CAP-SIZED : Jim Gorsek’s Compensation May Be Sunk by Salary Cap

Socker goalkeeper Jim Gorsek was looking forward to next season for financial reasons.

That has become a scary thought for a player in the Major Indoor Soccer League.

Last Friday, the MISL Board of Directors called for the Players Assn. to reduce the salary cap from $1.275 million per team to $898,000 ($850,000 for the regular roster and $48,000 for four developmental players) for the 1988-89 and 1989-90 seasons, and to eliminate all guaranteed contracts. If the proposal is not accepted by the Players Assn. by April 15, the board said, the league will fold in June.

“I think a lowering of the salary cap will be devastating to the league,” Gorsek said. “I think it will destroy the game. We’re talking about a team losing three or four players, or they’ll have to take pay cuts.”

That’s something very close to the pocket of Gorsek, who is earning only $30,000 this season after taking a $47,000 cut to enable the Sockers to stay under the $1.275 million cap.

That’s right, $30,000 for the all-time leading goalkeeper in the history of the MISL, with a record of 64-26 (71%).

Baltimore Blast Coach Kenny Cooper said Gorsek is the “most underrated goalkeeper in the league” and voted for him on his MISL First Decade Team.

Gorsek is 15-4 this season with a 3.24 goals-against average and has won 12 of his last 13 games, but he’s earning only $6,000 above the minimum for league veterans.

It was just going to be a temporary situation. His contract calls for him to earn $84,000 next season (beginning June 30, 1988) to help compensate for his low salary this year.

“Overall, I lost about $55,000,” Gorsek said. “I don’t want to sit there and take another pay cut. I don’t know what will go on. I’m trying not even to think about it. If you think about it, you kind of worry even more. “

Gorsek said the salary cap reduction is not acceptable to him. But he and the rest of the players have been told by the league that they are in a no-win situation. Either they take the cuts or the league folds.

For Gorsek, that will mean cutting the increase he was to get to make up for his first cut.

As Gorsek found out last fall, two highly paid goalkeepers are a luxury on one MISL team. The Sockers also have flashy all-star goalkeeper Zoltan Toth, who earns $85,000 a year. So even though Gorsek was a model employee who practices as hard as he plays and was a member of five Socker championship teams, he was suddenly expendable as his three-year contract approached its Nov. 15 expiration.

During training camp, the Sockers asked Gorsek to take a considerable cut so they could stay below the salary cap.

The new Socker management, headed by Ron Fowler and Ron Cady, said it was unaware of the team’s payroll and found itself in a bind just weeks before the season opener Nov. 7. They traded highly paid former captain Jean Willrich to Wichita and tried unsuccessfully to trade Gorsek.

“Nobody wanted him,” Cady said. “Knowing what I know now, it really surprises me why nobody else wanted him.

“Maybe everyone saw what happened last year. His statistics weren’t that great (10-12 in an injury-riddled season). That’s the predicament he was in.”

Tacoma, Minnesota, Chicago, Wichita and Kansas City expressed interest, but none made an offer.

“If someone would have offered more money, I would have gone,” Gorsek said. “They all backed out.”

The Sockers told Gorsek they’d have to cut him from the team if he didn’t agree to a lower salary for the 1987-88 season.

“They wanted me to stay here but they couldn’t really pay me,” Gorsek said.

He agreed, even though he had leverage. In mid-July, former Socker owner Bob Bell had sent Gorsek a letter saying they planned to exercise his option when his contract expired. Under the MISL’s collective bargaining agreement, he could have required the team to pay him his salary plus a 10% increase.

Subsequently that summer, Gorsek also turned down a multi-year contract similar to the one signed by Toth. The difference was that they were not offering Gorsek the no-trade clause he wanted.

“I decided not to take it,” Gorsek said. “That’s a decision I might regret. I lost money there.”

So instead of a contract nearly equal to Toth’s, he wound up with the cut after deciding not to fight the situation in court.

“I would have had to go to arbitration,” Gorsek said. “And I didn’t want to go through all the legal hassles.”

Said Gorsek’s agent, Scott Simpson: “It was ridiculous, unconscionable. I have a 15-year-old daughter who could win that case in arbitration. He would have gotten his money, no question about it.”

“I felt if I sat out a year I might not play again,” Gorsek said. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

Tuesday, when again asked about his decision, Gorsek said: “You always have second thoughts. I wanted to play. That was my decision.”

After the 1986-87 season, in which he went 10-12 with a 3.89 goals-against average, Gorsek said he wanted to prove he was still the same goalkeeper who had gone 19-2 the year before.

“He’s as good as he’s ever been,” Socker Coach Ron Newman said. “I don’t think he’s had a down side to his game yet this season.”

His record is even more impressive because he has played 13 of 19 games on the road, where he has won eight in a row. Thus he is called “The Road Warrior.” The nickname is nice, but he said the cheers at home are nicer.

“I’d rather play more at home,” Gorsek said. “The team gets up more at home most of the time. It’s harder on the road because fans are booing you, harassing you, throwing things at you after a goal. When you’re on the road, you’re out there on your own. It’s twice as hard as playing at home.”

Gorsek is pleased with his performance, but it grates at him that after earning the minimum wage for a professional soccer player for seven years, from 1977-83, he is back earning so little money this season.

It also bothers him that some of his teammates were annoyed that Gorsek would agree to play for so little. They might, after all, be asked to do the same thing. Off the record, some members of the team are less than sympathetic and say that what Gorsek did wasn’t good for the game.

“Some of the players said I was crazy to play for what I was playing for,” Gorsek said. “Some said thanks for hanging around. Zoalie was very relieved (that he wouldn’t be the only goalkeeper.)”

Defender Kevin Crow said, “The bottom line is that each player has to do what he thinks is best for himself.”

Gorsek is playing, but he and his wife, Dorie, are surviving on a lot less money than they budgeted for last year.

“I have to be very tight with my money,” he said. “We’re just surviving.”

Gorsek’s life has been like that since last spring.

First, he broke the middle finger on his left hand in the playoffs against Tacoma. He was going to have an operation, then he didn’t. The finger is still sore but hasn’t hindered his play. Gorsek did have surgery on his left elbow to have scar tissue removed during the off-season.

Gorsek doesn’t have the flair of Toth (13-5, league-leading 2.76 goals-against average), and he continually strives to be considered his equal. In salary and recognition.

Said Newman: “Jimmy looks across at Zoalie and says, ‘I want to be recognized like you.’ The better Zoalie plays, the better Jimmy plays. He’s a competitor.”

But he’s not flashy.

“I go out there and get the job done,” Gorsek said. “Maybe if I was more flamboyant, I’d get more recognition.”

And more money. Newman says Gorsek was caught in a bind because it happened to be his contract that was up.

“I think they’re both great goalkeepers,” Newman said. “It’s just that Jimmy’s contract was up. . . . I’ve always found myself sticking up for Jimmy. Whether he’s not quite as flamboyant, noticeable, well-known as Zoltan, when it comes down to performance on the field, he’s as good as there is.”

But Toth, the winning goalkeeper in the West’s 9-3 All-Star Game victory Feb. 17, was voted onto the team by the players for the third time in four years.

Gorsek has never been voted onto an MISL all-star team.

“One of these years I might make it,” Gorsek said. “It could happen.”

Right now, that’s the least of his concerns.