Labor Pains Are Always a Big Part of the Games

Bruce McNall rolled his eyes in disgust.

“I’m not going to let someone,” said the Kings’ owner, “who would be flipping hamburgers for a living if he couldn’t skate, tell me how to run my business.”

The year was 1992. The object of his derision was defenseman Marty McSorley, the Kings’ player representative. The subject was the NHL’s first work stoppage.

Darrick Martin clenched his jaw in determination.

“Everybody craves the fans, the arenas, the smell of popcorn,” said the Clipper guard. “We definitely want that. But we’ve got to do what’s right for us.”

The year was 1998. The subject was the NBA’s first work stoppage.

Jack Youngblood shook his head in frustration.

“People come up to me,” said the Ram defensive lineman, “and say things like, ‘Why the hell don’t you go back to work? What are you [complaining] about?’ ... I understand. This is entertainment.”

The year was 1982. The subject was the NFL’s first work stoppage in the regular season.

All of the above have faded from the scene and there is labor peace in their leagues, at least temporarily. But the sentiments they expressed remain unchanged, no matter the sport, no matter the labor issues. There were echoes of all their comments during baseball’s just-solved labor crisis.

On March 31, 1972, major league players went on strike, marking the first time one of the four major sports had been ground to a halt by a labor dispute.

“The losers in the strike action taken,” said baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, “are the sports fans of America.”

It has been a long losing streak. Baseball has been the league leader in work stoppages with eight, causing a cancellation of 1,736 games over the last three decades.

But the other sports have had their share of labor strife:

Football

1970: The sport’s first strike lasted only four days in the middle of summer and no games were lost.

1974: Another midsummer strike, this one stretching over 41 days. Exhibition games were played during the labor action because rookies and some veterans reported to camp.

1982: The first big one. Two weeks into the season, the players initiated a strike that lasted 57 days, causing the cancellation of 98 games and reducing the 16-game season to only nine games.

1987: Again, two weeks into the season, the players struck. But this one turned into chaos. After a week off, the owners resumed the schedule with replacement players. After two weeks of replacement games, more than 100 striking players had crossed the picket line. The NFL Players’ Assn. ordered its members back into camp despite a failure to reach a new agreement, but league officials wouldn’t permit them to play, citing sudden concerns over injury. After a third week of replacement games, the striking players returned.

Basketball

1995: A midsummer lockout ended before the season started.

1998-1999: A 191-day lockout shrank the regular season from 82 games to 50.

Hockey

1992: A 10-day strike at the end of the regular season ended with the postponed games made up.

1994-95: A 103-day lockout ended in January with the regular season nearly sliced in half from 84 games to 48.

There was plenty of bitterness and unhappiness on all sides during the various strikes and lockouts. But nothing seemed to infuriate people as much as the NFL replacement games. The owners couldn’t convince anybody that putting a Raider, Ram or Packer uniform on somebody made them a Raider, Ram or Packer.

“You’ve got people coming in here who couldn’t beat the Sioux City Buffaloes,” Ram defensive lineman Shawn Miller said of some of his teammates in those 1987 games. “All the Joe Publics, if they are expecting to see a great game, they’ve got another thing coming. It’s not even going to be close to the caliber of a good college football game.”

In every sports strike, the owners and players begin as billionaires and millionaires and finish the same way. It is the support personnel who are hurt the worst financially.

“The players were complaining about money,” Sports Arena vendor Lamont Harvey told The Times in 1999 at the end of the NBA lockout, “and they’re making thousands of dollars a game. People like me really have to hustle to make $80 a game. I don’t think [the players] realize that they hurt a lot of people with this.”

Can anything stop the incessant stoppages?

“They should just cancel the whole season,” said one player, “and let everybody get a real job.”

That player, speaking 3 1/2 years ago about the NBA, was Dennis Rodman. If Rodman is the voice of reason, then surely both sides must question their sanity .