Strikes are for baseball

TALES FROM THE TAILGATE
As the prospect of no NFL football looms on the fall horizon -- I know, let's not wish away spring and summer -- I've been thinking back to my first year as a season-ticket holder. If the 2011 season -- whatever becomes of it --  were to be my last as a tailgating regular, it would make a perfect bookend to that first year. If the league can't get its act together by September, then my last it may very well be. But before there can be a last season, there had to be a first.

1987. The Pats were defending AFC East Champs and were expected to contend again. I had a good job at the newspaper and a first child on the way. I had two season tickets for the Pats. I was an adult.

The season started well when Raymond Berry named Steve Grogan the starting quarterback over Tony Eason. Ask Pats fans to pick their all-time favorite players and of course the lists would be filled with the names Brady, Bruschi, Harrison, Bledsoe, Brown, and Hannah. One name that should appear on all those lists is Grogan. Steve Grogan is why people who love football love football. Nobody played harder. When the game was over there was only one thing you could be sure of and that's that Grogan had left it all on the field. He wasn't the most talented QB by far. He was just one of the toughest to ever play the game. Tony Eason, let's just say, was not. Although Eason too took many a shot and got up and kept going. The difference is Grogan wouldn't just get back up. He'd get back up and throw the first punch on the next play.

The season got off to a great start as the Pats beat their nemesis Miami in the home opener 28-21. Yes! Season-ticker holder right here! Week 2 saw Grogan hurt and the Pats go to New York and get thumped by the Jets. Uh. Hey. Season-ticker holder. Uh. Over here...

Did I mention that the threat of a players strike had been hanging over the NFL all offseason? I believe my answer to anyone who said "You're buying season tickets? There's going to be a strike, you know." was always "Are you kidding me? The players aren't going to strike. They are making way too much money." The players had set a deadline for a settlement for the start of Week 3 of the season. I wasn't worried.

I was wrong. I can still see the sports front of the Boston Globe displaying a large NFL logo in color with the heavy black words "ON STRIKE" stamped across it. I had season tickets and the players were on strike. I was an adult.

FAN SUPPORT: On the line.

I still have the letter from Pats General Manager (and son of the owner) Patrick Sullivan. It starts "Dear season ticker holder: I regret to inform you that as a result of the NFLPA going on strike last night, we are left with no alternative but to attempt to field a competitive team for the balance of the 1987 season..." Regret that they will try to field a competitive team? Would they prefer to field a non-competitive team? Competitive is what I'm paying for. But how can they do that with no Grogan, no Stanley Morgan, no Steve Nelson? Replacement players. Scabs in pads. That's how. The Patriots like the rest of the teams in the league were prepared to play the real games without the real players.

The total cost for two season tickets in 1987 was $388. Regular season games were 21 bucks each while preseason games were only $13 (Preseason games at about half the price of regular season games... What an interesting concept). I was expecting to see professional football players for my $388. That's not what I got.

The Pats sent out a call for ex-pros, beer league players... basically anyone who could throw or catch a football. And they came. On a cold and rainy October Sunday me and my friend Jim, who also worked at the paper, headed to the stadium to see what kind of players they found. As we drove up to the entrance of the parking lot we could see a line of guys in raincoats carrying signs off to the side. Hey! It's tight end Lin Dawson. And there's Eason. The striking players milled about drinking coffee and looking not so much like pro athletes but a bunch of guys on strike in the rain. They just watched the cars of fans file by.

I didn't have a strong pro-player or pro-league feeling either way. Sports unions are not exactly Miners Local 1430. I'm a union guy, but I just wanted to see football. I was curious to see what kind of football it would be. Not many people shared my curiosity. Only about 14,000 out of the usual 54,000 decided to show up. Part protest, part good sense I guess. But this was my first year with tickets. This was only the second home game. I was going.

Jim and I had our pick of empty seats and settled in around the 40-yard line on the replacement Pats side. On the other side were the replacement Cleveland Browns. We watched the new Pats warm up. Hey! There's a guy named Bleier! Is that Steeler great Rocky Bleier? Did he come out of retirement to play for us? Nope. It's Bob Bleier. "I think that's our new starting quarterback," I said to Jim. Jim said nothing.

The game was not pretty. It shouldn't come as a surprise that guys who hadn't played football in a while and had never played together don't play very well. The replacement Browns were just a little less bad than the replacement Pats and won 20-10. "That was much worse than I expected," I said to Jim. Jim said nothing.

We walked down to where the players were coming off the field to get a better look at our new team. One of the players took off his helmet as he walked towards us. "That guy looks familiar," I said to Jim. Jim said nothing. "Did he used to play for the Colts?" I asked. Jim looked at me and this time said something. "I think that guy worked at the beer stand at the last game."

Ain't that a kick in the head

TALES FROM THE TAILGATE
Eagles 34, Pats 31 OT (11/29/'87): Another tale from the strike year. And this one pretty much sums that season up. The strike lasted for three fun-filled weeks. And I do mean fun-filled. After two weeks of scabball the Pats made an announcement that brought a smile to the collective faces of their fans. Not the end of the strike. It was the return of Doug Flutie, he of the Boston College hail-Mary miracle touchdown pass. Flutie, hometown icon, was crossing the picket line and putting on a Pats uniform. Did I say scabs? Replacement players? I mean guys who just love to play football! Flu-tie! Flu-tie! And he lived up to the hype, leading the Pats to a 21-7 victory against the Houston Oilers in which he turned replacement WR Larry Linne into Belitnikoff with 87 yards catching and a touchdown. Lin-ne! Lin-ne! The new Pats went 2-1 and kept the team in first place as the strike was settled and the regular players returned to take their place. Except Flutie. He was staying. But as it turns out not playing.

With Grogan hurt the Pats had a choice between California boy Eason and the hailed Flutie to be the QB the rest of the way. If there were any fans who wanted Eason I never met one. Still haven't. But Coach Berry, the former Colt great who was big on loyalty, gave Eason the job. Eason and the rest of the regulars were whipped by Indy 30-16 and looked more lost than the scabs. But Grogan soon returned and the team stumbled its way to a 5-5 record with five games to go. Good enough for first place in the division. And second place. And third. And fourth. And, yes, last. All five teams were 5-5. No, really. It's true. If you ever need a definition of mediocrity just refer to the AFC East Division in 1987. Strike or not, the Pats were a good team and if they could just make it to the playoffs... well, who knows what could happen.

Jim and I were ready for the stretch run. He had endured the strike game with me so the other ticket was his for any game he wanted. And we wanted the Eagles. Philly's strike team didn't win a game and had basically sunk their season so we expected a sure victory. And it should have been. But it wasn't. The Pats lost 34-31 in OT in a game that to this day I still don't really believe they lost. Kind of like that Super Bowl not too long ago. The Pats were getting smashed 31-10 going into the fourth quarter. Grogan couldn't start the game so Coach Berry passed over Flutie yet again (was it the height thing?) and pegged career backup Tom Ramsey to start at QB. Ramsey won his first career start a week earlier but on this day was working on what Jim and I were sure was his last. The crowd was yelling for Flutie and yelling for blood. But Jim and I didn't do much screaming. We weren't the yell-obscenities-at-your-team-when-they-are-losing kind of fans. We just sat there in the rain and groaned a lot and talked about getting out of there early and beating the traffic.

But in the last 10 minutes of the game Ramsey silenced all the Flutie chants and led the team on three scoring drives to tie the game 31-31 with a little more than a minute left. The mood turned from dangerous to delirious. And then Johnny Rembert picked off a pass by Randall Cunningham and the Pats were lining up for a field goal to win the game with just seconds left. Everyone was elated. And then the barefooted kicker walked out on the field. Tony Franklin. Statistics will show that he was a great kicker in the NFL. He's the only kicker to make two field goals beyond 60 yards in one game. He had his best years with the Eagles. The team he was about to beat. But he had missed a kick to cost the Pats a game earlier that year against the Cowboys and had already missed one in this game. Franklin was a short, chunky guy with a bad porn-mustache who suddenly looked like he was near the end of his career. In other words, your typical '80s kicker. And he didn't wear a shoe on his right foot. His kicking foot. I had always wondered how he could kick a football with his bare foot in ice-cold Philly and New England. But he did. As he walked out to kick with his head down the crowd began to shout words of encouragement. "You better make this kick you fat piece of ..." "This kick is so easy my mother could make it!"

Turns out it wasn't that easy. Franklin missed the kick. Did he just miss another field goal? Aaaaaaaaah! Franklin kept his head down and walked off the field. The words of encouragement returned. Louder. One of the great things about sports is that it can often give an athlete a chance to quickly redeem himself. A fielder can make a big error but then step to the plate in the next inning and crack a game-winning homer. A kicker can miss a key field goal but his team can win the coin toss and march down the field to set him up to kick the game winner in overtime. And that's exactly what the Pats did. Franklin came out to kick again. "Come on Franklin," I thought."You can't miss another one. Not even washed-up kickers miss three in a game. The odds are in your favor." The ball was snapped, Franklin's bare foot smacked it and it sailed through the air and ... landed short in the endzone. He missed again! Franklin was quoted after the game as saying "The only way I could feel worse is if I went outside and a seagull dumped on my head." I knew the feeling. Franklin headed to the sideline and disappeared under a large raincoat. The crowd verged on becoming a sociology-class study on mob violence. The Pats got the ball back but fumbled and then the Eagles' kicker did what Franklin couldn't do. He made a kick.

Jim and I stood there in the rain. Then we looked at each other and without saying a word began scrambling down the rows of benches towards the field. We climbed over a wall and made our way down to the railing near the ramp where the players came off the field. Franklin lagged behind the others. Alone. He was still covered in the raincoat that could not protect him from the obscenities the fans were hurling his way with more accuracy than his kicks. As he passed in front of us I screamed the first thing that came into my head. "You suck!" I know, not very original. Jim's was a little better. "Hey Franklin. It's almost December! Put a f---ing shoe on!"

Strikes are for baseball

TALES FROM THE TAILGATE
1987. My first year as a season-ticket holder. The Pats were defending AFC East Champs and were expected to contend again. I had a good job at the newspaper and a first child on the way. I had two season tickets for the Pats. I was an adult. The season started well when Raymond Berry named Steve Grogan the starting quarterback over Tony Eason. Ask Pats fans to list their all-time 10 favorite players and of course the lists would be filled with the names Brady, Bruschi, Harrison, Bledsoe, and Hannah. One name that should appear on all those lists is Grogan. Steve Grogan is why people who love football love football. Nobody played harder. When the game was over there was only one thing you could be sure of and that's that Grogan left it all on the field. He wasn't the most talented QB by far. He was just one of the toughest to ever play the game. Tony Eason, let's just say, was not. Although Eason too took many a shot and got up and kept going. The difference is Grogan wouldn't just get back up. He'd get back up and throw the first punch on the next play.

The season got off to a great start as the Pats beat their nemesis Miami in the home opener 28-21. Yes! Season-ticker holder right here! Week 2 saw Grogan hurt and the Pats go to New York and get thumped by the Jets. Uh. Hey. Season-ticker holder. Over here... Did I mention that the threat of a players strike had been hanging over the NFL all offseason? I believe my answer to anyone who said "You're buying season tickets? There's going to be a strike you know." was always "Are you kidding me? The players aren't going to strike. They are making way too much money." The players had set a deadline for a settlement for the start of Week 3 of the season. I wasn't worried. I was wrong. I can still see the sports front of the Boston Globe displaying a large NFL logo in color with the heavy black words "ON STRIKE" stamped across it. I had season tickets and the players were on strike. I was an adult. I still have the letter from Pats General Manager (and son of the owner) Patrick Sullivan. It starts "Dear season ticker holder: I regret to inform you that as a result of the NFLPA going on strike last night, we are left with no alternative but to attempt to field a competitive team for the balance of the 1987 season..." No alternative but to field a competitive team? Is that different from what they had been doing? But how can they do that with no Grogan, no Stanley Morgan, no Steve Nelson? Replacement players. Scabs in pads. That's how. The Patriots like the rest of the teams in the league were prepared to play the games even without the players. The total cost for two season tickets in 1987 was $260. I was expecting to see professional football players for my $260. That's not what I got.

The Pats sent out a call for ex-pros, beer league players... basically anyone who could throw or catch a football. And they came. On a cold and rainy October Sunday me and my friend Jim, who also worked at the paper, headed to the stadium to see what kind of players they found. As we drove up to the entrance of the stadium lot we could see a line of guys in raincoats carrying signs off to the side. Hey! It's tight end Lin Dawson. And there's Eason. The striking players milled about drinking coffee and looking not so much like pro athletes but a bunch of guys on strike in the rain. They just watched the cars of fans file by. I didn't have a strong pro-player or pro-league feeling either way. I just wanted to see football. I was curious to see what kind of football it would be. Not many people shared my curiosity. Only about 14,000 out of the usual 54,000 decided to show up. Part protest, part good sense I guess. But this was my first year with tickets. This was only the second home game. I was going.

Jim and I had our pick of empty seats and settled in around the 40-yard line on the replacement Pats side. On the other side were the replacement Cleveland Browns. We watched the new Pats warm up. Hey! There's a guy named Bleier! Is that Steeler great Rocky Bleier? Did he come out of retirement to play for us? Nope. It's Bob Bleier. "I think that's our new starting quarterback," I said to Jim. Jim said nothing. The game was not pretty. It shouldn't come as a surprise that guys who hadn't played football in a while and had never played together don't play very well. The replacement Browns were just a little less bad than the replacement Pats and won 20-10. "That was much worse than I expected," I said to Jim. Jim said nothing. We walked down to where the players were coming off the field to get a better look at our new team. One of the players took off his helmet as he walked towards us. "That guy looks familiar," I said to Jim. Jim said nothing. "Did he used to play for the Colts?" I asked. Jim looked at me and this time said something. "I think that guy worked at the beer stand at the last game."