrating. I come quite a bit, and this (strike threat) kind of gives you a feeling of ‘why?’

“You know they want more money, but give us a reason. They’re making pretty good money now.”

Of Pete Rose’s chase, Strunk said: “He’ll have next year to do it. If not this year, there’s always next year.

Phil Bauer of Cincinnati said: “It’d be unfair to Pete. People are paying a lot of attention to that record. He’s a favorite here. But you know? I doubt I’ll come back if there’s a strike. It’s just a matter of greed.”

Dan Gall of Cincinnati said: “I can understand the players’ point of view. They’ve got to make what they can. But every time they strike, they continue to make the fans disinterested. It takes a couple of years before people really want to come back.

“We don’t come all the time because we can’t afford it. And if tickets get even higher after a strike, well. . . .

Still, some fans are fans and will never be anything else but fans.

“I’m against the strike, because the ballplayers get enough money,” said Mary Schmidt, a homemaker. “But I’m a real fan. When they come back, I’ll come back. There’ll be a little bitterness, but I’ll forget.”

In all likelihood, so will Bob Wilson.

Each day the Angels are at home, Wilson, a warehouse worker, fights the freeways to make the trip from his home in San Pedro to Anaheim Stadium. Frankly, he doesn’t know what he’ll do without baseball.

“If there is a strike, there is going to be a tremendous void in my life,” Wilson, a season ticket holder, said Monday night before the start of Monday’s game between the Angels and Seattle Mariners in Anaheim Stadium.

“I love coming to the ballpark, it’s the way I relax, like the way some people relax by taking a walk on the beach. Let’s just hope the strike isn’t a long one.”

Dottie Erwin, an Anaheim bookkeeper, is such a devoted baseball fan that seven years ago she moved from Riverside just to be closer to Anaheim Stadium. She too said didn’t know what she would do without being able to watch the Angels.

“Except for the last strike (1981), I’ve missed only nine games here in the last 10 years,” Erwin said. “I suppose I can go watch some local semi-pro teams, like I did four years ago, but it’s not the same. There just won’t be the same excitement.

“I just don’t understand why there has to be a strike. The players are paid well, they make more in a season than I will in a lifetime. I guess they’re just greedy.”

Frank Basile, a civil engineer from San Dimas, said that the attitude of the players has made him less of a fan.

“I used to go to a lot of games, and read everything in the newspapers about baseball,” he said. “But now, I’ll you hear about are a bunch of guys who have million-dollar contracts who are dissatisfied.

“I should have the problems the players have.”

Times Staff Writers Gordon Edes, Tom Friend and Guy Gruppie contributed to this story.