Irvin, a Beaten Man, Doesn’t Want a Vacation : Rams’ Pro Bowl Cornerback Hoping for Redemption After Being Booed

Glance inside LeRoy Irvin’s Ram jersey collar and you’re likely to find the union label. For all anyone knows, his favorite movies are “F.I.S.T.” and “Norma Rae.” Samuel Gompers could be his secret hero.

But if it’s all the same, Irvin, laboring more than usual these days, would prefer to return to Anaheim Stadium next Sunday and redeem himself rather than walk a picket line. There’s this business of a Pro Bowl reputation to attend to, as well as the most recent Ram bumbling, a 21-16 loss to the Minnesota Vikings.

“With the strike coming up, this is going to make for a long, painful vacation,” he said.

Irvin would know. Included in his Day To Forget were such lowlights as:

--His lurching, failed attempt to cover Viking wide receiver Anthony Carter on a first-period fly pattern. Forty-seven yards later, Carter was brought down by the other cornerback, Jerry Gray. Shortly thereafter, the Vikings were proud owners of a 7-0 lead.

--His lurching, failed attempt to cover Viking wide receiver Hassan Jones on a fourth-period Go-Long-And-Hope-For-A-Papal-Miracle play. Jones’s 41-yard reception, which came with just 30 seconds remaining in the game, provided the Vikings with a stunning, unlikely victory.

“I wish there was an exit underneath the carpet out there, but there wasn’t, so I had to walk off the field and listen to the fans boo me,” Irvin said. “But that’s part of it. When you play this game and you make mistakes and you get beat, you have to live with it. And I’m living it.”

Irvin isn’t quite sure what happened on the play that left the Rams an uncharacteristic 0-2. One moment, he’s back-pedaling, perfectly in control. The next, he’s stride for stride with Jones.

Except that this time, Viking quarterback Wade Wilson underthrew the ball, allowing Jones to sneak back while Irvin kept running. At last glance, there was Irvin--tripping, stumbling and helplessly falling to the ground as Jones gathered in the pass and jogged untouched into the end zone.

“It was one-on-one (coverage) and we were blitzing,” Irvin said. “They made a play against us. They made a play against one of the better corners in football. That’s kind of hard to swallow.

“Hey, if I get my head chopped off for it, I deserve it. He beat me.”

Irvin didn’t know how to react. This sort of thing doesn’t happen to him very often. He walked slowly off the field, accepted a sympathetic pat on the stomach from Ram Coach John Robinson and then, as he neared the bench, heaved his helmet to the turf. He didn’t bother to retrieve it.

Later, in the Ram locker room, Jackie Slater sought out Irvin and hugged him. So did running back Mike Guman.

“There ain’t a man in this room who will look you in the eye and say he was disappointed in LeRoy Irvin,” Slater said. “Nobody’s down on LeRoy, nobody. We have to have him on this team.”

Said free safety Johnnie Johnson: “Defensive backs can’t afford to go through slumps because you see how easily something can happen. We can play one of the best games of our careers . . . and something will happen and (the media) will come back to us. That’s the life of a defensive back. That’s the career that we chose. And it’s a special breed of people who are defensive backs.

“LeRoy is a great corner. He will be a great corner, and I guarantee it that he will bounce back from this.”

These have been trying times for Irvin. He signed a two-year, $1-million contract extension this spring, but he remained unhappy about his 1987 salary of $250,000.

So he sulked. He demanded a trade. He missed practices and four of the five Ram exhibition games. At season’s beginning, he found himself on the bench and Mickey Sutton at his right cornerback position. Add to this the ever-growing prospect of a players strike.

Sunday, though, would be the day he made amends, reasserted himself. It didn’t happen.

“I was ready to play today,” he said. “Hell, yes, I was ready to play today. I just didn’t make the play at the end. I don’t know why I didn’t make it.

“I wasn’t thinking about the strike when (Jones) beat me for the big one,” he said.

At first, Irvin declined to talk about the day’s events. Then, slowly, he warmed to the subject. He would return, and the sooner, the better.

“I still think that I’m one of the best,” he said. “I think I am the best. Today I didn’t play like that.

“But I’ll be back and this team will be back.”