Who Knows, Perhaps There Are Hidden Talks Taking Place Now

We’ve found the solution to the baseball strike: Tommy Hawkins and Jack Kent Cooke.

It was another sport (basketball) and another era (1967), but the then-Laker player and then-Laker owner headed off a basketball strike almost by themselves. Cooke had built the Forum and didn’t want a work shutdown just before the playoffs, so he intervened and asked Hawkins, a member of the union’s negotiating team, to work with him behind the scenes.

With the proposals and counterproposals being relayed through Hawkins and Cooke, differences were settled and the postseason took place without delay. They got it done, but never got the credit because the story didn’t come out until years later.

“I knew what was happening was big, but it didn’t really register to me, the impact of what we did and how important it was to the development of basketball,” said Hawkins, now waiting out the baseball strike as an executive with the Dodgers. “I would have to say next to the salary cap, this was one of the most important periods in the history of the NBA.”

Add Lakers: “He (Cooke) told me I couldn’t breathe a word of what he did,” Hawkins said. “He didn’t want that publicized.”

Why not?

“I don’t think he wanted that type of exposure. . . . He said, ‘If you appreciate your job, you will not mention how this came about.’ ”

Said Cooke: “It’s entirely Tommy’s story and it’s entirely true.”

Trivia time: What team has gone the longest since winning the Pacific 10/Pacific 8 Conference football championship?

JJ TV: Phil Jackman of the Baltimore Sun, on the rise of a media superstar, Jimmy Johnson:

“Since Johnson left coaching, you’d think the greatest combination broadcaster-writer-analyst-raconteur and personality of all time had just stepped off the train from the future. Home Box Office signed Jimmy up in three days. Fox Network wasn’t far behind. And Universal Press Syndicate has his nibs penciled in for a national weekly column. Is Dan Rather safe in his CBS anchor chair?

“The question is, will Johnson be worth all the attention he has been receiving and the increased publicity that lies ahead when his words begin flying on network and cable television and newspapers everywhere?

“The guess here is yes. Discussing things with HBO “Inside the NFL” regulars Len Dawson and Nick Buoniconti earlier this week, touting the show’s 18th season that starts Sept. 8, ol’ Helmet Hair was the star of the show by a bunch.”

What price, victory?It’s $900,000, according to a Florida jury.

Sprinter Walter McCoy was awarded that sum after a lawsuit in which he claimed that a plunging Holiday Inn elevator jammed his neck and kept him from making the 1988 U.S. Olympic team and winning a gold medal.

Trivia answer: Oregon, 18 seasons.

Quotebook: Mookie Wilson, asked a few years ago why he got married in a ballpark: “My wife wanted a big diamond.”