Scorecard

More than 400 miles of desert and roughly 180 degrees of ideology separated NFL owners and players last week as each side in the league's current labor negotiations sought to solidify support for its official bargaining position. In Phoenix , owners, general managers and coaches got together for their annual league meeting under the threat of a $100,000 pop-off fine against any owner who makes statements damaging to the party line. The threat of a fine was on Cincinnati owner Paul Brown 's mind when he discussed a report that he and the other owners were considering a lockout after the current contract expires on July 15, a beat-'em-to-the-punch move to head off a players' strike during the regular season. Brown said, "I'm not in favor of it—and I hope that doesn't get me fined."

Meanwhile, in Albuquerque , an unprecedentedly large turnout of 537 members of the NFL Players' Association gathered for a convention at which Executive Director Ed Garvey rallied support for the union's chief demand that the players receive a percentage of the clubs' gross revenues. The concept was hammered home to the membership with pennants that carried the inscription: % OF THE GROSS, and while that slogan seemed more suitable for a CPA convention, no more than a handful of players opposed the union's position on either of two open votes that were taken on the issue. But First Vice-President Jeff Van Note of the Atlanta Falcons fretted that there might have been more opposition had the ballot been secret. And Chicago Bear Safety Gary Fencik said, "The people I'm interested in hearing from are the apathetic 1,000 who didn't come to the convention."

Like the owners, the union wasn't anxious for public dissent, witness its treatment of ex- Oakland Defensive Tackle Tom Keating , a former NFLPA vice-president. Keating thinks the union should push for absolute free agency rather than for a percentage of the gross, and he says he was made to feel unwelcome at the meeting, which he attended as an elder statesman. "They didn't want me to come," Keating said. "I sent in my check and my reservation blank, and they sent it back. It had been rejected, and on the bottom was a note, 'It's an Executive Committee decision, we don't want you to come.' "

Although the matter was straightened out, Keating said that when he got to the meeting, some players wouldn't talk to him, while others suggested he was "wired to management." Defending his support of free agency, he said, " Greg Luzinski makes $700,000 for hitting .265, Frank Tanana gets 400 Gs for going 4-10, and that's what free agency's done for baseball. Don't tell me a guy like Al Davis wouldn't open the checkbook in a minute for the chance to stick it to those other owners. But nobody in the association wants to hear talk like that. They think the owners are just going to hand over the store to them."

Putting the best face on things, Van Note said, "I still think it was a thrilling thing to see 537 players there. And I think it impressed the owners, too." As for the snubbing of Keating , Van Note attributed it to "a certain small faction." And at least nobody in the union was suggesting that anyone be fined $100,000 for refusing to parrot the party line.