Fans can make the difference

Milwaukee Sentinel, Feb 22, 1995 by Bud Lea

So, here come the replacement Brewers.

Can they do it? Can they attract any interest while the big- league players stay out on strike? Can these temporary players win any support from us the fans?

If you're like me, you're sick of the whole thing. You don't care any more about the details or issues of the longest baseball strike.

So, bring on the substitute Milwaukee Brewers. Nobody knows how long the strike will last.

When I think about replacement players, I remember what happened in 1987. The National Football League players went out on strike after the third game of the season. The owners immediately canceled the following week's schedule of games before starting with replacement games.

The Green Bay Packers did their best to assemble a representative replacement team. They placed a premium on signing an experienced quarterback and wound up with Alan Risher, who had played two years with the Arizona Wranglers in the United States Football League. Twenty of the replacement players had been cut by the Packers in training camp.

The first day of practice was an ugly and embarrassing time for the Packers. Striking players walking the picket line jeered and ridiculed the replacement players. Charles Martin, a veteran nose tackle who had been cut earlier, was arrested for disorderly conduct for tossing an egg on a car driven by a substitute player.

The Packers' first replacement game was against the Minnesota Vikings at Minneapolis. Player strike or not, the game went on as usual. It was televised by CBS and carried locally by WTMJ radio. The NFL counted the game.

Had it not been for the strike, the Packers would have been heavy underdogs. The majority of the Vikings' replacement players were signed out of semi-pro leagues in the Chicago area. Tony Adams, who hadn't played in a professional game in six years, started at quarterback for the Vikings.

Jim Bob Morris, who had been selling real estate in Kansas City, intercepted an Adams pass and returned it 73 yards with a minute to play to preserve a 23-16 Green Bay victory. The game drew only 13,911 at the Metrodome, which holds 63,000.

Packers Coach Forrest Gregg didn't apologize that the game counted in the standings. "Let's be happy with what they did," he said about the replacement players. "I don't want to get into comparisons. I love all these guys, and I love the other guys, too."

The Packers' second replacement game was against the Detroit Lions at Lambeau Field. The Packers charged full admission but allowed cash refunds. Still, 35,779 attended the game and treated the replacement players as folk heroes.

There were some moments of high hilarity. When the Lions loaded up and blitzed, the Packers scratched their heads. Risher was sacked seven times.

During the game, Packers President Bob Harlan got a call from a nearby theater manager. One of the replacement players had gone to a movie the night before the game and had left his playbook on the seat in the theater.

The game took more than four hours to play, partly because of 17 penalties, partly because of injuries and partly because both teams had difficulty sustaining any kind of offense until the Lions got hot at the end and won, 19-17.

Unlike baseball, many NFL players felt pressure to cross the picket lines. Among the big names who crossed were Joe Montana, Lawrence Taylor and Howie Long.

Keith Uecker, a veteran tackle, was the only Packer to cross. When he did, he was called a traitor by many of his teammates.

It didn't matter to the fans. A crowd of 35,842 at Lambeau Field gave the Packers' strike-replacement team a standing ovation, chanting "B Team, B Team, B Team" when it walked off the field for the last time with a 16-10 overtime victory over the Philadelphia Eagles.

Scab football was an ugly thing. But it was something else.

It was shock therapy, a chilling message from the owners to the striking players: We will give you something utterly devastating games played without you. Go ahead and laugh, but this will bring you back to work.

"Nobody wins in a strike," Brian Noble, the former Green Bay linebacker, said Tuesday. "The players are made out to be greedy. The owners are made out to be greedy. The fans get the short end of the stick.

"It all boils down to the fans. What are they willing to pay to see? If they pay to see replacement players, the union will have to concede."

So, what did we learn from the football strike of '87? We learned that professional football players were humiliated by the owners. We learned that the fans can make a difference. They won this thing for the owners by accepting the Sunday swill as close enough to the real thing not to scare off television.